The time for quiet diplomacy in Zimbabwe is over and must be brought to an end, a senior official in the country’s opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) said on Friday.
Speaking during a visit to Berlin, the MDC’s legal secretary David Coltart said the policy, practiced notably by South Africa, had failed.
”Quiet diplomacy has been tried for four years and clearly failed,” he told a press conference here.
”This quiet diplomacy must be put to an end. We are living in a far worse environment [than before]. There are no demonstrable positive fruits from this strategy.”
South Africa, through President Thabo Mbeki, has been trying to mediate an end to the political and economic crisis in neighbouring Zimbabwe.
But his approach has come under fire from political detractors, who say he is taking far too soft a line on his Zimbabwean counterpart Robert Mugabe.
Zimbabwe was plunged into crisis after presidential elections in March 2002 that returned Mugabe to office, the results of which international observers and MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai alleged were rigged.
The country is now in the grip of its worst economic crisis, with inflation at more than 622%, 70% unemployment and severe shortages of fuel, medicine and food.
Coltart called for international, high-profile mediators to bring the MDC and Mugabe back into talks that were broken off in May 2002.
”It is time for a person like (UN chief) Kofi Annan to come and see what’s going on,” Coltart added.
”We have made gestures, like we suspended civil disobedience action, that have been responded to by further acts of repression.”
Coltart was in Berlin to present a report citing attacks, intimidation and threats against MDC members between 2000 and 2004.
The report says 90% of MDC deputies have been directly targeted, and that in half the cases, the perpetrators were members of the Zimbabwean police, army of intelligence services.
”This shows a well-planned coordinated strategy designed to annihilate the opposition,” he said, adding that the ”draconian legislation” recalled the era when Rhodesia, as then, was still ruled by a white minority government. – Sapa-AFP