Africa News
Mbeki mum on talks with Mugabe as election attacks continue (Roundup)
By DPA
May 9, 2008, 15:23 GMT

Johannesburg - South African President Thabo Mbeki held talks Friday with President Robert Mugabe on the country's post- election impasse as foreign ambassadors visited the victims of attacks carried out by Mugabe-loyal youth militia.

Mbeki is the 14-country Southern African Development Community's (SADC) mediator in Zimbabwe.

His visit was being closely watched for signs of a tougher stance with the 84-year-old leader than on his last visit to Zimbabwe in April, when the South African leader said he saw no 'crisis' in Zimbabwe.

Mbeki did not comment on emerging from State House in Harare after around four hours of talks with Mugabe. The leaders' talks were thought to focus on conditions for a second round of voting in March elections, as called for when no candidate takes more than 50 per cent.

Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leader Morgan Tsvangirai took 47.9 per cent to Mugabe's 43.2 per cent.

Mbeki did not meet with MDC officials in Zimbabwe Friday. Both Tsvangirai and MDC number two Tendai Biti are currently in South Africa.

Zimbabwe, already suffering an acute economic crisis, has been plunged in further turmoil by the March elections.

The MDC has called for Mbeki to be removed as mediator for understating the tensions in the face of mounting attacks by Mugabe supporters against suspected opposition supporters for 'voting wrongly.'

The MDC says 30 of its members have been killed and hundreds injured in such attacks. The police and Mugabe's Zanu-PF say the MDC is exaggerating. Isolated incidents of retaliatory MDC violence have also been reported.

International outrage over the violence, which has forced tens of thousands of people from their homes, has forced Mbeki to scale up his intervention.

A senior South African delegation travelled to Zimbabwe earlier this week to investigate the attacks. They were due to brief Mbeki later Friday.

Meanwhile, the United States, European Union, Germany, Sweden, and Angola ambassadors in Harare visited some of the victims of the violence in hospital in Harare Friday morning.

One elderly lady, with injuries to the back and buttocks, said she was attacked by youths with knives and axes.

'I asked him (one attacker) to finish me off but then he ran away,' she told the diplomats.

'How can an 84-year-old be assaulted simply because her children are MDC,' US ambassador James McGee asked. 'They (Zanu-PF) can't deny it. This is absolute brutality.'

The MDC has yet to signal whether it would contest a runoff, while hinting it would if the violence abated and international observers were in place to ensure the vote was free and fair.

Mugabe's government barred election observers from most Western countries from the March elections.

The state-controlled Zimbabwe Electoral Commission has yet to give a date for the runoff, while telling an African election observer mission it would certainly be 'within the next 12 months.'

A senior ZEC source told Deutsche Presse-Agentur