/ 1 August 2008

Bob’s job remains stumbling block

An attempt by the Movement for Democratic Change to appeal to the Southern African Development Community to aid the mediation effort was scuppered when a meeting of the SADC troika was unexpectedly cancelled this week.

President Thabo Mbeki was on a mission this week to get negotiating parties of Zimbabwe back to the table under more amenable circumstances and to present a positive picture of progression to the SADC troika, which was due to meet in Luanda on Friday.

On Thursday, however, Angolan President José Eduardo dos Santos unexpectedly postponed the meeting, giving no reasons and without saying when it would take place.

Visiting Harare this week, Mbeki reportedly told Robert Mugabe there could be no unity government in Zimbabwe while he insisted on remaining executive president.

Mbeki also met MDC hive-off leader Arthur Mutambara in Harare and Morgan Tsvangirai in Pretoria.

Mugabe and Tsvangirai were due to attend the troika meeting to discuss the violence that continues to be a feature of daily life for ordinary Zimbabweans.

The MDC initially refused to negotiate unless the violence ceases and political prisoners are freed.

It also wants passports for its leaders, as Tsvangirai was given only an emergency travel document after the signing of last week’s memorandum of understanding.

The troika meeting was to have been chaired by Angola, a former Mugabe ally which has become increasingly disenchanted with him.

The MDC planned to tell the troika that Mugabe is ”negotiating in bad faith” and that it cannot continue negotiating while its supporters are being attacked in Zimbabwe.

”The troika has security obligations in the region and statements by Mugabe threatening those who oppose the government are of concern to them. For them this is starting to become a threat to regional security,” an MDC source told the Mail & Guardian.

Mugabe boasted on Wednesday during the central bank’s monetary policy announcement in Harare that he is an old hand at card games, saying: ”If you have never played card games, play me. You will see just how crafty I am.”

Mugabe said that negotiation was a different game which required compromise. ”Unlike in card games in negotiation you must be ready for compromise,” he said.

His first remarks since talks began might be interpreted as a hint that he is willing to give ground to the MDC, even on key issues.

However, a senior Zanu-PF official continued to insist to the M&G that there could be no negotiation on ”irreversible” land reform and Mugabe’s leadership of any new government.

”Mugabe is not going to be the [ceremonial] queen of Zimbabwe,” the official said.

Sources report that such contact has already been made and that Mugabe and Tsvangirai held a second meeting on Friday at which the latter presented a DVD detailing violence by Zanu-PF supporters. Mugabe apparently demanded proof of claims of violence by his supporters at the first meeting on Monday last week.

Sources say the negotiators representing Zanu-PF and the MDC are digging in their heels, saying after consulting their leaders there is no change in their positions and they remain unwilling to compromise.

The Mutambara faction’s main goal is Cabinet representation in the new government. The faction also hopes to use the talks to ”mark our own territory and drive home the fact that we cannot be ignored”, an official said on Wednesday.

Mutambara has led calls by opposition negotiators for a constitutional amendment allowing the president to appoint six additional non-constituency MPs to Parliament, to be shared equally among the three parties.

Ironically, it was the MDC that successfully demanded the curtailment of presidential appointments in negotiations last year.

As the speaker must be elected with 106 votes, which neither of the larger parties commands, both must court Mutambara’s support.

Cabinet posts would give Mutambara a level of influence that was unlikely months ago when his factiojn fared badly in the March polls.

Central Bank Governor Gideon Gono announced at the monetary policy meeting that 10 zeroes would be removed from the denomination of the Zimbabwean banknotes.

MDC supporters hitting back — report
While Zimbabwe’s political leaders are arguing in a plush Pretoria guesthouse, the killing continues back home.

A new report from the Zimbabwe Peace Project, endorsed by the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation, points to incidents of retaliatory violence by the Movement for Democratic Change.

But it also says opposition supporters are overwhelmingly the victims of continuing attacks by Zanu-PF militia.

The report records that a war veteran named Nkomo was fatally assaulted by MDC supporters on June 30 when villagers in Gokwe Kabuyuni reacted to letters he sent them ”advising [them] to leave the area for the United Kingdom by midnight”.

When war veterans visited the area to see if the villagers had vacated their homes, they found that they had beaten Nkomo and left him for dead. He died on the way to hospital.

Another Zanu-PF member, T Njanji, is reported to have been blindfolded and handcuffed before being beaten to death on June 27.

Again, this is described as retaliatory violence. Njanji had allegedly torched the houses of three MDC supporters, including one belonging to the MDC MP for Mkoba.

According to the report Zanu-PF attacks in areas such as Chirimhanzu are intensifying. Victims who fled violence in the town of Gweru have returned home to find that militia bases are still operational and people are being assaulted.

The report says a police officer, Kingsley Muteta, was beaten by Zanu-PF supporters because his mother is a known MDC activist.

According to the MDC, 122 of its members have been murdered since the March 29 elections.– Mandy Rossouw