Links ~ 20 October 2008

Regional summit seeks breakthrough in Zimbabwe talks ~ Reuters
Southern African leaders representing the regional grouping SADC hold a summit in Swaziland on Monday to try to help Zimbabwe’s rival parties break a deadlock in negotiations on forming a cabinet. MDC opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai said on Sunday that he believed the parties would finalise a power-sharing deal at the meeting of the heads of state of Angola, Mozambique and Swaziland, who form SADC’s security committee.

Tsvangirai not at crisis talks in Mbabane ~ Mail and Guardian (SA)
Zimbabwe opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai is not attending regional talks on Monday aimed at saving his country’s power-sharing deal as he did not have the necessary travel documents, a party official said. Tsvangirai was due to meet on Monday with President Robert Mugabe and other Southern African regional leaders in the Swaziland capital Mbabane in a bid to break an impasse over forming a proposed unity government. But Tsvangirai “did not go to Mbabane, as he was only issued an emergency travel document yesterday [Sunday], and the problem was that he did not have a valid visa to go to South Africa,” an official with the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) said on condition of anonymity.

Pressure mounts on SADC to end Zimbabwe impasse ~ SABC
Analysts say pressure is mounting on SADC to resolve the power-sharing stalemate since former president Thabo Mbeki brokered the agreement between the warring Zanu-PFand MDC last month. A SADC Troika meeting which consists of Mozambique, Angola and Swaziland will take place tomorrow in Swaziland, in a latest bid to break the impasse. South Africa will also attend as the current chair of SADC.

Robert Mugabe allies warn SADC over allocation of cabinet positions ~ The Telegraph
Mr Mugabe has allocated all key posts, including home affairs, to his Zanu-PF party, leading the MDC to call for the Southern African Development Community to intervene amid a growing humanitarian crisis. SADC ministers will now meet in Swaziland, after negotiations in Harare deadlocked. [...] But Zanu-PF’s chief negotiator in the talks, Patrick Chinamasa, signalled it would not bow to pressure, telling the state-owned Sunday Mail: “They can’t impose anything on us, especially on such a small thing as the allocation of ministries.”

Motlanthe the man for Zim ~ The Mercury (SA)
Hopes are running high among Zimbabweans that President Kgalema Motlanthe will be able to push Robert Mugabe to share ministries equally with Movement for Democratic Change leaders when a SADC troika meets in Mbabane, Swaziland, on Monday. Thabo Mbeki, who facilitated the power-sharing deal, last week failed to break the deadlock on the allocation of ministries. The former president is generally seen as too weak to confront Mugabe and the MDC is now pinning its hopes on Motlanthe.

Body of whistle-blowing ZEC official found ~ The Zimbabwe Times
Norton – The body of a Zimbabwe Election Commission official who disappeared on June 17 after he attempted to stop postal ballot rigging ahead of the June 27 run off vote turned up at a hospital mortuary here on Friday. The body of Ignatius Mushangwe, the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission’s director of training and development, who was kidnapped by unknown gunmen two weeks before the tense June run off election, was found murdered with his partially-burnt body dumped in the bush. Police found the semi-decomposed body of Mushangwe Thursday in Norton and took it to the morgue. Mushangwe is said to most likely been kidnapped by State security agents. The police in Norton say they are pursuing several leads. They referred further questions to national police spokesman Wayne Bvudzijena, who was not immediately available for comment.

Robert Mugabe forces Zimbabwe aid agencies into cash crisis ~ The Telegraph
In a bid to stop speculators profiteering on the wide gulf between the official and black market exchange rates, the Zimbabwean reserve bank has cancelled the inter-bank money transfer system used by businesses and aid agencies to move cash around. [...] “We cannot get money from the banks to pay people to distribute the food, it is as simple as that,” said the operations manager of one of the top three distributing agencies, which has been working in Zimbabwe for the last 16 years.

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