SW Radio Africa (London)
Tichaona Sibanda
23 October 2008
The head of the MDC's women's assembly, Theresa Makone, on Thursday said her party had lost 'total faith' in Thabo Mbeki's mediation efforts to resolve the crisis in Zimbabwe.
'Although we hold him in high esteem, we have felt as a party that he has not treated us fairly to what he does to Robert Mugabe and his party,' Makone said.
The women's assembly chairperson said what bothers the MDC is that when ever they raise an issue of concern with Mbeki, he never responds.
'We have raised a lot of issues with him, including lately the alterations to the memorandum of agreement signed by the party principals, but he has not bothered to respond to us,' Makone added.
She wondered if Mbeki would ignore any of Mugabe's queries, adding that they know a lot of things happen behind their back.
Meanwhile, a high level delegation of the MDC that is Kampala, Uganda for the first tripartite summit of three eastern and southern African blocks, has said Thabo Mbeki's usefulness in the Zimbabwe talks has come to an end. They have asked the full grouping of SADC to step in and help, as opposed to just the security organ of SADC that organized the recent summit.
The MDC delegation is being led by the party's vice-president Thokozani Khupe and includes Elphas Mukonoweshuro, secretary for Foreign Affairs and Elton Mangoma, the deputy treasurer-general.
The trio have been on a diplomatic offensive to the East African Community, the Southern Africa Development Community and the Common Market of Eastern and Southern Africa - asking the three regional economic blocs to trim the powers of Robert Mugabe.
Concerned by Mbeki's endorsement of Mugabe's unilateral grab of key ministries two weeks ago, the MDC delegation told various African leaders in Kampala that they wanted a fair share of the ministries and governors' posts. They also made it clear Mbeki was no longer an ideal mediator because of his bias towards ZANU PF.
Reports said while MDC officials were not allowed inside the summit hall, they met different groups, including individual presidents, to put their grievances across to the leaders attending the tripartite meeting.
The group has also extensively used talk show radio interviews to lobby African leaders. Speaking on Vision Voice FM, part of the state-owned New Vision media group on Wednesday, Khupe said they wanted the African countries, especially SADC members, to increase pressure on Mugabe to save the power-sharing agreement.
Khupe explained that the power-sharing talks had reached a deadlock over two fundamental issues: the equitable distribution of ministerial posts and of governors' posts.
The MDC are demanding that five governors' posts be given to them, five to Mugabe's ZANU PF and one to the MDC splinter party. Mangoma added that they wanted four of the 10 most influential ministries. He added; 'This is where African leaders are gathering for the COMESA, SADC and EAC summit and we know that Mugabe will be here. We don't want only his side of the story to be heard.'
The three regional economic communities in eastern and southern Africa comprise 26 countries with a combined population of 527 million people.
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Blah blah blah.... More bollocks.
Blah, blah, blah, blah........ Don't you have anything original to say?
Or how about, don't you have anything truthful to say? Or how about, don't you have anything you haven't already copied and pasted 5 times to say? What a knob.
Yeah mabhiza....your lies are getting old.
I know Mugabe is paying you to spew your bullshit daily, but perhaps he can give you another job cleaning toilets or something, because you're not achieving anything here, or go back to your old job of sitting in a cage and throwing faeces, while tourists feed you peanuts.
Ha! ha! ha! Funny. Can just picture him.
The Western sponsored MDC-T proxies are a shameful,disgusting lot...How do they expect to be taken seriously by any sane African leader out there when they behave like pre-school children??How did they expect to be taken seriously by African leaders at the Comesa, Sadc, Eac summit when their pathetic leader tsvangi is confusing everybody with his political imaturity??...He presses for a sadc troika summit, he then boycotts it to play golf instead,...He refuses to use an Etd to go to swazi and yet he has been using an Etd for months whilst traveling to his Western sponsors,,Summit is rescheduled for Harare,… [Read Full Text]