A delegation of African leaders met on Monday with Zimbabwe’s president and its opposition leader in an urgent round of shuttle diplomacy aimed at ending the political crisis that has plunged the southern African nation into chaos and driven it to the brink of economic collapse.
South African President Thabo Mbeki, Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo and Malawi President Bakili Muluzi held closed-door talks for two hours at State House with President Robert Mugabe, whose increasingly authoritarian rule has been blamed for causing the crisis.
The visiting presidents returned to their hotel without comment and met for one-and-a-half hours with Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).
”It went well,” Tsvangirai said after the meeting. ”The fundamental issue is, as a matter of urgency, (the ruling) Zanu-PF and the MDC must sit down and discuss. That’s what they will take up.”
Muluzi and Obasanjo then headed back to State House for a further round of talks with Mugabe, while Mbeki left for a previously scheduled visit to the DRC.
Mugabe said last month he would only meet with Tsvangirai if the opposition recognised his re-election and dropped a court case challenging the result, conditions the MDC has previously rejected.
Mugabe (79) who led the nation to independence in 1980, narrowly defeated Tsvangirai in presidential polls last year that independent observers said were deeply flawed.
The opposition, along with Britain, the European Union and the United States, have refused to accept the results, saying voting was rigged and influenced by violence and intimidation mainly against opposition supporters.
The MDC has criticised African leaders for recognising Mugabe’s re-election amid state-sponsored political violence and shielding him from international censure.
Previous efforts by South Africa and Nigeria to mediate the crisis ended in a stalemate last year, but the situation has only grown worse.
Zimbabwe is suffering its worst economic crisis since independence. Inflation has soared to a record 228%, unemployment is nearly 70% and the nation is suffering acute shortages of hard currency, food, gasoline, medicines and other essential imports.
”It is not a secret that Zimbabwe is facing very serious economic and political problems and I think it is our responsibility to assist when a neighbor in a situation like that arises,” Muluzi told reporters before leaving Malawi.
The talks were intended to encourage ”internal dialogue” between different Zimbabwean factions, he said.
Mugabe has been criticised for cracking down on the opposition, civic groups and the independent media, behavior which continued even as the presidents met.
Reporters for some foreign media organisations were refused entry into State House to cover the meeting with Mugabe.
Meanwhile, police arrested at least 20 demonstrators outside the gates of the hotel where the visiting leaders later met Tsvangirai.
The demonstrators carried placards and banners blaming Mugabe’s party for the crisis, claiming women were victims of torture and insisting Mugabe must go.
The peaceful protest was cleared before the leaders returned from State House, and none of them saw the arrests or the demonstration.
The new mediation effort came ahead of a trip to southern Africa by Walter Kansteiner, the US State Department’s top Africa official.
Kansteiner will visit South Africa and Botswana, US officials in Harare said. The trip will include efforts to win backing for US calls for political reform in Zimbabwe.
The Herald newspaper, a government mouthpiece, said in an editorial Monday that Mugabe’s foes hoped the talks would lead to the leader’s retirement and implied the government feared a possible attack from US and British forces, an accusation both nations have repeatedly denied.
”There is trepidation … about the timing of the visit in view of the pronounced positions of the British and American governments over regime change in Zimbabwe following their successful invasion and occupation of Iraq,” it said.
The opposition and the main labour federation have shut down most of the economy with two national anti-government strikes since mid-March.
Both organisations have vowed to continue with strikes, demonstrations and ”passive resistance” against Mugabe’s rule.
More than 200 people have been killed in political violence since 2000 and thousands of others, mostly opposition supporters, have been arrested, tortured and driven from their homes, rights groups say. – Sapa-AP