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Zimbabwe: Talks Deal This Week

2 August 2008

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Harare — A negotiated political settlement that addresses the problems besetting Zimbabwe could be agreed to as soon as this week, The Standard has heard.

The negotiators representing the three parties to the talks resume their negotiations in Pretoria, South Africa, today.

Two weeks ago when the leaders of Zanu PF, MDC-T and MDC signed a Memorandum of Understanding, they committed themselves to concluding the talks within two weeks. Tomorrow (Monday) marks the last day of the two-week timeline the parties set themselves to reach an agreement.

But The Standard was told that while an agreement might not be reached tomorrow, the deal will not be too far off the deadline the parties committed themselves to as they were inching towards a final agreement.

The Standard heard that while there was some groundwork to be covered the parties to the negotiations were in agreement that there were no insurmountable obstacles to a final settlement.

The optimism on a final agreement being reached this week can in part be deduced from the statements of the three leaders and the arrival here of the SADC chief mediator, President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa, on Wednesday last week.

After Mbeki's visit MDC-T leader, Morgan Tsvangirai told the media he was "fairly satisfied" with the talks, although acknowledging there were "sticking points". Professor Arthur Mutambara, who heads the other MDC formation, has used pretty much the same language, saying his side remains committed to finding a settlement to the impasse.

President Robert Mugabe spoke of the "talks progressing well" and pledged his party's total commitment to the "speedy conclusion and successful outcome of the talks so that we can focus on the recovery of our economy".

Tsvangirai and Mutambara are in South Africa, but there was no immediate indication suggesting their presence there signalled imminent conclusion to the talks.

The Standard heard that there were several key factors driving the parties to reach a conclusion by this week. In just over a week, Mbeki takes over the chair of SADC and he would want to see an agreement before the summit takes place.

The second driver is that Botswana has threatened to boycott the SADC summit due to start in South Africa on August 14 if Mugabe attends.

The Botswana foreign ministry told South African media that attending the summit of SADC heads of state at which Mugabe is expected would be tantamount to recognising him as president.

Botswana has refused to recognise Mugabe's victory in a one-man June 29 presidential election run-off that opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai boycotted over heightened militia attacks against his supporters.

Botswana is host to many Zimbabwean exiles, second to South Africa, which is home to millions of Zimbabweans.

The third driver for reaching an early agreement on a political settlement is that the UK and US have threatened to raise the issue of the Zimbabwean crisis with the United Nations Security Council. .

Sipepa Nkomo, an MDC national executive member said the MDC-T would not accept any deal that denies Tsvangirai executive powers, warning that the talks "would rather collapse or not move forward unless Mugabe is offered a ceremonial post or forced to retire".

"We will simply walk out of the talks and there are no two ways about it and that is why we have come up with two key works in Ndebele and Shona. We have said if Mugabe refuses to step down under the talks, then Busa Sibone or Tonga Tione," Nkomo said.

He was addressing civic society leaders, politicians from across the political divide, senators, house of assembly members, lawyers, non-governmental organizations (NGO) and pastors among other organizations who attended a breakfast meeting in Bulawayo yesterday that was organized by Bulawayo Agenda, a civic society organization.

As the negotiators inched closer to an agreement media organisations in Zimbabwe on Friday said power-sharing talks should discuss scrapping a battery of tough laws that Mugabe has relied on to muzzle the press.

The Media Alliance of Zimbabwe (MAZ) welcomed the talks aimed at forming a government of national unity seen as the best way to resolve Zimbabwe's political and economic crisis but said a lasting democratic solution was impossible in the absence of a free press.

MAZ is made up of journalists and freedom of expression activists from the Media Institute of Southern Africa (Zimbabwe Chapter), Zimbabwe Union of Journalists, Media Monitoring Project of Zimbabwe and the Zimbabwe National Editors' Forum.

"The right to freedom of expression is the cornerstone of any democracy," said the Alliance in a statement. "MAZ therefore calls upon the negotiators to sincerely take into account issues of media freedom and freedom of expression if true democracy is to be realised in Zimbabwe."

MAZ called for the repeal of AIPPA, the Broadcasting Services Act that has been used to restrict private investors from the electronic media and the Interception of Communications Act used to spy on personal communications between private citizens.

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