26 June 2008
Maputo — The Mozambican government has called for renewed dialogue between the ruling ZANU-PF and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) to solve the Zimbabwean political crisis.
In a press release dated Tuesday (but only faxed to media newsrooms on Thursday), the Ministry of Foreign Affairs states that "after the first round of the presidential election, the outcome of the second round was awaited with justified expectation".
However, the situation "took a worrying turn characterized by acts of violence. We lament the loss of human lives, and hope that the injured make a speedy recovery". The Ministry also lamented the withdrawal of MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai, who won the first round, from the election.
But the communiqué notably fails to state who is responsible for the violence and who are the victims - although every credible report from within Zimbabwe makes it clear that ZANU-PF, acting through a variety of militias, but also using the armed forces and the police, has unleashed a campaign of assassination and terror against MDC supporters. 86 MDC members and supporters have died so far.
The Foreign Ministry "encourages the parties to resume dialogue urgently, seeking to solve the problems that affect the country".
The statement does not explicitly call for the run-off election, scheduled for Friday, to be cancelled or postponed - but that is clearly the logic of the Ministry's position, since one can hardly expect renewed dialogue to produce a solution from one day to the next.
The statement pledges that "Mozambique will continue to make efforts, within the framework of SADC (Southern African Development Community), with the parties involved, and with the relevant SADC institutions and mechanism, including the role of the Facilitator, South African President Thabo Mbeki, to guarantee that the process resumes its normal course as quickly as possible".
SADC itself has made it clear that there can be no free and fair election on Friday, A summit of the SADC organ on Politics, Defence and Security Cooperation, meeting, in Swaziland on Wednesday, called for a postponement, and a period in which ZANU-PF and the MDC could try to resolve their differences.
This SADC body is run by a troika, which currently consists of Tanzania, Angola and Swaziland. The meeting was never intended to be a summit of the entire 14 member organisation - but because SADC's public relations and media department is so ineffective, the difference was not made clear, and in some quarters the meeting was denounced as a failure because "only" two leaders turned up.
Two of the troika's current members - President Jakaya Kikwete of Tanzania, and King Mswati III of Swaziland - were present, as well as Swazi Prime Minister Absalom Dlamini, and the SADC Executive Secretary, Tomaz Salomao. It was not clear why there was no Angolan delegate present.
The summit agreed with an earlier statement from the Angolan, Tanzanian and Swazi Foreign Ministers "that, in the light of the violence and the charged political atmosphere, the political and security situation in Zimbabwe appears not to be permissive for holding the run-off election in a manner that would be deemed free and fair".
The summit warned that going ahead with the run-off on Friday "may undermine the credibility and legitimacy of its outcome", and so urged the Zimbabwean government "to consider postponing the election to a later date".
The final statement from the meeting declared that "the parties and people of Zimbabwe deserve a cooling off period. During the period of postponement of the election and before holding the next election, the parties should engage in talks with the aim of finding best possible ways of resolving their differences and creating a conducive environment for holding the election and managing the affairs of their country thereafter".
The summit praised the work done to date by the 400 SADC election observers, and urged them "to stay the course".
Civil society organisations in Zimbabwe, not constrained by diplomatic considerations, issued a much stronger statement on Wednesday, calling for "the immediate dismantling of all government sponsored militia bases in the country", and also the dismantling of "the Joint Operations Command that has been running this country on a military basis and is accused of being the primary organising entity of all the political violence being meted out on the people of Zimbabwe".
This statement also called for the release of all political prisoners, the prosecution of those who have committed acts of political violence, and "the establishment of a peacekeeping and monitoring framework that is spearheaded by SADC"
Read comments. Write your own.
Copyright © 2008 Agencia de Informacao de Mocambique. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
Is this big crap or what? "renewed dialogue between the ruling ZANU-PF and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) to solve the Zimbabwean political crisis" Remember when you people deed veto when Mbeki had intention to put Mugabe ansd Tsvangirai on a table of conversation? You say there is a crisis now? Remember people have been talking about crisis long ago?