Zimbabwe’s opposition leader and prime minister-designate Morgan Tsvangirai on Wednesday rebuffed pressure caused by his country’s escalating cholera crisis to agree to join a unity government with President Robert Mugabe.
Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leader Tsvangirai and Mugabe are both under pressure to resolve their differences over the make-up of a government of national unity and begin working together to address the country’s economic and humanitarian crisis.
The United Nations said earlier the number of deaths in the cholera outbreak since August had risen sharply in recent days to 746.
International and local organisations say many more are dying needlessly due to the collapse of the country’s health system.
”The toll will never be known,” says Itai Rusike, executive director of the Community Working Group on Health — a civil-society network grouping 35 national organisations.
”Zimbabwe used to have one of the best surveillance systems in the region,” Rusike said in a telephone interview. ”But phones are not working, nurses are not there, so their information system has collapsed … It is very difficult to tell how many people have died.”
”These are symptoms of a failed state,” he said. ”Nothing is working.”
British charity Oxfam agreed with estimates of thousands of unreported deaths and says the situation will get worse with the onset of the rainy season, which lasts until February.
”When you look at people who are already weakened by hunger, many already weakened by HIV and Aids, and with rainy season comes malaria, and we know anthrax is spreading; it’s really just a recipe for disaster,” spokesperson Caroline Hooper-Box said in South Africa.
She said many people Oxfam interviewed in Zimbabwe say they have cut back to one meal in three days. Some are trying to survive on insects and berries.
‘Mugabe is responsible’
”We do appreciate that we are in a serious crisis,” Tsvangirai said in a BBC interview. But he placed the matter firmly at Mugabe’s feet: ”Mugabe must realise he is responsible for this crisis.”
Tsvangirai denied that he was avoiding joining a proposed unity government in the hope that Mugabe would resign.
A number of Western and African leaders have, over the past week, renewed their calls for the elderly leader to quit.
”The African leadership’s call for him to go is nothing new,” Tsvangirai said, calling for ”action” over words alone.
At the same time, he said, ”We believe that the global political agreement [the power-sharing deal that he and Mugabe signed in September] laid the basis for further negotiations but there are still outstanding issues that need to be hammered out.”
Among the sticking points are the sharing of key Cabinet posts, particularly the home affairs ministry that controls the police.
The MDC says it should run that ministry given the history of state violence against its members.
Mugabe’s Zanu-PF is insisting on shared control.
The MDC’s distrust of Zanu-PF has been deepened by a new campaign of repression and intimidation against the opposition and activists.
Tsvangirai has held Mugabe personally responsible for the fate of a group of about 19 missing MDC members and activists.
”As far as we are concerned Mr Mugabe is responsible for upholding the law … The fate of those people, whether dead or alive, is in his hands.” — Sapa-dpa, Sapa-AP