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Harare — SADC threatened to drop its mediation effort on Zimbabwe as another attempt to form a unity government in the country failed late yesterday.
Prime minister-elect Morgan Tsvangirai described the failure as "the darkest day of our lives".
South Africa's President Kgalema Motlanthe and former president Thabo Mbeki and Mozambican President Armando Guebuza representing the Southern African Development Community (SADC) failed to persuade the MDC leader, Tsvangirai, and President Robert Mugabe to overcome their differences in another marathon session in Harare yesterday.
They differed mainly over who gets key positions such as the home affairs ministry which controls the police.
SADC executive secretary Tomaz Salamao emerged from yesterday's talks and told reporters: "The meeting was not conclusive."
He said SADC would call another regional summit in either Botswana or South Africa on January 26 to try to secure an agreement.
Salamao also made it clear in conversations that if Tsvangirai and Mugabe cannot come to an agreement by then, SADC would drop its mediation effort on Zimbabwe.
As he told diplomats, there were many other "pressing" problems in the SADC region.
The differences between Mugabe and Tsvangirai have prevented them implementing a political agreement they signed four months ago to form an inclusive government in which Mugabe would remain president and Tsvangirai become prime minister.
Motlanthe convened yesterday's talks as SADC chairman, Mbeki is SADC's mediator on Zimbabwe. Guebuza represented SADC's security arm.
Several previous rounds of talks, facilitated by SADC to overcome differences on the division of ministries and other issues, have also deadlocked.
Well-placed sources said that after heavy pressure was put on Mugabe by Guebuza and Arthur Mutambara, leader of the smaller MDC faction, he finally agreed to give up some provincial Zanu-PF governors he had already appointed in provinces won by Tsvangirai's MDC in the March 29 elections.
He also agreed to reconsider some senior civil service appointments he made without consultation with the MDC since the political agreement for a unity government was signed in September.
SADC mediators believed that Tsvangirai had also agreed to make some concessions, but was dissuaded by his powerful secretary-general Tendai Biti and prominent Harare lawyer Innocent Chagonda.
Some MDC sources believe Tsvangirai himself believes he should take the MDC into a transitional unity government as a first step towards fresh elections under a new constitution in 18 months.
Several MPs loyal to Tsvangirai said they were disappointed at the failure of the talks.
One said he believed that if the next summit failed and SADC walked away from mediating the Zimbabwe crisis, Mugabe would be able to go ahead with new elections without regional censure, and would win as there would be no international supervision and no constitutional amendment 19 to form independent commissions to control elections, human rights and the media.
Constitutional amendment 19 also creates the new post of prime minister for Tsvangirai in the unity government.
It was due to come before parliament today but will now presumably be delayed.
Tsvangirai's MDC has a one-seat parliamentary majority over Zanu-PF which has most senate seats, with Mutambara's MDC holding the balance of power of 10 parliamentary seats.
Although Mutambara has said both MDCs should enter the unity government as it is the only chance to resolve Zimbabwe's crisis, he said before negotiations began yesterday that he was backing Tsvangirai and called for Mugabe to make "compromises".
"I am sure the whole nation is waiting anxiously for the resolution of this crisis. We are committed to this deal but subject to Zanu-PF conceding on these issues," Tsvangirai told reporters before he left the five-star hotel in Harare where the talks were held.
He had presented regional mediators and Mugabe with his bottom lines which included the re-allocation of some ministries and the release of about 30 opposition supporters who have been detained on suspicion of sabotage or plotting with Botswana to topple Mugabe by force.
One senior Harare business leader groaned when he heard the news last night: "I think many people will now have to run away and any hope of Zimbabwe's recovery is in ruins."
Brian Raftopoulos, a veteran political analyst and academic, while acknowledging flaws in the September political agreement, believed an inclusive government was the only way for Zimbabwe to begin to get rid of Mugabe.
"The likely alternative is that the Mugabe regime will call another election in 2009, intensify its violence against the opposition and civil society, and preside over the further devastation of the country," he said.
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Poor chap, this Tsvangirai (Tsva)!
His white handlers gave us the impression that the chap was in control of things and he was going to teach Cde Mugabe, the hero of the people, a lesson or two.
