British Media Joins Criticism of Royal Wedding Invite

SW Radio Africa (London)

Alex Bell

28 April 2011

The British media have added their voices to criticism of the invitation of a Zimbabwean envoy to the UK’s royal wedding, which will get underway in London on Friday.

The event will see high profile dignitaries and other personalities from across the world converge in the British capital. But many rights groups have been left outraged at the inclusion of controversial figures, including representatives from oppressive regimes like Zimbabwe.

London based protest group, the Zimbabwe Vigil has called on the UK Foreign Office to withdraw the invitation to Zimbabwe’s Ambassador, Gabriel Machinga. Observers have also called the invite a “shocking display of hypocrisy,” with British officials arguing that the invite is a matter of diplomatic relations and protocol.

British media has also been left outraged after two of the country’s previous Prime Ministers, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, were left off the guest list. Stephen Glover, a columnist with the UK’s Daily Mail newspaper, said it was “mind-boggling that Blair and Brown should have had to yield to men such as Gabriel Machinga, Zimbabwean Ambassador to London, a loyal servant of President Robert Mugabe’s murderous and kleptomaniac regime.”

Glover said it was “highly regrettable” that Blair and Brown had been overlooked while “some pretty unsavoury foreign leaders, as well as some rackety private individuals” got invites.

The Independent newspaper said; “Despite Zimbabwe having withdrawn from the Commonwealth in 2003, and Robert Mugabe being subject to a travel ban and sanctions, Zimbabwe’s ambassador to London, Gabriel Machinga, remains on the guest list because the two countries retain ‘normal’ relations.”

There has also been a wave of criticism for the invitations extended to King Mswati III of Swaziland, Salman bin Hamad al-Khalifa, the Crown Prince of Bahrain and Saudi Arabia’s Prince Mohamed bin Nawaf bin Abdulaziz and Princess Fadwa bint Khalid.

The Bahrain Crown Prince has declined the invite to escape controversy, while Libya’s ambassador had his invitation rescinded. An invitation was also extended to Syria’s ambassador, despite hundreds of people dying in the past week in violent uprisings against the authorities there. That invitation was then rescinded on Thursday.

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