The African Union decided this week to send a high-level delegation to assess the political situation in Zimbabwe following allegations of violence and intimidation resulting from the long-delayed electoral results.
The move came as the situation in Zimbabwe was discussed during a United Nations Security Council meeting, despite South Africa’s insistance that the issue did not belong on the agenda because it is not a threat to international security.
At a crisis meeting in Addis Ababa this week the peace and security council (PSC) “decided a high-level delegation of the AU should, in consultation with SADC [Southern African Development Community], visit Zimbabwe and find out on the spot what is going on there,” Salvatore Rweyemamu, spokesperson for Tanzanian president Jakaya Kikwete, told the Mail & Guardian. Kikwete is currently the chairperson of the AU.
A date for the visit has not been set yet, but Rweyemamu says it will take place “sooner rather than later”.
Zimbabwean Foreign Minister Simba Mumbengegwi travelled to the Ethiopian capital to brief the AU ambassadors on the situation in Zimbabwe. Mumbengegwi blamed the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) for the violence that has seen dozen of opposition supporters killed since the elections in March.
In private talks with Kikwete the Zimbabwean minister was told that no one believes that the Zimbabwean Electoral Commission is truly independent. But Mumbengegwi insisted that Zanu-PF is deeply concerned about delays in releasing the election results.
MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai also met with Kikwete this week to discuss the electoral impasse.
Members of the United Nations Security Council this week slipped Zimbabwe on to the agenda under “other matters” on the penultimate day of South Africa’s presidency.
UN under secretary for political affairs Lynn Pascoe briefed the 15-member body on the situation in Zimbabwe, especially the violence that has gripped the country.
Pascoe’s briefing was “sobering and we were struck in particular by his characterisation of the situation as the ‘worst humanitarian crisis since independence’ and of a situation that was increasingly rendering the election process illegitimate,” Alejandro Wolff, United States ambassador to the UN, told reporters afterwards.
UN sources told the M&G that South Africa was one of the few members of the 15-member body that opposed a suggestion by Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon for a UN delegation to be sent to Zimbabwe. Even Burkina Faso, which, with Libya, makes up the remaining two African countries on the council, was in favour of the suggestion. China, Zimbabwe’s ally, was quiet throughout the discussion but is expected to use its right as a permanent member of the council to veto any endorsement of a delegation.
Ki-Moon does not need the security council to send such a mission, but such an endorsement would have expedited deployment of a delegation.
Angola will host a SADC meeting of the political, defence and security organs of cooperation from May 2. Meetings with general army staff and police commanders from SADC countries are also scheduled.
The crisis in Zimbabwe will be discussed at the meeting.