The headlines screamed his potency - most raucously:
"Tsvangirai Jets in to Revive Deal"
Oh. Tsvangirai does not just walk in like the poor masses .. The fate of the treacherous 'deal' depends on Tsva. Without Tsva the Zimbabweans will have nothing.
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"Tsvangirai Says MDC Won't Be 'Bulldozed'" My! Tsva is sitting pretty. The white man's boy is really tough! [except that the foreigners have his very behind that he sits on ...]
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"Mugabe, Tsvangirai Face Off Over Unity Deadlock" You see, Tsva is as big ana achiever as Cde Mugabe is. The peoples' 'Chimurenga'? Those natives and native uprising are rubbish. England and English rule.
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"D-Day For Inclusive Government"
Whatever 'D-Day' means, Tsva has no idea - but his colonial slave traders wrote it in there so it must be good.
It is blasphemy - if one ever thinks that this Tsvangirai clown, a rhodie lackey, is on the same level of leadership capability and have a presence among the people as Chief Lobengula or Mbuya Nehanda had.
Tell us this Tsva: Without the whites, would you have a chance of ascending to leadership in Zimbabwe?
If the only way you can hope to become a leader in Zimbabwe is with the help of the white man, then what will you do for them once you are in power? What is the price? Zimbabweans fought that rhodies and ousted them from the ancestral lands of Zimbabwe. Many paid with their lives. Do they want the rhodie back? Do you despise Chief Lobengula that much? What do you have against Mbuya Nehanda, the mother of the nation, who stood valiantly agaist your friends, the rhodie?
Tsva , do you belong? You like the rhodie so much that you willingly sacrifice the natives of Zimbabwe by the thousands to the white man to be starved by the white mans' sanctions - and die.
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Tsva, would you have served Cecil Rhodes against the natives - if you lived at the times?
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If you like the white man that much - and obviously the whit e man likes you - why don't you elope and go to live with your esteemed whites in white lands?
[Do you still remember that when you elope, then you go to the man's home, Tsva?]
Choko, did you notice that your comment appears first, even though you wrote it after the comment below? See. No consipiracy. Its just a matter of where you write your comment, either in the thread (appears chronologically) or through the article (appears first).
The rest of your comment simply talks about Tsvangirai being a puppet of the west. A simple campaign slogan from Mugabe that foolish people have have lapped up as the truth. Much like the arresting of cholera.
There is no evidence that Tsvangirai talks as much as you say to the west. Its purely made up paranoia on your behalf. Care to provide evidence otherwise? You wont be able to.
The mediators failed because they tried to persuade a murderer clinging to power illegitimately! That Mugabe must be given marching orders to quit! Nothing less!!
Mugabe is now responsible for spreading cholera across the borders into SA and Zambia.
There's no need to persuade the murderer. Soon a regional army will beconstituted to bolt out the bloodstained Mugabe and ensure fresh democratic elections!
awt_independent " From Barak Obama's acceptance speech ... "
Obama was speaking as a politician and an American. But of course the idiotic rhodie wouldn't know it.
What do you think that Obama meant? That imperial USA and UK sow no conflicts around the world - and in Zimbabwe, Somalia, Sudan, Kenya, Nigeria, ..?
- That the West cannot be blamed for colonialism, slavery and its lingering effects? [Why is Israel still blaming Hitler and Germany for the ills of jewish slavery and genocide - and claiming reparations? ]
- That the west destroys nothing in the world - not even in Iraq and Afghanistan? And not in Vietnam and Haiti and Grenada and Colombia and Chile and .. You probably never heard of the west's destruction of the civilizations of the Aztecs or the Incas> Does "Machu Pichu" mean a thing?
- That we should not judge the west by its destruction of civilizations and extermination of humans on all the continents of earth?
- That our valiant ancestors who were raped, tortured and slaughtered in Zimbabwe should praise and embrace and not blame the white man? That the spirits of the felled valiant warriors of the Maji Maji and Mau Mau as well as the mama warriors and defenders of Dahomey who were felled like locusts by the French - should rejoice in the ways of the west?
For a while, a very short while, I considered the possibility that you are a clever propagandist. But you seem to be genuine. Needless to say, you ARE dim.
Here we have a total mistake: to replace a Pisces zodiac President with another of the same Pisces zodiac : is a waste of time, resources and hope...With Mugabe only somebody born in the Aquarius zodiac may deal efficiently...In truth, the Zimbo has no hope for any better future, at such...
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