Talks between Zimbabwe and Britain urged

Malawi has called for Zimbabwe’s government to resume talks with former coloniser Britain, white farmers and the opposition party – all of whom long-time president Robert Mugabe considers his enemies.

The appeal from the neighbouring country last night is being seen as a sign of growing differences between southern African leaders on how to help resolve Zimbabwe’s crisis.

“The government of Malawi believes that the people of Zimbabwe should not live in the past. They must move on. Therefore, we believe that a new set of negotiations could be initiated at different levels ... so that Zimbabwe can begin to develop and transform its economy,” the statement said.

A Zimbabwean opposition leader today appealed for international intervention, saying the country resembles a war zone with thousands of people displaced, hundreds injured and 10 killed by post-election violence.

Tendai Biti, secretary-general of the Movement for Democratic Change, said violence since the March 29 elections had forced 3,000 families out of their homes. Hundreds of people had been hospitalised with injuries and 10 people killed, he said.

Mr Biti said UN organisations present in Zimbabwe must be mobilised as the situation had escalated from a political crisis to a humanitarian one.

“They should move as a matter of urgency. They should move because Zimbabwe is a war zone,” he told a news conference yesterday in Johannesburg, South Africa.

He said key members of the opposition’s administration had been arrested, along with more than 400 supporters.

“We are not able to function because of those arrests,” he said. Mr Biti and party leader Morgan Tsvangirai say they cannot return to Zimbabwe as they face immediate arrest.

President Robert Mugabe’s government has accused Mr Tsvangirai of treason and plotting a regime change with former colonial power, Britain.

Mr Tsvangirai is widely believed to have beaten Mr Mugabe in the elections, but the results still have not been announced after three weeks.

New York-based Human Rights Watch said on Saturday that “torture and violence are surging in Zimbabwe”.

The ruling party, it said, was setting up “torture camps to systematically target, beat and torture people suspected of having voted for the MDC in last month’s elections”.

International pressure on Mr Mugabe to release the election results continues to mount.

Zimbabwe’s economy, with inflation raging beyond 100,500 percent, began unravelling when Mr Mugabe ordered takeovers of large fertile farms owned by a few-thousand-minority white people in the late 1990s. Britain initially had paid to buy some of the farms, but stopped saying Mr Mugabe was giving the land to cronies and relatives instead of landless black people. New negotiations for British support for land reform ended in 1997 when the Labour Party won power from the Conservatives in Britain and said it had no responsibility for white people owning farms.