Intruder alert

Exclusive: Zimbabwe crashes America’s summit in Africa

By Julian Pecquet, in Gaborone, Botswana

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Posted on July 14, 2023 10:22

Zimbabwe’s President Emmerson Mnangagwa crashed the US business summit in Gaborone. REUTERS/Philimon Bulawayo

American officials could not hide the presence of sanctioned Zimbabwean president Emmerson Mnangagwa at the US-Africa Business Summit.

In Botswana this week to tout progress in two-way trade and investment in the six months since the December leaders summit in Washington, the Joe Biden administration found itself under pressure to explain its participation alongside Zimbabwe’s sanctioned head of state.

As President Mnangagwa hobnobbed with his Southern African peers, the gathering’s US organisers were scrambling behind the scenes to limit the fallout.

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