By John Knox
The absence of the Syrian ambassador was widely noted, but another diplomat not invited to last week's royal wedding was Malawi’s high commissioner to Britain, Flossie Gomile-Chidyaonga. She and her family were told to leave the UK as soon as possible and returned to Malawi on 3 May.
Gomile-Chidyaonga's departure follows the Malawian government’s decision, last month, to expel Britain’s high commissioner in Lilongwe, Fergus Cochrane-Dyet.
He was sent home after a leaked diplomatic cable appeared in the Malawian press in which Cochrane-Dyet is quoted as saying President Bingu wa Mutharika “is becoming ever more autocratic and intolerant of criticism.” He cited threatening phonecalls to opposition leaders and restrictions on the freedom of the press.
Britain’s foreign secretary William Hague has said the decision to expel Cochrane-Dyet “is totally unacceptable and unwarranted”. In a statement, he went on to say: “Mr Cochrane-Dyet is an able and effective diplomat who has behaved with integrity throughout his posting to Lilongwe and who retains the full confidence of the British Government.
“It is a worrying sign that the Malawian government is expending its energies in this way, rather than focusing on the real and substantial challenges facing it, including the need for improved governance.”
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Mr Hague has ordered his officials “to review rapidly the full range of our wider relationship with Malawi.” Britain sends £93 million a year to Malawi in overseas aid and is the largest donor to one of the poorest 20 nations on earth. Three-quarters of the 13 million population live on less than a $1 a day, and 40 per cent of the government’s annual revenue comes from overseas aid. The Scotland Malawi Partnership has warned that any cooling of diplomatic relations between the UK and Malawi could have a serious impact on the 85,500 Scots who are actively involved in people-to-people links with Malawi. A partnership agreement was signed in 2005 by the then first minister Jack McConnell and President Mutharika, renewing links with Malawi that go back 150 years to the Scots missionary and explorer David Livingstone. The Foreign Office says the British High Commission office in Lilongwe will remain open, but a party to celebrate the royal wedding was cancelled. The Scotland Malawi Partnership says it is confident that the diplomatic row can be resolved. “Malawi is still a relatively young democracy where there is currently lively debate around recent events," it says in a statement. "Our role is that of longstanding friend in a process that, over the years, will have downs as well as ups.” President Mutharika has been criticised in the Malawian press for his autocratic style ever since he won his second term as president in 2009. His party, the Democratic Progressive Party, has a large majority in parliament. Opposition figures, in the party and outside it, have faced harassment. Local elections have been postponed several times. There are suspicions that he is favouring his own southern area, Thyolo, over northern and central areas, and that he is grooming his brother Peter to take over the presidency when he steps down in 2013, when he will be 79 years old. There are also stories of his extravagance in spending – on his re-election campaign, on a fleet of luxury cars for his ministers and on a presidential jet. There is criticism, too, that funds from the Chinese government for a new university are being channelled through Mutharika’s own account rather than the government’s. If indeed Mutharika is becoming “ever more autocratic”, it follows a pattern in Malawi. His two predecessors, Hastings Banda and Bakili Muluzi, both began well but increasingly became more corrupt and dictatorial. Each was eventually toppled by peaceful elections rather than bloody coups or armed uprisings. But the lack of honest and effective government in Malawi over the last 50 years has undoubtedly played a part in leaving its people among the poorest on earth.Want to discuss other issues? Join the debate on our new Scottish Voices forum
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