Zimbabwe's main opposition party has accused African leaders of turning their backs on democracy by blocking Commonwealth sanctions against President Robert Mugabe's government.
The Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) stated its bitter disappointment that Commonwealth leaders meeting in Australia deferred any action against Mr Mugabe until after next weekend's presidential elections.
Democracy in sub-Saharan Africa is at a delicate stage, the MDC said in a statement in Harare.
Without naming any individual African leader at the summit, it said some had become accomplices to the crimes being committed by the Zimbabwean government against its own people.
Britain, the former colonial power, Australia and New Zealand had pushed for sanctions or suspension against Mr Mugabe's government, accusing it of human rights abuses and trying to fix the March 9-10 election.
Mr Mugabe's ruling ZANU-PF party has pushed legislation through parliament that critics say is aimed at restricting the opposition and helping Mugabe winning the election. MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai has mounted the strongest challenge to Mugabe since he took office in 1980 at independence from Britain. After heated debate, the Commonwealth leaders appointed a committee of Australia, Nigeria and South Africa to decide on action ranging from collective disapproval to suspension once election observers report back on the poll.
The successful resistance against sanctions was led by African states who account for about a third of the 54 countries in the Commonwealth.
"We as a party would like to express our disappointment," the MDC's foreign affairs spokesman, Mr Tendai Biti, told a news conference in Harare.
He objected to the Mugabe government's portrayal of Britain as the cause of pre-election tension in Zimbabwe.
"It is not a Zimbabwe-British crisis. It is a crisis of human rights, a crisis of leadership ... This is the message that we would like a few of our African brothers to have understood," Mr Biti said.
- Earlier today, Zimbabwean police stopped a meeting at a luxury hotel between the MDC and dozens of foreign diplomats.