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MDC President Leads Party Delegation to Maputo Talks

by MDC Pressroom - 01:30 on 17 October 2009

President Morgan Tsvangirai on Wednesday led a powerful MDC team to a Troika summit in Maputo where the party expected Southern African leaders at the summit in Mozambique to order full implementation of the Global Political Agreement to resolve the deepening political and constitutional crisis in Zimbabwe.

The MDC position is that failure to resolve the GNU crisis, which has mothballed national budgeting and spawned a critical legitimacy crisis for Robert Mugabe and Zanu-PF, must prompt the staging of fresh, free and fair internationally supervised elections, the party’s national spokesman said in Harare yesterday. 

The MDC outlined its expectations as President Tsvangirai led a high-powered delegation of top party officials to the SADC Troika meeting convened in Maputo by Mozambique President and SADC Troika chair, Armando Guebuza. The meeting was also attended by deputy Troika chair, Zambia President Rupiah Banda and King Mswati III of Swaziland. 

SADC chairman and DRC President Joseph Kabila, who was in Harare ahead of the Troika meeting, and South African President Jacob Zuma also attended the Maputo crisis meeting to resolve the MDC’s declaration of non-cooperation with Mugabe and Zanu PF in government until all the outstanding issues are resolved. President Tsvangirai was accompanied by Vice President, Hon. Thokozani  Khupe, secretary-general, Hon Tendai Biti, deputy treasurer-general Hon Elton Mangoma, Women’s Assembly chair, Hon Theresa Makone, and deputy Information minister Jameson Timba.

Thursday’s summit brought together President Tsvangirai, Mugabe and deputy premier Arthur Mutambara with leaders from the DRC, South Africa, Mozambique, Swaziland and Zambia.  It was the latest effort in a series of gatherings convened by the SADC, a 15-member bloc, that has been involved in a search for a solution to the constitutional crisis after the MDC’s partial withdrawal from the inclusive government October 16, citing Zanu PF’s reluctance to comply with the GPA and the SADC resolution of 27 January 2009 as well as a surge in Zanu PF-instigated political violence in the countryside.  

MDC spokesman Hon. Nelson Chamisa said the SADC, as the guarantors of the power-sharing deal, must make sure that all parties commit themselves to implementing the letter and spirit of the GPA.  “The Troika meeting must ensure that there are timelines and tangible deliverables in implementing the GPA and the SADC communiqué,” Hon. Chamisa said.

“If this meeting fails, then SADC must make sure it puts in place structural, institutional and constitutional mechanisms and parameters that will ensure a free and fair election so that the people of Zimbabwe have a legitimate government simply because there is no government outside the GPA.” The Changing Times understands the Troika meeting yesterday received a report from ministers from Mozambique, Swaziland and Zambia, support staff from the Sadc secretariat and representatives of Thabo Mbeki, a SADC mediator and former South African president, that met the Zimbabwean officials in Harare

last week. The report urged Mugabe to ensure effective implementation of the GPA and a definitive resolution of the outstanding issues as per the SADC communiqué of 26-27 January 2009, which accepts the controversy in the appointment of the kleptocratic Reserve Bank governor Gideon Gono and pro-Zanu PF Attorney-General Johannes Tomana. The report also asked Mugabe to secure an end to political violence and to refrain from the partisan use of security forces, the legal system and other state apparatus.

The ministerial Troika consultations last week were a result of President Tsvangirai’s highly-successful four-nation tour that took him to Mozambique, South Africa, Angola and DRC, where he was warmly received by all Presidents of the four countries, who subsequently decided to dispatch a ministerial troika to Harare. At the end of its mission last Friday, the ministerial Troika was in full concert with the MDC that there was urgent need to convene an emergency summit to resolve the constitutional crisis after meetings with all parrties in the inclusive government. 

Yesterday’s SADC Troika meeting on Zimbabwe took place amid increasing resurgent violence against the MDC, arbitrary arrests; and the failure by Mugabe and Zanu PF to stick to the letter and spirit of the GPA. Civic society groups warned SADC leaders to force Mugabe to implement the pact saying if the GNU unravelled, it risked plunging the country back to the crisis levels of 2008, characterised by intense violence, a breakdown in service delivery, economic collapse, food shortages and an outbreak of cholera - all of them crises that had been significantly addressed after the MDC formed government in February.

World rights body, Human Rights Watch urged the regional leaders to discuss the deteriorating political situation in Zimbabwe, urging them to press Zanu PF to end ongoing human rights abuses.  “Recent reports that Zanu PF continues to arrest and harass human rights and civil society activists should act as a warning to the regional leaders that Zimbabwe may slide back into violence and chaos if they do not take decisive action,” said Georgette Gagnon, Africa director at Human Rights Watch. 

“Regional leaders should set concrete benchmarks and consider targeted sanctions if any of Zimbabwe’s parties do not comply with the provisions of the power-sharing agreement.”  Civic group Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (OSISA) urged SADC to deploy an observer mission to Zimbabwe to avert bloodshed. 

 “In order to guard against the outbreak of renewed, politically motivated violence, it is recommended that a delegation be deployed to monitor military build-up and to report on incidents of political violence,” OSISA said in a document to the troika.

“Ideally such a delegation would be a SADC-mandated delegation, but given the immediacy of the threat, those actors best placed to dispatch a delegation are those able to do most rapidly. South Africa, in support of the mediation role it has played, could do so. SADC and the AU are also possible sources.”

The civic group said the policy of selectively arresting MDC officials and members of parliament as well as human rights defenders must stop, every effort must be made to bring to justice those responsible for the abductions and attempted abductions of MDC officials, and politically motivated charges against MDC officials must be dropped.

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