Former Mozambican president Joaquim Chissano has been appointed the African Union’s mediator for Zimbabwe, tasked with brokering talks between the ruling party and the opposition, a state-run newspaper reported on Wednesday.
The report was confirmed by AU spokesperson Adam Thiam in Addis Ababa, who said: ”We have received a letter this morning from the current chairman of the African Union, Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, that he has appointed Mozambique’s president Joaquim Chissano to mediate in Zimbabwe.”
The Herald said Obasanjo, the chairperson of the 53-nation body, has ”exhorted Mr Chissano to begin the mediation process immediately and it is understood that the former Mozambican leader has been frantically trying to reach President [Robert] Mugabe”.
The Herald said Obasanjo hopes to use the talks to negotiate Zimbabwe’s return to the Commonwealth club of former British colonies at the summit to be held in Malta in November.
Zimbabwe was suspended from the Commonwealth because the 2002 presidential elections, which returned Mugabe to power, were deemed unfair. Mugabe later quit the club in protest.
Chissano said last month that he planned to visit Zimbabwe at Obansanjo’s request but that no date had been set.
Mugabe on Monday ruled out talks with the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), dismissing its members as ”unwitting stooges and puppets” of former colonial ruler Britain.
”The man who needs to be spoken to in order to see reason resides at Number 10 Downing Street,” said Mugabe, referring to British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai said last week that he was ready to sit down for talks with Mugabe to resolve the country’s deepening political and economic crises, compounded by a recent government urban clean-up campaign that has left hundreds of thousands homeless.
Three elections held in Zimbabwe since 2000 have been mired in controversy, with the opposition refusing to accept the outcome.
The political crisis has been coupled with an economic meltdown due in part to a sharp drop in agricultural output following the land-reform programme launched in 2000 in which about 4 000 white-owned commercial farms were seized and redistributed to landless blacks. — Sapa-AFP