Links ~ 16 - 17 August 2008
Zimbabwe deal targeted as summit enters final day (AFP)
Southern African leaders were gathering Sunday for the final day of a summit overshadowed by Zimbabwe’s crisis, amid a push for a deal between the country’s rivals before the meeting wraps up. The leaders were expected to meet behind closed doors to discuss Zimbabwe in detail, one minister attending the proceedings told AFP on condition of anonymity. Discussions were to include a report from South African President Thabo Mbeki, the regionally appointed mediator for Zimbabwe, and from a troika of nations responsible for security in the region, according to the minister.
Zimbabwe talks go on in S Africa (BBC)
Mr Tsvangirai is said to have agreed in principle for Mr Mugabe to retain the title of president, while he takes on a beefed-up prime ministerial role. The key sticking points are reported to be over the exact balance of power. Mr Tsvangirai told reporters on Sunday morning that the negotiations were going “very well”, Reuters reported. But in an interview with the New York Times, Mr Tsvangirai said the most basic issue of how he and Mr Mugabe would share power remained unsettled. And Mr Tsvangirai indicated that he would only be prepared to compromise so far. “It’s better not to have a deal than to have a bad deal,” Mr Tsvangirai told the newspaper.
Mugabe should not be president (The Times, SA - Editorial)
Allowing Mugabe to take the president of Zimbabwe’s seat at this weekend’s SADC summit mocked the democratic principles Mbeki and others say they hope to consolidate in Africa. Forcing Tsvangirai to accept Mugabe as the executive president of a government of national unity might be a first step towards peace for millions of people, but it would signal to the world that the uniquely African democracy we profess to seek is no democracy at all. Mbeki, SADC and the African Union must find the courage, as Botswana has done, to hold Mugabe to the toughest of terms and ensure that Tsvangirai is allowed to exercise the mandate he won on March 29.
Zambia slams Mugabe’s re-election as ‘blot on democracy’ (Africasia)
“In Zimbabwe, the regrettable events leading to and including the holding of the run-off elections on 27th June 2008 have no doubt left a serious blot on the culture of democracy in our sub-region,” Zambian Foreign Minister Kabinga Pande said at the opening of a regional summit. [...] “Not only were these events alien to our region, but they also brought into question in some quarters the integrity of SADC as an institution capable of promoting the rule of law and democratic governance.”
August 17th, 2008 12:44
The only way forward for all of us is for the negotiations currently being held to succeed. But there are many of us who find it hard to believe that Mr Mugabe and ZANU PF will willingly share power without the Joshua Nkomo factor being repeated.
See http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7558578.stm Nkomo’s Ghost BBC
We hope and pray sincerely that Mr Tsvangirai can be enabled to keep his promises he made to the voters and help restore Zimbabwe to total peace.
After all, Zimbabwians of all regions deserve a good deal for a change.
We all hope and pray for peace, equality and peaceful developments in Zimbabwe.
August 17th, 2008 13:50
And the talks go on ..and on….and on..and on….and on.
And Mr Mbeki is expecting a deal anytime now..real soon.. it’s just around the corner..it’s nearly there…any moment now.
Mr Mbeki…we are getting very impatient with your patience.
August 17th, 2008 13:54
In this power struggle between the two leaders, one asserts that he has a right to wield power because in a relatively fair (by Zimbabwean standards) first round election he won the lion’s share of the votes, while the other man asserts that because he easily won the run-off election in which he had no opposing candidate against him, and in which his regime had so intimidated both the electorate and members of the opposing party beforehand with atrocious killings, burnings and beatings as to make a fair election impossible, he should retain the lion’s share of power.
Now I ask anyone, who should the power go to?
The answer, of course, is the first man who received a genuine mandate. The only claim that the second man has to the power is that his country is in Africa, so it’s allright to cheat in the way he has done. Now isn’t it at long last time that the excuse that because it’s Africa it’s allright to cheat is abolished and a normal morality is established?
If it is not yet time to do that, why not?
August 17th, 2008 16:43
It does seem strange that Mbeki of all people has embraced the old colonial mindset that standards of freedom and democracy in Africa don’t need to be as high as those enjoyed in the rest of the world.
