Commonwealth Action Programme on the Harare Declaration. The Programme sets out the steps to be taken in the event of serious and/or persistent violations of the principles contained in the Harare Declaration, and sets up a Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group (CMAG) to oversee this process [see Appendix 2]. The Commonwealth Action Programme and CMAG were established with the active involvement and the assent of the same Zimbabwe Government that now appears to regard each with some contempt. Zimbabwe has never, however, entered any formal objection to these Commonwealth bodies or instruments. 3. Implementing the Commonwealth Action Programme and the Response of the Government of Zimbabwe Over a two year period extending from the year 2000, the Commonwealth Heads of Government considered, documented and made recommendations on the Zimbabwe Question and urged the Zimbabwean Government to comply with the principles of the Harare Declaration. Finally, at a meeting in Coolum Australia in early March 2002, after considering all prior deliberations on Zimbabwe [see appendix 4] and Zimbabwe’s continuing violation of the principles of the Harare Declaration, the Coolum meeting empowered a Commonwealth Chairperson’s Committee to act appropriately on the Zimbabwean Question. Such action was to be taken by the Committee after consideration of an anticipated report of the Commonwealth Observer Group [COG] on Zimbabwe’s Presidential Election in 2002. Unsurprisingly, the report was adverse and the Committee thus suspended Zimbabwe from the Councils of the Commonwealth on 19 March 2002. This response to persistent violations of the Harare Declaration is specifically authorised by the Commonwealth Action Programme [paras 3 vii & viii] The suspension thus came at the end of a lengthy process in dealing with Zimbabwe, and it is important not to focus merely upon the COG report on the elections. There had been earlier initiatives from both CMAG and pursuant to an agreement in Abuja in September 2001. These initiatives were all in accordance with paragraph 3 of the Commonwealth Action Programme. As will be seen from the responses by the Zimbabwean Government to the initiatives, the suspension by the Commonwealth was anything but hasty or precipitate, but implemented, step by step, escalating measures to be taken where a State party is in violation of the Harare Declaration - measures which the Zimbabwean Government had itself agreed and had helped establish. The most important of these steps is the Abuja initiative [see Appendix 5], which preceded the 2002 Presidential election, though the importance of the various Observer Missions to the elections in 2000 and 2002 should not be minimized. The meeting in Abuja (that the Zimbabwean President declined to attend) brought together a representative group of Commonwealth Ministers in September 2001, and an agreement pertaining to “confidence 5