SUSAN NJANJI, Harare | Monday
A STATEMENT issued at the end of a Commonwealth mission to probe what steps have been taken to end violence on Zimbabwe’s farms in exchange for help with land reforms showed there is little hope for an early end to the crisis.
Ministers from seven Commonwealth countries who made up the investigating team issued a cautious communiqu at the end of their three-day mission, calling on the government of President Robert Mugabe to implement the agreement signed in the Nigerian capital Abuja on September 6 and probe reports of rights abuses and violence.
Under the terms of the Abuja agreement, Zimbabwe pledged to curb violence that has raged in the countryside for 20 months in exchange for British financial backing for its land reform programme. Harare has said it has set up trouble-shooting committees to respond to incidents on farms.
But Keith Martin, Canada’s shadow secretary of state for Africa and Latin America who was part of the Commonwealth mission, said reality was “very different from what the government is saying.
“The reality is frightening. Farm workers have a loaded gun pointed at their heads and I find that quite chilling,” said Martin.
The Commonwealth ministers also said in their statement that Harare has “established a process in accordance with the Abuja accord.”
But Martin said that the procedure of the talks “ensured that there would be a very mild (final) statement because the mission was operating under rules of consensus, and with Zimbabwe being part of the process (…) it had to reflect Zimbabwe’s position”.
Expressing fear for the stability of the southern African country, Martin added, “Zimbabwe must not be allowed to get into a spiral of violence and anarchy”.
If the Abuja accord is not satisfactorily applied, Martin said the international community must act and “remove the government of Zimbabwe from the Commonwealth.”
Writer and political commentator Chenjerai Hove said it was unlikely that Harare would change its political strategy as a result of the Commonwealth ministers’ visit.
“I don’t think we are going to change much. We are going towards elections violently, nothing is going to change,” Hove said, adding that the Commonwealth team had been “thoroughly and properly hoodwinked” and had ended up with “a diluted version of what is happening on the ground”.
The Commercial Farmers Union (CFU), which represents 4 500 white farmers who own more than two thirds of Zimbabwe’s prime farmland, responded cautiously to the outcome of the talks.
David Hasluck, director of the CFU, said it was important that the ministers agreed on the “urgent need to get farmers to plant without interference, to build confidence and reduce conflict”.
In the absence of mechanisms to monitor the implementation of the Abuja accord, analysts say the main problem is that Abuja is not a legal but a political agreement.
A team of experts from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) will visit Zimbabwe in November to decide on the procedure and details relating to the application of the Abuja land deal.
But Harare has remained adamant that land reforms will take place with or without Abuja.
“Abuja or no Abuja, land is getting back to the people. No amount of lies, besmirching and demonising will stop the process,” an editorial in the pro-government Sunday Mail said.
Local media reported that the talks were divided on racial grounds, with Australia, Britain and Canada allegedly taking a stance opposed to that of Zimbabwe, South Africa, Kenya and Nigeria. – AFP