August 17th, 2008 17:18
If these negotiations had taken place a few years ago Mr Mbeki’s strategy for dealing with Zimbabwe would have been to persuade Mugabe to gradually retire or step aside and allow Zanu-PF to find a successor. The MDC would have been only accommodated in a small way, but no real change in the governance situation would have been made. Mbeki has always lacked respect for the MDC, believing that somehow it was a tool of the white farmers. He has also been nervous of the fact that by encouraging a labour movement party in a neighbouring country could produce an opposition to his liberation party in South Africa which was also labour-based.
But today the situation can no longer accommodate such political theories. The realities on the ground are such that the decline is now so rapidly that it is destined to implode very soon as things now stand. So Mbeki has had to deal with the reality of the MDC after all, a movement which this year has been proven beyond doubt to have been the peoples choice. This decline, this tragedy of monumental proportions is, therefore, not only due to Mugabe’s agressive holding on to power, but is also due in large measure to the selfish strategy of a South African president who has on the one hand put his name behind a partnership for African development and democracy, but shown very clearly on the other,
that in the case of Zimbabwe, he had no stomach to put those principles into practise.
He may now have one last chance to go some way to right those wrongs. He won’t get another.
August 17th, 2008 19:47
Major problem with these talks is that Mbeki is taking the who negotiation as a personal project. now that SA is chair of SADC, he should recuse himself from being the facilitator…..The other problem is that these talks are so secretive ane exclusive. There are no observors and other players on the table. Its important for such talks to also have audience with other interest groups. Again its sad that real issues like restoration of the integrity of elections as a key governance instrument is now being side stepped in africa, kenya is another example. Political negotiations are becoming the norm. this is very dangerous. the country needs a transitional authority/government, to have minimum responsibility for constitutional reform and a call for fresh presidential elections.
I am just so feed-up with Mbeki as mediator. he is compomised and no longer commands the respect and authority of that office.
August 17th, 2008 20:31
This is the “End Game”
Currency is in short supply and falling. Dollarisation is a fact with barter being the normal means of commerce. The rule of Law non-existent. The neighboring states looking at a major influx of refugees. The longer MT can hang in there without signing a GNU the better. Robbing Bob is finished and he knows it. It is the JOC who now need to be persuaded.
In rural areas there is now a serious move toward Vigilantism to redress the criminal acts by the “official parties” attempt to contain the MDC.
I just hope someone sensible in the SADC and the wider region acts in a military way to sort this out, otherwise we will have another Darfur in the Horn of Africa.
August 17th, 2008 22:45
Mike - which African countries would you say have adopted a mindset for themselves to enjoy rest-of-the-world type freedom and democracy? Don’t you think democracy in Africa will always be ‘Africa style’, with rest-of-the-world democratic elements incorporatd as and when it suits each power-wielder ? Until a coup of some sort, quite often? Isn’t that why so many people agree that the ’solution’ for Zim lies within Africa, an ‘African problem’? Isn’t that mentality also why, for example, Africa sees little problem/contradiction with non-democratic Swaziland holding the SADC positions it does?
By the way, I see no problem myself with world investors, money brokers etc declining to repeatedly bolster failing African economies - it’s not an obligation to do so, it is a strategy, and they are getting smarter in what they expect back, and expect to see, for their input.
Mugabe and Grace and his six thugs should be approaching the end of their opulence and shopping sprees. My fear is that they will be ‘allowed’ to continue to bleed the country on every level, if a weak deal is signed.
August 18th, 2008 23:05
@ Ozzie, 17/8, 22.45
I can name three Africa countries that ‘have adopted a mindset for themselves to enjoy rest-of-the-world freedom and democracy’. South Africa, Mauritius, and Botswana. It is possible, even in Africa to have open and successful societies. But first the hoary old argument that western countries are rich because they stole the resources of Third World countries must be dismissed. The affluent world has grown faster since shedding its colonies, and many rich nations like Sweden and Switzerland never had any colonies.
The best cure for poverty is growth; prices and profits serve as a signalling system in the market economy whereby the worker, the entrepeneur and the investor all benefit. This can only be achieved under a capitalist system. Capitalism and democracy go hand in hand in creating a better world. They aren’t just tools of society, but ends in themselves by improving the lives of everyone.