Mbeki Flies Into Eye Of Zim Storm
President Thabo Mbeki flies into Zimbabwe today to hold talks with political leaders amid the deepening political crisis in that country, just as the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leadership conceded that the party will not support a presidential run-off election. Foreign Affairs spokesman Ronnie Mamoepa said yesterday: “Mbeki will meet with the country’s political leadership in the context of his Southern African Development Community (SADC)-mandated facilitation process. “In Zimbabwe, he is going to meet the political leadership of that country… all the political leaders in that country,” he said. South African officials are not disclosing the agenda of Mbeki’s meetings today but clearly he will be looking for answers from President Robert Mugabe to the many questions being raised about growing political violence in the country and when he intends to hold the run-off election, amid speculation that it could take months. Mbeki was likely to resist growing pressure to persuade Mugabe to accept UN monitors for the expected run-off, officials said.
Last night MDC secretary general Tendai Biti said that the party would not support a run-off on the basis that its leader Morgan Tsvangirai had already won. Speaking after an Institute for Justice and Reconciliation seminar in Cape Town last night, Biti said the MDC would not condone a run-off because it would give the reigning regime an opportunity to terrorise voters into siding with the ruling ZANU PF. “We’ve already won the election, why should we support a run-off?” asked Biti, who was the keynote speaker at a seminar entitled “Zimbabwe: Where to now?” However, Tsvangirai, who is living in Johannesburg, has said he would only announce his decision on the run-off once the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) announced the election date.
Biti said last night that Mugabe had resorted to a run-off as a last resort because he knew he had lost at the ballot box. “You cannot rule a country if you do not control parliament,” he said, referring to the MDC’s parliamentary victory, in which it scored 99 seats over ZANU PF’s 97. Reluctant to single out any one country, he also slammed the international community for inaction in not stepping into the Zimbabwe election crisis in a significant way. “The international community has a role of midwife to play in the birth of a new Zimbabwe, but they have not done enough to realise what Zimbabweans are fighting for,” Biti said. “It is not at their discretion (to step in); it is their duty… Maybe they will pay attention when rivers of dead people flow through Zimbabwe as in Rwanda.”
Meanwhile, human rights groups, opposition politicians and regional observers have reported an upsurge in political violence in Zimbabwe since the March 29 elections. The MDC says more than 30 of its supporters have died in the violence. Farmers’ groups also said armed youth militias had pushed 40000 workers off farms in a campaign targeting supporters of the opposition. In a further sign of a government crackdown, police yesterday arrested the leaders of the country’s main trade union over speeches they made during a workers’ day rally last week, their lawyer said. Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions president Lovemore Matombo and secretary-general Wellington Chibebe, who are critical of Mugabe, were taken into custody after surrendering to police, who were reportedly looking for them, their lawyer Andrew Makoni, told Reuters. Police have also reportedly arrested Davison Maruziva, the editor of the Standard, a privately owned weekly, as well as prominent human rights lawyer Harrison Nkomo.
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