/ 7 November 2008

African leaders to pile pressure on Mugabe

Southern African leaders will pile pressure on Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe and opposition chief Morgan Tsvangirai at a summit on Sunday.

Southern African leaders will pile pressure on Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe and opposition chief Morgan Tsvangirai at a summit on Sunday to end their feud on forming a unity government.

The emergency summit of the 15-nation Southern African Development Community (SADC) in Johannesburg is the highest-profile effort yet to
save a power-sharing deal signed on September 15.

The agreement, brokered by former South African president Thabo Mbeki, calls for 84-year-old Mugabe to remain as president while Tsvangirai takes the new post of prime minister.

But the deal is teetering on the verge of collapse over a protracted dispute on which party will control the most powerful ministries, especially Home Affairs which oversees the police.

SADC’s security arm has held two summits over the last three weeks in failed bids to break the deadlock, pushing the region into a last-ditch effort to save the deal on Sunday.

“It is difficult to be optimistic about Sunday’s summit,” said University of Zimbabwe political science professor Eldred Masungure.

The so-called “quiet diplomacy” championed by Mbeki — which avoids public criticism of Mugabe — has so far failed to produce a workable arrangement between the ruling Zanu-PF and Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), said Masungure.

“Sufficient pressure has to be put, particulary on Zanu-PF to concede the Home Affairs Ministry to MDC,” he said.

“A muscular approach is needed from SADC, rather than continue with quiet diplomacy,” Masungure added.

Tsvangirai defeated Mugabe in a first-round presidential vote in March, but pulled out of a June run-off, accusing the regime of orchestrating deadly political violence against his supporters.

Amnesty International estimates that 180 people, mostly MDC supporters, have been killed and 9 000 injured in politically-motivated attacks since March.

Many members of the SADC club are reluctant to criticise Mugabe, while others fail to uphold democracy themselves, said Takavafira Zhou, a political scientist from the Great Zimbabwe University.

“The problem which SADC has is that since it was formed by former liberation parties, it might want to protect one of their own,” he said.

“The other problem is that we have countries in the region like Swaziland who do not have elections because of the monarchy. How can they talk of free elections when they don’t have them,” Zhou added.

Mugabe has ruled Zimbabwe since independence in 1980, and was once hailed as a liberation hero in a country that had been among Africa’s most promising.

Now the economy lies in tatters, ripped apart by the world’s highest rate of inflation, last estimated at 231-million percent a year.

Nearly half the population requires emergency food aid, while unemployment stands at more than 80%.

Some neighbours like Botswana have taken a tough line against Mugabe, in part because his economic management has produced a flood of migrants seeking work outside Zimbabwe’s borders.

Botswana has called for a re-run of Zimbabwe’s election — a suggestion angrily dismissed by the regime.

Economic powerhouse South Africa also made tough remarks ahead of the summit, with government spokesperson Themba Maseko warning that Zimbabwe’s crisis “is becoming a major political hindrance to the stability” of the region.

The question is whether Mugabe will respond to whatever pressure the region musters at the summit, said Heidi Holland, a biographer of the president.

“I personally don’t think that African countries, including South Africa, have as much leverage as people say,” she said.

“The problem is that you are dealing with a man who genuinely and absolutely does not care about his people and their suffering.” – AFP