Zimbabwean opposition body meets to discuss talks with Mugabe

Africa News

Jul 17, 2008, 13:27 GMT

Harare - The process toward negotiating an end to the Zimbabwean crisis was expected to inch forward Thursday as the top body of the main faction of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) was due to meet to decide whether to enter into talks with President Robert Mugabe's ZANU(PF) party. Nelson Chamisa, spokesman for MDC president Morgan Tsvangirai's faction of the party, confirmed that the party's national executive was to 'assess the progress on the negotiated settlement front.' This included a 'memorandum of understanding' setting out the aims and negotiating positions of the two parties, he said. The signatures on the document of the leaders of Tsvangirai's MDC, the smaller faction of the party led by robotics professor Arthur Mutambara and Mugabe are expected to signal the start of substantive talks. However, Tsvangirai's MDC has told the other two parties that it was still waiting for 'clarification' on its demand that the African Union (AU) be involved in the talks. An answer will only come on Friday, after a meeting in South Afirca between President Thabo Mbeki, the Southern African Development Committee-appointed mediator between the three parties, and AU Executive Director Jean Ping. The main MDC faction has openly expressed its dissatisfaction with Mbeki's mediation, accusing him of bias towards Mugabe,and has insisted on 'expanded mediation' involving the AU, a position rejected by ZANU(PF). Moves towards a resumption of negotiations began shortly before the controversial run-off presidential elections on June 27,as Tsvangirai withdrew from the race over a three-month wave of violence, and left Mugabe the 'winner' of a one-man poll that was universally dismissed as illegitimate. Details of the memorandum of understanding have not been released, but sources close to the talks said it was drawn up in South Africa last week at a meeting of representatives of the three parties. In the document, the three groups assert that negotiations should lead to 'an inclusive government,' to economic stability, the establishment of peace and security across the country and an end to the climate of acute political polarisation. However, the differences in the positions of the MDC factions and ZANU(PF) expressed in the memorandum are so wide that observers believe there is little hope of agreement being reached in the two- week life of the negotiations established by the document. The MDC factions insist on an end to the state-sponsored violence that has claimed over 100 lives since the 84-year-old Mugabe lost the first round of elections on March 29 and the MDC inflicted on ZANU(PF) its first defeat in national parliamentary elections. They also demand the release of the estimated 1500 MDC officials under arrest, and a resumption of humanitarian aid that was stopped by the regime on June 5. ZANU(PF)'s chief point is the 'irreversibility' of the regime's 'revolutionary land programme,' in which nearly all 6000 white-owned farms in the country were seized and purportedly handed over to blacks as a form of restitution for land occupied by white settlers who started arriving in the territory 118 years ago. Significantly, the document does not mention either the establishment of a government of national unity involving the three parties and pressed for by the South African government, or of a transitional authority to run the country while the parties draft a new constitution leading to free and fair elections, a position insisted on previously by the MDC. The memorandum also declares that the negotiations will be held in strict secrecy. 'The positions are so far apart, and ZANU(PF) in the past has given no indication of good faith, it's difficult to see how negotiations can lead anywhere,' a Western diplomat said.

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Zimbabwean opposition body meets to discuss talks with Mugabe

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