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South African deputy president claims press
wrong on Zim loan
By Violet Gonda and Tererai Karimakwenda
08 August 2005
It can almost drive you crazy,
the amount of information that is being released by the media regarding
Zimbabwe's request for a loan from South Africa. Then there are
those conflicting facts, all of which are said to have come from
"reliable" or "highly placed" sources. The responsibility
ultimately falls back on the officials who are negotiating this
deal, or not. They are playing games and failing to inform the very
people that they claim they wish to help - suffering Zimbabweans.
So just what do we know for sure?
According to Tim Hughes, a research fellow at South
Africa's Institute for International Affairs, South Africa
has agreed, in principle, to at least bail out Zimbabwe, with the
International Monetary Fund. Any further assistance is still under
negotiation.
The Foreign Editor of Independent Newspapers in South
Africa, Peter Fabricius, told us that there is no clarity on the
loan as the reported conditions are controversial and sensitive
as they move into areas of sovereignty. He believes this is why
Mugabe's Heroes Day speech suggested, without naming South Africa,
that political conditions are unacceptable. Fabricius said the other
problem is that although there is a certain grain of truth to the
reports on the loan conditions, confusion has been exacerbated by
the South Africa government, which has been pursuing a policy of
quiet diplomacy and not saying much publicly. He also said the Zimbabwe
government is also notoriously unreliable when it comes to sticking
to any agreement, that is agreed in private.
All the other information that
has fuelled press reports (no pun intended here Zimbabweans!) is
simply speculation, rumours and hearsay. South African deputy president
Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka must have also become tired of it, for she
told the press Monday afternoon that they have the situation wrong.
She said an announcement would be coming imminently.
Until then, we hold our breath!
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