offensive
Howard Barrell
President Thabo Mbeki jetted to Algiers on Friday, taking his diplomatic offensive on the crisis in Zimbabwe a step further amid grave concern in South African circles about pre-election violence against opponents of President Robert Mugabe.
Mbeki was expected to meet privately with Mugabe in the Algerian capital over the weekend. Observers expected them to exchange perspectives on the violence and incidents in which militants loyal to Mugabe’s Zanu-PF party have burned farmers’ crops of tobacco, Zimbabwe’s largest single export earner.
The two men were also likely to review progress in restoring order to farms and bringing an end to land invasions – an issue on which Mugabe undertook to be cooperative in his talks with Mbeki, Namibia’s President Sam Nujoma and Mozambique’s President Joachim Chissano at Victoria Falls on Good Friday.
Mbeki and Mugabe were in Algiers mainly to attend a fresh round of talks, under the auspices of the Organisation of African Unity, to bring an end to the war in the Democratic Republic of Congo. A number of other Southern and Central African leaders were expected.
Zimbabwe’s expensive military involvement in the Congo war on the side of President Laurent Kabila has been a major factor in the country’s near economic collapse – a development which has greatly increased Mugabe’s domestic political problems and brought him, after 20 years in power, to the brink of possible electoral defeat in elections likely to be held within the next two months.
Mbeki and Mugabe were also expected to review the outcome of talks in London on Thursday between a Zimbabwean ministerial delegation and British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s government over future British assistance for land reform in Zimbabwe.
Mbeki intervened personally with Blair last week in an attempt to ensure a successful outcome to the talks.
Britain has been witholding aid for land reform because it has lost confidence in the ability of Mugabe’s government to carry out a transparent land reform process which benefits the landless rather than well-connected government officials. The British position going into the talks on Thursday was that it would release the aid to Zimbabwe if it received satisfactory assurances that transparency and need would be the criteria for land reform, and if Zimbabwe’s forthcoming election was free and fair.
Observers anticipated that a successful conclusion to the London talks – though likely to be used as propaganda by Mugabe in the unofficial election campaign already under way – would go some way towards keeping Mugabe on track in the evolving attempts to achieve a satisfactory outcome in Zimbabwe.