Zimbabwean opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai on Saturday promised to create a ”broad alliance” with other pro-democracy organisations that he said next year would force President Robert Mugabe’s government to negotiate a settlement to the country’s crisis.
At the same time, his Movement for Democratic Change said in an official report to the party’s annual conference in Harare that informal talks with Mugabe ‘s ruling Zanu-PF party had so far ”yielded nothing” and that the two parties ”are as far apart as the North and South Poles are.”
Tsvangirai told about 1 000 enthusiastic delegates that the conference would produce ”resolutions to ensure that a broad alliance of democratic forces is born.
”The alliance will engage the regime in 2002. The alliance will intensify the pressure on the regime and force it to come to the negotiating table.”
He did not elaborate, but MDC spokesperson Paul Nyathi said Tsvangirai was referring to forming a coalition with civil rights groups, like the country’s powerful labour, church and human rights organisations.
”In the past, organisations like the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (the national labour movement) have gone out on their own. We have to seek to synchronise and consolidate our struggles,” he said.
The conference was held under the theme, ”courage and hope overcome fear,” an attempt to rally what is seen as sliding morale in the party after four years of unrelenting repression meant to destroy the opposition party that was founded in 1999.
Tsvangirai described the government as ”a regime that behaves like a foreign occupying force.”
”We have been brutalised, tortured, raped and murdered by a regime that was supposed to protect us. The people have been under siege,” he said.
The MDC holds nearly half of the 120 elected seats in parliament, won in the face of bloody intimidation and rigging, and controls the councils of nearly all the country’s urban areas.
Tsvangirai also made a point of trying to improve relations with South African president Thabo Mbeki, now seen as one of the few international figures with sufficient rapport with Mugabe to broker negotiations to try and end the country’s crisis.
Mbeki’s government has been pressing ahead with his policy of ”quiet diplomacy” with Mugabe’s regime, and is seen as keeping the MDC at arm’s length.
In a visit on Thursday, Mbeki talked with Mugabe for about three hours, but held only a 45-minute unscheduled ”courtesy call” with Tsvangirai.
”We urge President Mbeki to continue with his efforts,” Tsvangirai said on Saturday.
”We understand the difficulty he faces. Mugabe has misled him all this time, and he has betrayed the trust of President Mbeki.”
However, the party’s report on the issue of dialogue between the MDC and Zanu-PF also indirectly slammed Mbeki, who this week declared that the two parties were making considerable progress in talks.
”Reports from some sections that the parties are negotiating and are close to some agreement are completely without foundation,” it said.
As gestures of willingness to compromise with the ruling party, it said, Tsvangirai attended Mugabe’s annual opening of parliament speech in July and MDC leaders attended the funeral of vice-president Simon Muzenda in September.
”To date there has been no reciprocal action by Zanu-PF and no evidence that the party is interested in principled dialogue to bring about a speedy resolution to the crisis in Zimbabwe. The impasse continues.”
Immediately after Mbeki left on Thursday, ruling party spokesperson Nathan Shamuyarira ruled out any chances of accommodation with the MDC.
Mugabe said that ”perhaps at some stage” the two parties could hold formal talks.
With the 79-year-old Mugabe in his 24th year of rule, Zimbabwe is characterised as having the fastest shrinking economy in the world and the highest inflation, at 620%, while it UN agencies say it is about to go into its third year of famine after
Mugabe destroyed the country’s thriving agriculture industry with a poorly managed land reform programme that has effectively seen the country’s productive white farmers driven illegally from their land.
Mugabe has said he will only consider stepping down after he completes his current term of office in 2006 when he will be 84. – Sapa