The African Union (AU) on Friday rejected calls by Britain and the US to intervene in Zimbabwe, where the president, Robert Mugabe, is conducting a slum clearance program that has left hundreds of thousands homeless.
Desmond Orjiako, a spokesman for the AU, which represents 53 African states, said: "I do not think it is proper for the AU commission to start running the internal affairs of members' states."
He suggested there were various good reasons for the demolitions, including preventing Harare turning into a slum.
The UK's Foreign Office, which has been leading a campaign against Mugabe, has expressed frustration over the last four years at the failure of South Africa and other AU members to act against -- or even criticize -- Mugabe in spite of human rights abuses and rigged elections.
But Britain's position was weakened yesterday by a Zimbabwean archbishop, who urged it to stop sending failed asylum seekers back to the Mugabe regime.
The Archbishop of Bulawayo, Pius A Ncube, said those deported would be persecuted by the Mugabe regime as "traitors."
"People who were asylum seekers in Britain and are returned have been detained by police in Zimbabwe, some being tortured and forced to confess that they were in anti-government activities."
Ncube told the UK's Channel 4 news that Zimbabwe was beginning to resemble Pol Pot's Cambodia. He said Mugabe's policy of driving people out to the countryside "is extremely cruel and it is very much like Pol Pot and this will lead to people starving."
The UK's Home Office has temporarily backed down on its threat to send an opponent of Mugabe back to Zimbabwe today, which critics said could have led to his possible torture or death.
But yesterday it refused to reverse its policy of deporting people to whom Britain had refused asylum, which has triggered hunger strikes by at least 16 Zimbabweans held in detention.
The most high-profile detainee, Crespen Kulingi, who was due to be deported yesterday, has been given a temporary reprieve. Kulingi, 32, is an adviser to the leader of Zimbabwe's main opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change.
He claims he suffered injuries so severe at the hands at Mugabe's henchmen while detained in Zimbabwe that he is now in a wheelchair.
The delay in deporting him came after an intervention by the British Labor MP Kate Hoey.
Hoey said: "I have no doubt that if Crechance he will be killed, but more definitely he would be locked up and probably tortured."
The Home Office has been put under more pressure by remarks by the British foreign secretary, Jack Straw.
Condemning Mugabe's policy of forced removals of people from areas which voted for the opposition, Straw said it was "of serious international concern."
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