OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Monday
FORMER South African president Nelson Mandela has pooh-poohed reports in London’s Sunday Times that he has been involved in behind-the-scenes moves to depose embattled Zimbabwean leader Robert Mugabe.
Mandela’s representative, Zelda la Grange, told Beeld newspaper that he ”has no intention of intervening in Zimbabwe’s internal politics, nor does he intend prescribing to President Thabo Mbeki or his government how to approach the Zimbabwe question.”
The Sunday Times reported that Mandela and Zimbabwean opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai held two secret meetings in which Tsvangirai tried to elicit Mandela’s support in his campaign to oust Mugabe.
Mandela was said to be looking for ways to find an ”honourable exit” for Mugabe.
Mandela has never disguised the fact that he believes Mugabe should step down, said Beeld. The Zimbabwean leader, in turn, had always been jealous of Mandela’s global fame and tried to overshadow Mandela on several occasions while he was still president.
Meanwhile, Foreign Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma warned that South Africa would not be able to escape the effects of an economic or political collapse in Zimbabwe, saying the country would face a flood of refugees.
”Zimbabwe is one of our biggest trading partners, that will affect us. We are linked by our people, by our history, by geography and our economy,” she told SABC’s Newsmaker programme.
”So if there is total confrontation and instability, clearly the nearest place people will run to is South Africa.”
Professor Tony Hawkins, head of Zimbabwe’s business school, warned that the economic situation in Zimbabwe would worsen in the next three to nine months.
”We’re likely to see a worsening crisis on the availability of electricity or fuel, and with the ending of the tobacco sales in 10 days time, the inflow of foreign currency will decline even more rapidly,” he told Newsmaker.
Dlamini-Zuma said South Africa would do everything it could to prevent Zimbabwe sliding into total chaos.
”We can’t not be involved in trying our best to see that Zimbabwe does not deteriorate to that point. Obviously, if it does, we will be affected. We will not escape,” she said. – Reuters