Betrayed:

The recent meeting of European and African leaders in Lisbon was billed as the start of a new “strategic partnership.” But the meeting was at least as much about Europe’s anxiety over China’s growing influence in Africa, a continent Europeans have long considered their own turf. China predicts $100 billion in trade with Africa by 2010, up from $40 billion in 2005.

Still, it is clear that the EU needs to do more diplomatic groundwork to reassure the Africans that their industries will not be crushed by an invasion of European competitors. In the end, though, the Africans must accept that the only way their economies can grow is through integration into the global trade system.

The other major spat in Lisbon — whether the Portuguese were right to let Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe attend; whether Britain’s PM Gordon Brown was right to stay away over Mugabe’s presence — was a diversion from the real issue. African leaders must abandon the notion that regional solidarity means closing their eyes to abuses committed by their neighbours. Robert Mugabe has crushed democracy in Zimbabwe and is close to crushing its economy. The fact is that to condemn Mugabe is no betrayal of the struggle he led against white-minority rule. It is Mugabe who has betrayed the struggle by using it as cover to destroy his country. — International Herald Tribune