A furious Blair withdrew from the summit on Monday night after what newspapers here called an ambush set by Mugabe who has been criticised by Britain and other Western donors for forcibly expropriating white-owned lands and handing them over to landless blacks in his country.
The dispute was part of a long-standing battle over the last remnants of colonialism in Africa -a continent where British farmers and business executives in their shiny BMW's and Land Rovers still run a sizable chunk of the economies of several poverty-ridden African nations, including Zimbabwe, South Africa, Nigeria, Uganda and Kenya.

As one African diplomat once remarked: The sun would never set on the British empire because God wouldn't trust an Englishman in the dark. And so the empire continues to flourish in various insidious forms and disguises unbeknownst to the outside world.

Sam Nujoma, President of Namibia and a close ally of Mugabe, set the stage by leading the attack on Blair pointing out that "British colonial settlers in Zimbabwe today own 78 percent of land but the 14 million indigenous people have no land."

Jabbing his finger in the air, Mugabe followed suit by describing white farmers in his country as "an obdurate and internationally well-connected racial minority, largely of British descent, brought in and sustained by British colonialists and now being supported and manipulated by the Blair government."

Sounding even more blunt and combative, Mugabe added: "Blair, keep your England, and let me keep my Zimbabwe".

The attacks on a world leader at a mega UN conference were unprecedented because it violated all diplomatic norms. Although Blair did not respond, he did the next best thing packed up his bags and left ahead of schedule.

The entire Western world has ostracized Mugabe by cutting off aid, depriving his country of loans from international financial institutions and even barring senior Zimbabwean officials from travelling in Europe and the United States. The only exceptions are UN conferences -whether in Rome or in New York.

The outbursts by Nujoma and Mugabe temporarily shifted the focus of the summit into a battle between old colonialists and newly emerging African nations. The newspapers here lapped it up.

On the final day of the summit, there were more surprises to come, as US Secretary of State Colin Powell was heckled by African diplomats, and booed by representatives of environmental groups who were bodily ejected from the conference hall.

There never was a dull moment. At the end, the summit was praised by some and condemned by others.

Having covered virtually all of the UN conferences of the last decade -including the conference on the environment in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, on human rights in Vienna in 1993, on population in Cairo in 1994, on social development in Copenhagen in 1995 and on food in Rome in 1996, there was nothing in the Johannesburg summit to merit special attention despite the participation of a record 21,340 delegates, representatives of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and journalists.

The 71-page plan of action, which was unanimously adopted by over 100 world leaders, drew mixed reviews from senior U.N. officials, NGOs and representatives of civil society.
"Some people came to Johannesburg hoping to resolve all of the world's problems," Secretary-General Kofi Annan told reporters. "But this summit is only the beginning and an important beginning," he added.

Pointing out that he was satisfied with the outcome of WSSD, Annan said: "We have to be practical and realistic, and move forward. What is important is not what happened at the summit, but what happens when we get back home and implement the plan of action," he argued.

But despite Annan's optimism, there was universal condemnation of the action plan by virtually every major NGO participating in the summit, including Greenpeace, Oxfam International, Eurodad, Worldwatch Institute, Friends of the Earth International and World Resources Institute.

The criticisms were directed primarily at countries such as the United States, Australia and Canada -described as the "environmental axis of evil" -for blocking proposals for time-bound targets for cleaner air, fresh water and renewable energy for the world's poorer nations.

The only three time-bound targets in the plan of action were to halve the number of people without access to proper sanitation by 2015; restoring depleted fish stocks by 2015; and significantly reducing the extinction rate of the world's plants and animals by 2010.

Although the US is the world's largest single polluter and has ratified the least number of treaties, Sri Lanka ranks high for having ratified all major UN conventions and protocols on the environment, including those on climate change, biodiversity and desertification.

Rukman Senanayake, the Minister of Environment and Natural Resources who led the Sri Lanka delegation to WSSD, said that Sri Lanka will soon ratify the Kyoto Protocol on Climate Change which the US has rejected outright.

"Sustainable development is not new to Sri Lanka," he said,

because it is deeply rooted in our culture, in our traditions, and in our values."

Antonio Hill of Oxfam described the "so-called Johannesburg plan of action" as a grave disappointment overall because of its failure to come up with anything substantial.
"How can more than 100 world leaders look us in the eye and shower us with platitudes while their governments have retracted from the many commitments made at, and after the Rio summit, including pledges to reach the 0.7 percent gross domestic product (GDP) target to meet official development assistance (ODA)," he asked.

Although there is a pledge to increase ODA, it is a commitment with no figures, Ted Van Hess of Eurodad said. "The big loser in this summit is poverty and sustainable development."

Only five countries -Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, Sweden and Luxembourg, have so far met the target. The United States, the world's richest country earmarks only about 0.1 percent of its GDP to foreign aid.

After more than two weeks of protracted negotiations, the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio also failed to come up with firm financial commitments and pledges by Western donors.
As he was leaving the conference hall in Rio, we buttonholed Dr Gamani Corea, a former Secretary-General of the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and a member of the Sri Lanka delegation to the 1992 summit, seeking his overall assessment on the talks.

His pithy comment best described the Earth Summit 10 years ago: "We negotiated the size of the zero" he said.

The Johannesburg summit was no better -the zero may have just got bigger.

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