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Zimbabwe: High-Powered SA Delegation to Probe Violence
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Financial Gazette (Harare)
8 May 2008
Posted to the web 9 May 2008
Njabulo Ncube
Harare
EMBATTLED South African President Thabo Mbeki on Monday dispatched a high-powered delegation to Zimbabwe to look into allegations of rampant violence in the rural areas.
The visit to Harare since Monday night by President Mbeki's team - led by his local government minister Sydney Mufumadi - came amid revelations Morgan Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party last Thursday wrote to the South African leader informing him that they were seriously considering severing ties with him as the Southern African Development Community (SADC)-appointed mediator in the Zimbabwean crisis.
SADC observers are expected to arrive in Harare on Sunday to investigate allegations of violence in the country as the opposition yesterday claimed the death toll of its supporters had risen to 24.
Information obtained by The Financial Gazette indicates Mufumadi on Tuesday held closed-door discussions with President Robert Mugabe and Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) chairman George Chiweshe.
While details of the deliberations were not immediately available The Financial Gazette is reliably informed the discussions focused on the disputed March 29 elections and the violence that has ensued.
Yesterday the Mbeki team met leaders of the MDC who sources said complained about violence against their supporters, especially in the rural areas previously considered President Mugabe's strongholds.
The MDC, which ZANU-PF counter accuses of fomenting the violence, is said to have produced dossiers implicating ZANU-PF supporters, militias and state security agents in the orgy of terror and turmoil sweeping the countryside.
The MDC, according to insiders who attended the meeting with Mbeki's team, categorically stated that the ZEC had discredited itself and had shown that it has no capacity to organize a run-off.
Nelson Chamisa, the spokesman for the Tsvangirai camp of the MDC confirmed his party met with the South African team, which has been involved in the SADC mediation process in Zimbabwe for nearly a year.
"I can't go into specifics," said Chamisa, declining also to elaborate on the letter the MDC is said to have sent to Mbeki over its displeasure regarding the manner in which he has handled the mediation.
But The Financial Gazette was shown part of the letter written to Mbeki last Thursday, which informs the South African leader of the MDC's decision to cut all ties with him.
According to the letter, the MDC accuses Mbeki of aiding and abetting President Mugabe and being part of the ZANU-PF strategic committee allegedly advocating resistance to Western and international interference in the resolution of the crisis.
Among the MDC's other major complaints is an accusation that Mbeki has been complicity in dividing the opposition by holding secret meetings with the breakaway faction led by Arthur Mutambara.
In the letter Mbeki is further blamed for allegedly failing to act against President Mugabe when the Zimbabwean leader announced the date of the harmonized elections on January 25, 2008, "without consulting and failing to reprimand (President) Mugabe over Section 48 allowing police inside polling stations during the March 29, 2008 elections."
Yesterday, Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) governor Gideon Gono called for a mutually binding pact over the presidential run-off to avoid post-election bickering on the outcome.
No presidential candidate garnered the required 50.1 percent required for the ZEC to declare a winner.
Gono expressed fears that the absence of a pre-poll agreement could trigger a sharp meltdown of the beleaguered economy.
"We fear that post the run-off, there may be no Zimbabwean economy to talk about, and in that eventuality, the pursuit of democracy will have dealt an unjust blow to the ordinary Zimbabweans who will find themselves sunk much deeper in the then inextricable socio-economic hardships," Gono said.
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He said there was no room in Zimbabwe, given the bad state of the economy, for "bickering in disruptive ventures for political expediency".
It was his strong view that the signing of such an agreement would help promote the predictability of the possible environment to prevail in the country in the post election period.
"Such predictability has invaluable merit in that it will allow individuals and corporates to get on with the job of making productive business decisions in the interest of the economy," said the RBZ governor.
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