Johannesburg — An emergency summit of heads of state and government of SADC (Southern African Development Community), held in Johannesburg on Sunday, has tried to break the deadlock in Zimbabwe by demanding that the Ministry of Home Affairs be shared between the ruling ZANU-PF and the Movement for Democratic change (MDC), which won the March elections.

But initial signs were that the proposal for a two-headed ministry would not get off the ground, since it was immediately rejected by MDC leader and prime minister designate Morgan Tsvangirai.

The summit also insisted that a Zimbabwean government of national unity should be formed immediately, in order to start rebuilding the shattered economy. A power-sharing government was envisaged under the agreement signed between ZANU-PF and the two factions of the MDC on 15 September. But the agreement did not specify who would appoint which ministers, and deadlock ensued when the ZANU-PF leader, Robert Mugabe, tried to seize all the strategically important ministries for his own party.

At the end of the 15 hour summit, Mozambican Foreign Minister Oldemiro Baloi said a new government should take office at once to implement the September agreement. He warned that without a government new points for negotiation would keep cropping up.

"There is an agreement signed by the free will of the parties", said Baloi. "This agreement leaves nothing out. From the point of view of governance, Zimbabwe is currently paralysed, and so a government must take office immediately and start to work".

This would be "a transitional government", said Baloi, with the job of "solving the country's constitutional problems, and laying down priorities".

Despite all SADC's efforts, the impasse in Zimbabwe had continued, said Baloi, and so the time had come to take a firm position. He believed that the deadlock had only concerned the Home Affairs Ministry, but when that was not solved, "the MDC came up with new points, which, in the view of SADC, should be dealt with by a new government. So it is urgent that this new Zimbabwean government should take office".

"Looking at the complementary questions that have been raised, the matter of the government was central because it will facilitate implementation of the agreement in all aspects", claimed Baloi.

SADC Executive Secretary Tomas Salomao told reporters there would now have to be two Home Affairs Ministers, one appointed by ZANU-PF and one by the MDC. "SADC was asked to rule, SADC took a decision, and that's the position of SADC", he said. "Now it's up to the parties to implement it".

Tsvangirai, however, was in no mood to compromise over the Ministry that controls the police. "This issue of co-sharing does not work", he said. "We have rejected it, and that's the position. There is no agreement to co-sharing, to rotation, to swapping of ministries".

He denied that the core of the dispute was over appointing one minister. The real issue went much wider. "It's about giving the responsibility to the party that has won an election and has compromised its position to share a government with a party that has lost", Tsvangirai declared.

He added that he remained committed to power-sharing but was "shocked and saddened" by the summit's outcome.

The SADC leaders added an escape clause. They recommended a review meeting in six months, and if within this period the Zimbabwean parties had decided that the solution advocated by SADC was not working, they could opt for something else, as long as the new government was functioning.

Salomao even suggested that the question of the Home Affairs Ministry could be left to one side while the rest of the government was set up. "The parties may reach an agreement that 'we shall advance with the formation of the unity government, while our thoughts mature about how we administer the Ministry of Home Affairs'. That's another option. But for SADC it's clear that the region and Zimbabwe cannot go on delaying the formation of a Government of National Unity. We have a president, a prime minister designate and a deputy prime minister designate (Mugabe, Tsvangirai and Arthur Mutambara). At least these three should take office, sit down and form a government".

"We're not going to delay any more", Salomao insisted. "They are creating a very delicate situation such that when they can't agree among themselves, they come running to SADC. They leave everything up to SADC, and resign from their own responsibilities. This can't go on. Governments are there to take decisions, easy ones and difficult ones. That's why there are leaders in Zimbabwe".

Asked what measures would be taken if the Zimbabwean parties did not comply with the SADC decisions, Salomao said "they must be complied with".

"In politics it's like this - we start from extremes and end up bringing positions closer", he added. "When we started there was no general political agreement, and now we have one. We began with a situation in which we had 31 ministries to be administered, and there were differences about eight of them. Then it dropped to four, then two and then one. There is no problem in the world that cannot be solved".

He admitted that appointing two ministers for one ministry "seems inconceivable, but let's take a positive position - when we have a minister and a deputy minister in a ministry, each with specific duties, at heart we have two people co-administering the institution. In the specific case of Zimbabwe this co-administration will be between people from different parties".

Fta/pf (923)