Zuma plans mediation trip to Harare next week

By Tichaona Sibanda
11 March 2010

South African President Jacob Zuma is reportedly planning a trip to Harare next week, for the first time in his capacity as the mediator in the Zimbabwe crisis since he took over from Thabo Mbeki in November last year.

Zuma last visited Zimbabwe in August last year, three months after his inauguration as the new President of South Africa, when he officially opened the annual Harare Agricultural Show.

During that two-day visit, Zuma urged Robert Mugabe and Morgan Tsvangirai- partners in the inclusive government- to work together to remove any remaining obstacles in honouring the Global Political Agreement.

At the end of the visit Zuma issued a statement saying that it was essential for Mugabe to follow through on sharing power with Tsvangirai, if Western aid was ever to be restored. He added that the government had a responsibility to fully implement the agreement and create confidence in the process.

But since his last visit, Mugabe and Tsvangirai are still wrangling over the appointment of provincial governors and there is a complete lack of progress in political reforms. The MDC also want Mugabe to reverse the unilateral appointment of his cronies to head the central bank and the attorney general’s office and also swear in its deputy agriculture minister designate who is facing terrorism charges. The MDC says Mugabe’s refusal to budge on democratic reforms is blocking massive aid from Western countries that insist on irreversible change before they open their wallets.

ZANU PF says it will not move on the demands until the MDC calls for the lifting of sanctions against Mugabe’s inner circle and the closure of ‘pirate’ radio stations.

Since Zuma took over from Mbeki as the facilitator of the Zimbabwe’s power sharing agreement, he has not visited Zimbabwe in that capacity to assess progress.

But a facilitation team appointed by Zuma has visited the country on several occasions. They have made little headway in their efforts and presented Zuma with their findings in December.

Zuma’s anticipated trip comes at a time when the MDC have declared a deadlock on all outstanding issues and want them referred to SADC. ZANU PF is insisting that the talks be given more time. There has been no movement on any of the issues in the last three months, forcing Tsvangirai on Wednesday to tell diplomats he was ‘urgently’ appealing to SADC for a resolution on the deadlocked inter-party talks with ZANU PF.
Tsvangirai told the diplomats at Harvest House, the party headquarters, that ZANU PF was continually undermining the transitional government by their refusal to abide by the commitments they signed in September 2008.

‘The cost of this crisis to the people of Zimbabwe is becoming too great to bear. Despite our patience, the talks to resolve the outstanding issues of the GPA have achieved no significant results and thus I am now scheduling urgent consultations with the guarantors of the GPA,’ Tsvangirai is quoted by his party’s weekly newsletter, The Changing Times.

To the disappointment of most Zimbabweans Zuma has been lobbying both the international community and the IMF, on behalf of Mugabe, to drop the targeted sanctions on ZANU PF individuals and to resume loans to the country.

Economic analyst Luke Zunga said: ‘He (Zuma) just had discussions this week with the head of the IMF who said they were not going to resume assistance to Zimbabwe until there is political solution. Gordon Brown (British Prime Minister) told him point blank last week they would not remove sanctions until there was visible progress on the ground’.

‘So I think he’s going to explain to Mugabe that he’s failed to convince them on the removal of sanctions and that they need to move a little bit more in order to get these matters addressed. South Africa has a lot of leverage to influence positive development in Zimbabwe so I think if Zuma was to moderate on some of the extremes holding back progress probably we might see some movement,’ Zunga added.