December 2, 2003	Tuesday	Shawwal 7, 1424

ABUJA, Dec 1: A major international human rights group on Tuesday accused the Nigerian government, the host of this week’s Commonwealth summit, of using violence and intimidation to silence its critics.

The US-based group Human Rights Watch, accused the 54-nation global body of hypocrisy in honouring President Olusegun Obasanjo’s Nigerian regime while excluding Zimbabwe’s pariah leader, President Robert Mugabe.

“Foreign governments remained virtually silent about election violence in Nigeria, yet abuses during the Zimbabwe elections provoked widespread condemnation,” said Peter Takirambudde, the body’s Africa director.

“Unless the Commonwealth addresses abuses in all of its member countries and denounces them accordingly, it will stand accused of maintaining double standards and its credibility will be undermined,” he argued.

Zimbabwe was suspended from the Commonwealth 20 months ago after Mugabe was re-elected in a poll which observers said was tainted by fraud and violence. The Harare government has not been invited to the summit.

Nigeria’s elections in April this received similar, but less severe, criticism from European Union and US poll monitors, while being given a clean bill of health by the Commonwealth’s own team of election watchers.

Obasanjo, a former military leader who has now won two civilian elections, will now be the host of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, which opens on Friday.—AFP