No deal yet in Zim talks, says Mbeki

If Mugaqbe and Matambara have actually struck a deal leaving out Tsvangirai, then they are completely nuts. The western world will not contribute one cent of its taxpayers money if Mugabe still holds on to a semblance of power and the Zimbabwean people will continue to suffer. I blame President Mbeki for his failure to include a cross section of the Zimbabwean people in the negotiations. How can three politicians be the only ones to decide the future of Zimbabwe? Crazy. Zimbabweans are deemed to be the most educated people in Africa and yet they are not representative at the talks. Zimbabwean politicians are just the same as other politicians throughout the world, especially in most of Africa. Politicians want positions of power which will provide them with individual wealth. For example, the members of parliment in Kenya, as does the South African MPs, receive enormous salaries and perks whilst most of their people live in shacks and abject poverty. There is also the same perceived corruption within the governments of Kenya, Zimbabwe, and South Africa, to the detrinent of the poor people of their respective countries. Members of parliment are known to have and even convicted of having used their positions to steal millions of taxpayers money intended for the poor. One must remember the words of one well known ANC leader, " i did not join the ANC to be poor". It looks as if many many ANC leaders is following his example. The same applies to Zimbabwe and Kenyan politicians.

There you go again, Mbeki is refusing to accept defeat. No matter how much he wants to be optimistic about these talks, the truth of the matter is: they have collapsed. To say Tsvangirai is considering the aspects of the agreement is a total lie. Remember the SADC meets Saturday and is the same excuse Mbeki would want to give to his peers then, so as to save face and buy time for Mugabe. Mr President, forget it, you have failed. Tell the SADC so; stop misleading the world. Mugabe is not the negotiating type that is prepared to share the cake. All that said, congratulations to Tsvangirai. It shows he is not after power but total freedom for the Zimbabwean people. It reminds me of his ZCTU days, total dedication to the people's cause. The learned professor must watch his step now. His constituency will fast evaporate while all the ten MPs head back Tsvangirai's way. After all these MPs, mostly from Matabeleland remember far too well how Mugabe conned Joshua Nkomo in 1987. They will hate to see history repeating itself. You have been warned, Arthur.

What I don't understand is if Mutambara has not struck some sort of a deal with Mugabe, why is it that it is only Morgan who is being given time to go through the proposed agreement? I smell a big fat rat. Does the conferring of medals to the army generals by Mugabe over the heroes "celebrations" who have been in charge of brutal attacks against Zimbabweans not say anything to Mbeki as mediator? To me it speaks of arrogance on the part of Mugabe and Zanu and implies that the expectations on the army and defense forces to keep brutalizing people are still very high. Clearly Zanu is not negotiating in good faith and am not sure if Mbeki just wants to broker some sort of a deal for his own CV without due consideration on the implications of the contents for the Zimbabweans. After all from where is Mugabe's legitimacy coming from? As far as I'm concerned Mugabe can never be a legitimate leader in the eyes of the majority of Zimbabweans elections or no elections!!!

Why are you still calling the former opposition "the opposition" Zanu PF is now officially the opposition depending on where Mtamabara goes. But officially Mtambara and Mugabe are the official opposition parties. Presidential legality is something else. So if Mugabe becomes president he should then be refered to as "The President of Zimbabwe and the leader of the opposition party in parliament"

I beleive its this kind of use of langauge that helps to certain events from never changing. It gives certain people self false hope that things are still the same when in reality they have changed already. For instance these negotiations still give bob and co the leverage that they are still in control whereas in reality they are not anymore.

Another instance of language use is when a particular paper had a heading during the Xenophobic attacks that said "Foreigners retaliate" rather than say "Foreigners defend themselves". This obviously gives a different picture to both the reader and the victim of the "retaliation" or "defense"

At the end of it all its all politics of some type or another isnt it.
To stay in power, to get into power, to sell newspapers, to win awards, to be loved by people, liked by your boss and so forth. If you play the politics well no matter how awful you are at results you will in most high probability win.

Whose deal? Who is in the driving seat anyway? Is Mugabe seen as the protagonist in this negotiating forum. Mr Tsvangirai, you put forward the deals, you make the stringent demands and assure Mugabe that if he does not negotiate with you and look to save his neck and his overseas bank account he will be left with neither. Never let Mugabe or Mutambare hold your spear, they are not entitled to do so! What on earth is Mbeki doing, jumping into bed with a minority so as to alienate and disempower Tsvangirai. Anyway once again he has displayed his disloyalty to both the people of Zimbabwe and the democratic process. He has shown his true colours to the whole world.... take note everyone, this is your impartial negotiator!!

Frank you sound like one of those people who decided that thesae negotiations will fail even before they started. Secondly you just have to blame Pres Mbeki for anything you can make up or think. how long did CODESA take? did the talks fail then? if Thirdly the talks are not about three people here. these talks are about three political parties that represent a great number of Zim people. Comments like these are actually the the comments that cause people to think Africa is a jungle with half man half animal creatures who can't do anything for themselves. I really wonder if you have done anything for a single person of Zim/ even of SA to make their tough life (because of Mbeki acording to you) easy. Sometimes it is best to keep quiet, if all you have to say is this negative. If Mbeki fail so what, atleast he has done something.

To Zilhwele Nhama.

I am a British taxpayer and my hard earned money in the form of taxes has been been going towards donations for the feeding of Zimbabweans since your obvious hero Mugabe, set about financially crippling his country eight years ago by stealing the land from the real farmers, to give to his cronies. The 53 African Union countries have donated ZILCH to the feeding of Zimbabweans. I also find it very very sad Zilhwele, that many of your country folk have been attacking and in some cases burning to death, many of the foreigners, who came to your country seeking help.
As for your President Mbeki, he actually believes there is no crises in Zimbabwe and has been mediating and talking now for eight years. It is the powerful unions of South Africa that will eventually solve the lack od democracy in Zimbabwe as well as Swaziland. As indeed they did when they prevented the unloading of the weapons cargo destined for Mugabe's regime in April. This was after Mr Mbeki had given the go ahead for the deadly cargo to be transported to Harare. Mugabe belongs in the international court alongside Taylor and Karadisc. That is where he will end up one day,