Maputo | Tuesday
A MAJOR summit involving six regional heads of state will be held in Harare next month on the land crisis in Zimbabwe, Malawi president Bakili Muluzi announced on Monday.
A decision to hold the summit was taken during a meeting between presidents Bakili Muluzi of Malawi, Joaquim Chissano of Mozambique and Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe in the Mozambican port of Beira earlier on Monday.
“We have decided that the troika plus three other member states should go to Zimbabwe. This is a regional approach we are making,” Muluzi was shown telling reporters on Zimbabwe state television. The troika is made up of Angola, Namibia and Malawi.
“What the region is saying is that is there is nothing wrong with Zimbabwe seeking to acquire land, we all support that process, there is nothing wrong about that,” said Muluzi.
Mugabe said he had extended the invitation to the regional heads to allow them to view for themselves the situation on the ground.
“I invited them to come and see the situation for themselves, where we are, how far we have gone, the work we have done to date on our own and access the issue of violence which is played upon by Britain, access also the… role of war veterans, the role of government and… look at things objectively, taking into account also the negative role of the (white) farmers,” Mugabe said on television.
Mozambican presidential representative Estefane Moholovi said that “The meeting will be held by mid-September, but no date was fixed for it”.
The conference will be attended by the heads of state of Mozambique, Malawi, Botswana, South Africa, Namibia and Angola.
Zimbabwe’s ruling party, the opposition, white farmers and other interested groups will be invited to attend.
‘There is nothing wrong with Zimbabwe seeking to acquire land, we all support that process, there is nothing wrong about that.’ – Muluzi.
Moholovi said the decision was taken after Chissano and Muluzi “heard President Mugabe’s long explanation of the reform programme in his country and they pledged to give their contributions towards the resolution of the crisis.”
The Beira summit was a follow-up to a decision by the Southern African Development Community (SADC) at a meeting in Blantyre early this month to take steps to address the problem, including setting up a task team.
Moholovi said Chissano and Muluzi decided at an African investment meeting held in Kampala a week ago that they needed to meet with Mugabe to discuss the land crisis before the task team meets.
South African President Thabo Mbeki was quoted in a World Council of Churches (WCC) press release telling visiting WCC general secretary Konrad Raiser last week that Mugabe had agreed to a visit to the country by six regional heads of states.
“We agreed that the group needs to intervene. It will talk with commercial farmers, war veterans, landless people and all stakeholders in the land question in Zimbabwe,” Mbeki was quoted as saying by WCC.
Mugabe’s land reform scheme aimed at redressing colonial inequalities by moving blacks on to white-owned land has been wracked by violence and closely tied to the intimidation of opposition supporters.
Violence linked to the scheme and last year’s elections left more than 30 people dead and scores wounded.
The Zimbabwean economy, meanwhile, has nosedived, plunging the southern African country into its worst economic crisis since independence in 1980.
Former colonial power Britain has spearheaded international criticism of Mugabe’s land policies. – AFP