GRIFFIN SHEA, Harare | Tuesday
PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe and five other southern African leaders worked late into the night on Monday to resolve Zimbabwe’s long-running political and economic crisis, meeting with a cross-section of Zimbabwean society.
The talks are the broadest ever aimed at resolving the crisis, with the presidents of Botswana, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe in Harare for the two-day summit.
The leaders began the summit with a four-hour closed-door meeting.
After a break, they resumed talks with an open session and then met representatives of an array of interest groups — including the main opposition party, white farmers, liberation war veterans, church groups and civic bodies.
Malawian President Bakili Muluzi welcomed an agreement reached last week in Abuja, Nigeria, but said the region was worried that turmoil surrounding Mugabe’s controversial land reforms would spill beyond its borders.
“Of great concern to all of us is that if the land issue is not urgently resolved amicably and peacefully, the economic and political problem Zimbabwe is facing now could easily snowball across the entire southern Africa region,” said Muluzi, currently chairman of the 14-nation Southern African Development Community (SADC).
Muluzi, who said he was encouraged by the Abuja talks, also voiced fears that political instability could hurt the region’s chances for much-needed foreign direct investment.
Mugabe, who did not attend the Abuja talks, said on Sunday that he agreed in principle to the Commonwealth-brokered deal, under which Britain will provide money for land reforms if Zimbabwe ends the politically charged violence wracking the nation.
But landless black war veterans told the six presidents on Monday that they would not leave the white-owned farms they are occupying.
“Allow us to make it crystal-clear, your Excellencies: the landless people of this country and ourselves will not support a program whose pace is controlled by the pace at which funds will trickle in from the British,” according to a transcript of their presentation to the leaders.
“So long as these injustices against the indigenous people of this country are not rectified, our peaceful demonstrations in the farmlands will continue.
“We do not agree to the presumption that there is no rule of law in Zimbabwe, that there is no respect for human rights and democracy because it is our ruling party, our very revolutionary leaders and government that established all these aspects at independence.”
Malcolm Vowles, representing a group of white farmers who also met with the six heads of state, said upon leaving that the summit was not a breakthrough “but a very positive step and moving in the right direction.”
In the meantime, Zimbabwe’s main opposition party on Monday won a crucial mayoral election in the country’s second city of Bulawayo, while the ruling party steamed to victory in a by-election in eastern Zimbabwe, state radio said.
In Bulawayo, the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) won 60 988 votes to the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front’s (Zanu-PF’s) 12 783 votes.
Meanwhile, the by-election in eastern Zimbabwe’s Makoni West constituency saw Zanu-PF obtain 10 610 votes to the MDC’s 5 841 votes, the radio announced.
In another development, the United States called on Mugabe to move beyond words of support for a deal to resolve the country’s long-running land reform dispute, and take immediate action to implement it. State Department representative Philip Reeker called the Abuja deal a “promising first step,” particularly since Mugabe has indicated he supports it.
“However, while President Mugabe is reported to have personally endorsed the agreement, promises from the government of Zimbabwe ultimately will not be enough,” Reeker told reporters. – AFP
Text of the Abuja agreement on Zimbabwe September 7, 2001