Tsvangirai demands new mediator for unity talks

7/2/2008 - 6:53:34 PM

Zimbabwe’s political leaders clashed today over whether to talk about how to resolve the country’s crisis as the US called for UN sanctions against President Robert Mugabe and his officials.

Speaking to reporters, opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai said his party would not participate in talks about forming a governing accord with Mr Mugabe’s government unless a mediator were appointed alongside South African President Thabo Mbeki.

Yesterday, an African Union summit reconfirmed President Mbeki as Africa’s mediator, even though Mr Tsvangirai has repeatedly rejected him, accusing him of pro-Mugabe bias. Mr Mugabe has praised President Mbeki.

“Our reservations about the mediation process under President Mbeki are well known,” said Mr Tsvangirai, head of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), said outside at his home in Harare, Zimbabwe’s capital.

“Unless the mediation team is expanded... and the mediation mechanism is changed, no meaningful progress can be made towards resolving the Zimbabwe crisis.

“If this does not happen, then the MDC will not be part of the mediation process,” Mr Tsvangirai said.

The opposition “as the winner of the last credible elections on March 29 2008, should be recognised as the legitimate government of Zimbabwe,” Mr Tsvangirai said.

“While the MDC remains committed to negotiations, these must be based on the March 29 results and must move towards a transitional agreement.”

The United States and Europe say Mr Tsvangirai should be Zimbabwe’s next leader, but Mr Mugabe has shown little sign of yielding power.

Mr Tsvangirai came in first in a field of four in the first round of presidential voting in March. Electoral officials said Mr Tsvangirai did not take 50% of the vote, however, and scheduled a run-off against second-place finisher Mr Mugabe.

State-supported violence against opposition members forced Mr Tsvangirai to withdraw days before Friday’s run-off.

Mr Mugabe held the vote anyway, despite international condemnation. He was declared the overwhelming winner on Sunday and immediately held an inauguration ceremony.

Mr Tsvangirai said violence against his supporters had continued, with at least nine killed and hundreds beaten and forced to flee their homes since the run-off.

Meanwhile, a draft resolution the US wants the UN Security Council to consider proposes freezing the financial assets of Mr Mugabe and 11 of his officials and banning them from travelling.

The draft also demands that Mr Mugabe’s government immediately begin talks with the opposition.

The US – among Mugabe’s sharpest international critics – is president of the Security Council this month.

Last week, the council passed a non-binding resolution condemning violence against Zimbabwe’s political opposition. South Africa, China and Russia opposed taking further action.

EU spokesman John Clancy said today that European governments were also studying possible sanctions on top of existing travel bans and an assets freeze in place on Mr Mugabe, his Cabinet ministers and top party officials.

Those could include further aid cuts or steps preventing European companies from doing business in Zimbabwe.

Zimbabwean state media, meanwhile, focused today on reports that the government was willing to talk and showed official tallies from last week’s one-candidate presidential run-off.

The prominence given to the results appeared to underline Mr Mugabe’s expectations of being the senior partner in any deal with Mr Tsvangirai.

Yesterday, President Mbeki told the South African state broadcaster he saw his role as merely helping Zimbabweans resolve their crisis themselves, rejecting outside intervention such as calls from European nations to void what they saw as a sham election.

“Certainly (the Southern African Development Community) and certainly the African continent has not made any prescription about the outcome of what Zimbabweans should negotiate among themselves,” he said.

President Mbeki has been criticised for refusing to publicly condemn Mr Mugabe. Other African leaders have been more vocal, with some even calling for Mr Mugabe to step down.

But today, Malawi’s President Bingu wa Mutharika sided with President Mbeki, who has said confrontation could backfire.

Western governments in particular “have been condemning Zimbabwe for the last four years,” President Mutharika told reporters in Blantyre, Malawi. “But has it solved anything? Ask yourself, all that condemnation, has it solved anything? It has not...”