Africa tries to find solution to Zimbabwe impasse

African leaders met today in hope of finding a solution to Zimbabwe, but without one of their most influential members.

South African president Thabo Mbeki, who has come under increasing criticism for what is seen as his ineffectual attempt at trying to stop the violent excesses of Robert Mugabe’s regime, did not attend the Southern African Development Community.

Mr Mbeki was appointed more than a year ago to mediate between Mugabe and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai, and in recent weeks has come under pressure to abandon his tactic of “quiet diplomacy”.

Mr Mbeki has refused to publicly denounce Mugabe even as other African leaders step up their criticism, saying confrontation could backfire.

The community’s mediation efforts appear aimed at bringing Mugabe and Mr Tsvangirai together in a coalition government.

Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade, who has also been trying to broker an agreement, said Mr Mbeki was trying to persuade Mugabe and Mr Tsvangirai to share power in a transitional government with Mugabe as president and Mr Tsvangirai as prime minister.

Neither proposal appeared to have been embraced by the rivals. Mr Tsvangirai has insisted he be president and Mugabe have no role.

Meanwhile Mr Tsvangirai, who has called on Mr Mbeki to step down as mediator, said today his approach “sought to massage a defeated dictator rather than show him the door and prod him towards it.”

He also called for Zimbabwe to be given UN peacekeepers to help prepare the way for new elections.

Mr Tsvangirai, hiding for his own safety inside the Dutch Embassy in Harare, has pulled out of a presidential run-off election on Friday, saying attacks on his supporters by police, soldiers and governing party militants has made a free vote impossible.

“We ask for the UN to go further than its recent resolution condemning the violence in Zimbabwe,” Mr Tsvangirai said in an article in today’s Guardian. “We need a force to protect the people.”

“We do not want armed conflict, but the people of Zimbabwe need the words of indignation from global leaders to be backed by the moral rectitude of military force,” he said.

“Such a force would be in the role of peacekeepers, not troublemakers. They would separate the people from their oppressors and cast the protective shield around the democratic process for which Zimbabwe yearns.”

Mugabe, by all indications intent on extending his nearly three-decade rule, insists Friday’s vote will go ahead. He has grown more defiant in the face of growing international pressure.

Mr Tsvangirai called Mugabe a “power-crazed despot holding his people hostage to his delusions, crushing the spirit of his country and casting the international community as fools”.

He admitted that calling for international intervention was sensitive, but said it would offer “the best chance the people of Zimbabwe would get to see their views recorded fairly and justly”.

His claim to the leadership is based on having come first in a field of four in the first round of presidential voting March 29, although he did not win the 50% plus one vote necessary to avoid a run-off.