By Tichaona Sibanda
16 August 2010
The SADC Troika on Defence, Security and Politics on Sunday resolved that all outstanding issues in the Global Political Agreement (GPA) should be fully implemented within a month.
The Troika met on the eve of a SADC summit that began in the Namibian capital Windhoek on Monday. MDC spokesman Nelson Chamisa told us from Harare that the Troika also insisted that Zimbabwe should hold elections next year, to hopefully bring stability and peace in the country.
It is believed SADC offered to provide guidance and material support, to ensure the country holds free and fair elections.
The Sunday night meeting, held at the Safari Court Hotel Conference Centre was attended by the chairman of the Troika, President Armando Guebuza of Mozambique, mediator President Jacob Zuma of South Africa, the principals to the GPA, Robert Mugabe, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and his deputy Arthur Mutambara, plus their lead negotiators.
Chamisa said the most important thing to come out of the meeting was probably SADC’s roadmap for fresh elections in Zimbabwe next year.
Full details of what was agreed will be released at the end of the summit on Tuesday. Tsvangirai and his delegation reportedly left Windhoek for home on Monday, happy with the outcome of the meeting. Zimbabwe is being represented at the summit by Mugabe. Tsvangirai and Mutambara were in Windhoek to attend the Troika meeting on Zimbabwe, which finished on Sunday night.
SW Radio Africa was told that the meeting was characterized by directness in manner and speech, especially from Zuma, who was reportedly ‘blunt talking and straight shooting.’
‘Zuma gave them some candid opinion of what he thought was needed to be done to resolve the crisis in Zimbabwe, which was a forthright approach to the problem never seen before in many of the SADC meetings on Zimbabwe,’ a source in Windhoek said.
Before the Troika meeting, the principals to the GPA had still to agree on the appointment of provincial governors, the issues of the appointment of the Attorney General, Reserve Bank Governor and Roy Bennett, as the deputy Agriculture minister. The principals were given a month to deal with these ‘toxic’ issues.
Reports on Friday said Mugabe had agreed to swear in new governors on the 24th August. However Chamisa said the issue of the ten provincial governors was still in dispute. ‘The governors’ issue has yet to be resolved. There is a general agreement but Mugabe is refusing to implement it,’ Chamisa told The Associated Press.
A source told us there was heavy lobbying at the SADC summit behind the scenes, with negotiations between some SADC leaders and officials from the United States government to put pressure on Mugabe, Tsvangirai and Mutambara to come to an agreement over outstanding issues.
Two weeks ago, U.S. Senator Jim Inhofe, a member of the Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee, introduced a bill to repeal sanctions imposed on Mugabe and his cronies.
The new bill called the Zimbabwe Sanctions Repeal Act of 2010 seeks to lift the sanctions imposed in 2001 to stop alleged human rights violations by the ZANU PF government.
‘The issue of repealing sanctions against Mugabe and his ZANU PF members is largely depended on SADC managing to bridge the differences between Mugabe and Tsvangirai,’ a source said.
It is believed the South African facilitation team might be involved in ensuring that the Troika deliberations on Zimbabwe will be followed and executed by the principals.
Reports from Windhoek said the SADC Council of Ministers also met and discussed Zimbabwe’s refusal to recognise the ruling of the SADC Tribunal, which ruled that Zimbabwe must cease the land seizures.
Mugabe has on several occasions ignored SADC rulings to stop the seizure of dozens of white-owned farms, which the regional body contends violates international law and should be halted immediately.
But Zimbabwe argues that the Tribunal rulings are not above the laws of the country.
The incoming chairperson of the SADC Council of Ministers, Hage Geingob, who is also Namibia’s Minister of Trade and Industry, said the controversial issue was discussed at the meeting.
‘It’s on the agenda of the ministers meeting, especially about the SADC Tribunal issues on property that has been seized,’ Geingob told journalists in Windhoek.
The SADC Tribunal, based in the Namibian capital, was established in 2003 by a SADC treaty signed by regional governments. It provides legal recourse to issues from aggrieved regional citizens who will not have got satisfactory rulings in their own countries.
A group of white farmers took their case to the tribunal in 2007 to seek redress after they lost the farms under the land reforms.
The regional court ruled in November 2008 that the land reforms in Zimbabwe were against the SADC treaty because they were discriminatory in nature. It has also ruled that the Zimbabwe government is in contempt of court for ignoring their rulings.
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