Presidents Thabo Mbeki and Robert Mugabe stay in regular contact, but the government is also strengthening ties with Zimbabwe’s opposition
Jaspreet Kindra
The African National Congress has adopted a more benevolent attitude towards
Zimbabwe’s opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).
MDC secretary general Welshman Ncube told the Mail & Guardian this week that
there has been a “significant shift” in the ANC’s stance towards their party.
Ncube, who is professor of law at the University of Zimbabwe, was in South Africa at the weekend.
“Of late the ANC is talking to us regularly and openly. We had talks with the
ANC secretary general, Kgalema Motlanthe. They have consulted with us from time
to time on information and certain areas. They have also advised us,” he said.
Ncube refused to divulge the nature of the advice being dispensed by the ANC.
Senior ANC sources say they are merely maintaining an “open dialogue” policy
with all the parties in Zimbabwe since last year.
The ANC shares historical links with the President Robert Mugabe-led Zanu-PF,
and has often pointed out that their relations are “sealed in blood”.
Ncube had accompanied the vice-president of the MDC, Gibson Sibanda, to Johannesburg, where they held talks with the ANC and officials of the South African Department of Foreign Affairs to brief them on the situation in Zimbabwe.
The MDC also launched the party’s campaign for the presidential elections to be
held next year, targeting Zimbabweans resident in South Africa.
Ncube said that at their talks with the Department of Foreign Affairs in Pretoria the MDC had commended the South African government’s harsh criticism of the invasion of white-owned businesses in Zimbabwe by war veterans. At least 16
businesses owned by South Africans were affected in the attacks last month.
“We have urged the South African government to adopt a similar hard line on other issues as well and become more proactively involved,” he said.
Ncube said the MDC had also asked the department to use international instruments such as the Southern African Development Community and “whatever
leverage they can to prevail on the Mugabe-led regime diplomatically and otherwise”.
Well-placed sources in the South African government point out that talks at the
diplomatic level have experienced a setback with the resignation of Zimbabwean
Minister of Industry and International Trade Nkosana Moyo last month.
Moyo quit after his call to end invasions of business premises went unheeded.
He was among four Zimbabwean ministers to visit Pretoria in March for a meeting
with their South African counterparts.
The meeting between the ministers was part of the new thinking in government
circles to try to influence the Zimbabwean government to take a proactive approach in addressing the crisis in their country.
The South African side had viewed Moyo a technocrat drawn from the Standard
Chartered Merchant Bank, where he was its managing director, last year by Mugabe
to set the economy on track as one of those in the Cabinet who were receptive
to suggestions.
“We had been making progress,” said a senior source.
President Thabo Mbeki, answering questions on Zimbabwe in the National Sssembly
this week, indicated he had received a report-back with suggestions of possible
approaches from the ministers involved in the talks.
The report was to have prepared the ground for a meeting between Mbeki and Mugabe, said foreign affairs sources.
Meanwhile, Zimbabwean officials maintain that Mugabe and Mbeki have been in regular contact.