Boyd Webb, Peta Thornycroft, Sebastien Berger and Tanya Farber
15 April 2008
Cape Town — The ANC is set to start talks with both Zanu-PF and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change to try to stabilise the Zimbabwe situation as the election crisis continues.
Announcing the decision, the ANC stopped short of criticising President Thabo Mbeki's handling of the turmoil.
The decision emerged from the ANC's National Working Committee meeting in the city yesterday.
It came as the crisis worsened:
Explaining the ANC's decision yesterday to engage both sides in the Zimbabwe election deadlock last night secretary-general Gwede Mantashe said: "This is not a parallel process (to Mbeki's mediation), this is what we should be doing."
Mantashe denied the move was a vote of no confidence in the government's handling of the situation.
He said the working group meeting felt that there needed to be "party-to-party" dialogue.
The ANC had reiterated its position that the will of the people must be respected and that the results of the presidential election should be released as soon as possible.
"In our view, talking of a runoff before releasing the results is actually putting the cart before the horse," he said.
In order to avert a "disaster" in Zimbabwe, the results had to be released very soon and the parties had to engage each other on how to move forward.
He said the ANC would be talking to the ruling Zanu-PF and the MDC as soon as they were available.
Meanwhile Zanu-PF supporters were being blamed for the first murder of an opposition activist since the crisis began.
A friend said Tapiwa Mbwada, an organiser for the MDC in the constituency of Hurungwe East, about 160km north of Harare, had been stabbed to death.
Since the presidential election last month, about 100 supporters of the MDC have been assaulted, with 29 being admitted to one Harare clinic on Saturday afternoon alone.
Results for the presidential poll have still not been released 17 days after the votes were cast.
The latest violence appears to have been organised by Zanu-PF to break the MDC's morale, terrify its supporters and ensure victory for Mugabe if the election goes to a second round.
A medical technician at a clinic in Harare said that injured people were arriving steadily from all over Zimbabwe, particularly from Zanu-PF's old strongholds in the north-east, near the Mozambique border.
With the country stuck in a political impasse caused by the ZEC's failure to release the presidential results, the MDC had sought a court order compelling the authorities to announce the outcome.
Yesterday in the Harare High Court, Mr Justice Tendai Uchena dismissed the application with costs, ruling that the ZEC's reasons for more delay were "legally valid".
Meanwhile police threatened anyone tempted to join the stayaway after the renewed appeal by the MDC yesterday.
"As everyone is aware, the past stay-aways have been characterised by random destruction of property and threats to life," said Wayne Bvudzijena, the police spokesman.
"Those who breach the peace will be dealt with severely and firmly."
A food crisis is looming as the farm invasions cripple production.
Trevor Gifford, president of the Commercial Farmers' Union of Zimbabwe, predicted yesterday that the harvest was "going to be a disaster and we anticipate that Zimbabwe will run out of maize by mid-July".
While farmers should be preparing the land now to plant wheat crops, the intimidation of farm labourers and the lack of security of land tenure were making it impossible to do so, he said.
"Farmworkers are being beaten and intimidated, and farmers just don't know if they're still going to be on the land from one day to the next," Gifford said.
Farmers say the police have been professional in their conduct, but that "there is a new invasion taking place within four or five hours after the police have left".
Gifford confirmed that two black-owned farms had been affected, but said the campaign was to do with "rhetoric and racism".
"It is about ethnic cleansing and asset-stripping," he said, "and the main purpose is to make sure nobody can produce an income."
In the process, however, the country faces a food disaster and thousands of farm labourers face destitution.
In all regions - apart from Matebeleland and the Midlands - the invasions have affected all farmers and labourers.
In one region, 300 farmworkers have had to seek shelter elsewhere because of violence against them on the farms.
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