Zimbabwe is not on the agenda - JAK

DURBAN, South Africa -- Zimbabwe is not on the agenda at Africa's summit because the political situation there is not seen as an issue, President John Kufuor of Ghana said on Sunday.

Zimbabwe's relations with Western states hit bottom and it was suspended from the Commonwealth in March after violent elections returned 78-year-old President Robert Mugabe to power.

But no discussion about the crisis is planned when heads of state, including Mugabe, meet in the South African port of Durban on Monday and Tuesday.

"As of now I don't think Zimbabwe is seen as an issue," Kufuor told a group of reporters.

"Since (the elections) it is not quite clear-cut how Africa is looking at Zimbabwe and so Ghana is going along with the rest of Africa," he said.

Kufuor himself ousted an entrenched incumbent's party when he beat ex-President Jerry Rawlings' vice president in elections at the end of 2000. He wrote to Mugabe before this year's polls in Zimbabwe, urging him to respect the constitution and fight fairly against opposition challenger Morgan Tsvangirai.

The declared result was 60-40 to Mugabe, but the opposition said the entire electoral process was rigged. Observers from the Commonwealth agreed and Zimbabwe was suspended from the group of mostly former British colonies.

Zimbabwe's deepening economic and political crisis is cited as a test for Africa's commitment to improve governance and promote human rights.

Kufuor denied that he and other African leaders were "tiptoeing" around Zimbabwe at this summit, billed as a historic one of transition to a new African Union modeled on the European Union.

But he said Africa had "different priorities" at the moment.

African diplomats said Mugabe's government had worked effectively to prevent Zimbabwe being on the summit agenda, helped by the reluctance of host South Africa to let the issue cloud the atmosphere in Durban.

They said Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo was the leader most likely to insist on some unscheduled and critical discussion about Zimbabwe between heads of state.

Ghana a marginal force in Africa?

Kufuor defended his government from criticism that Ghana -- which in 1957 under the late Kwame Nkrumah was the first colonized African country to attain independence -- had become a marginal force in African affairs.

The West African country has not played a prominent public role in the genesis of NEPAD, a blueprint for continental recovery championed by Ghana's regional neighbors Nigeria and Senegal as well as by South Africa, Algeria and Egypt.

"No, I believe all of Africa owns NEPAD together," Kufuor said.

"Someone said this afternoon that the nobility of the idea should not be tainted with pettiness."