Pretoria — The South African government will be taking a hard line with Zimbabwean political parties at a summit meeting this weekend over their failure to agree on a power-sharing cabinet, government spokesman Themba Maseko said in Pretoria on Thursday. Maseko was briefing journalists after the weekly meeting of the South African cabinet. Excerpts from the news conference:
Themba Maseko: As we state in [a Cabinet] statement, government is extremely concerned about, especially the eruption of violence in the eastern part of the DRC [Democratic Republic of Congo], secondly about the slow pace in the power-sharing talks between the various parties in Zimbabwe, and it is government’s view that, in fact the Heads of State and Government [of the Southern African Development Community - SADC] must now take urgent steps to make sure that solutions are found, political solutions are found to these two situations that we’ve just described.
As far as Zimbabwe’s concerned we believe that if fact, the failure of the parties to agree on the new Cabinet is something that is becoming a major hindrance to the political stability that we so desire in the SADC region, so we will be indeed taking a very firm position as government, to make sure that the parties in Zimbabwe understand the urgency of finding a settlement because we believe that South Africa and the region cannot be held to ransom by two parties that are failing, or three parties, that are failing to reach agreement on the allocation of Cabinet posts, so this is becoming a matter of extreme concern to us and we will be taking quite a hard stance to make sure that agreement is reached.
Journalist: You say they must take urgent steps. Was it discussed what sort of steps these should be?
Themba Maseko: Well unfortunately it would be inappropriate for us to speak before the Heads of State and Government meeting takes place on Sunday but we believe that in fact, the Heads of State and Government have played a key role in making sure that the Zimbabwean problem is seen as an African problem with African solutions being required.
Now the Heads of State and Government are being tested to see if they can actually deliver a political solution to the Zimbabwean problem, so we will indeed be making proposals about how we think the situation could be expedited but it’s something that we will be sharing with the Heads of State and Government at the meeting.
Journalist: There’s R100 million lying around somewhere for an agricultural rescue plan but it can only be implemented once the parties have agreed. Have we missed the planting season in Zimbabwe?
Themba Maseko: Is actually not R100 million. I think its R300 million. We are obviously worried about that. A task team has been put in place by government that has put together a proposal about how the money could be distributed or allocated.
However, one of the major stumbling blocks is the fact that we are battling to sit at a ministerial level with the relevant ministers from Zimbabwe to make sure that this money can be distributed. I can’t tell you with certainty whether we’ve missed the rainy season as yet, but our offer to help still remains and we are committed to doing everything possible to ensure that, that money is put to good use as soon as possible.
Journalist: … You are saying that South Africa will be taking a hard stance to ensure that these guys end up agreeing on the allocation of Cabinet. What stance? How would you execute the hard line stance?
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Themba Maseko: Hard stances are saying we are getting a bit anxious about the failure of the parties to reach a political settlement and we believe that in fact, the parties have agreed on the major issues. It is actually quite a problem that the only outstanding issues, the allocation of Cabinet positions and therefore our position is that the parties need to see the urgency with which this matter needs to be attended.
So we will be expressing our views as the South African government that the matter needs to be resolved as quickly as possible. We remain optimistic and hopeful that the SADC Summit this weekend may just help us reach a final solution on this matter. All the parties in Zimbabwe will be at the talks and we believe that they will be able to listen and take advice that will be coming from the various Heads of state. Unfortunately at this stage, I can’t give you more details about what exactly we will be putting at the meeting…
