Tsvangirai meets Botswana president over Zimbabwean crisis

By Lance Guma
20 July 2006

MDC president Morgan Tsvangirai met Botswana’s president Festus Mogae Thursday in Gaborone to discuss the crisis rocking Zimbabwe. Mogae is the current Southern African Development Community (SADC) chairman and it’s understood Tsvangirai is lobbying the grouping to put pressure on Mugabe for reforms that would help solve the crisis. Party spokesman Nelson Chamisa told Newsreel the party used the meeting as a feedback session on what is happening in the country at the moment. The MDC say they want to deal with the ‘mis-characterisation’ of the crisis by the Mugabe regime, which has constantly argued that they have a problem with Britain, and yet according to the opposition the crisis is about governance.

Chamisa says Tsvangirai’s mission is to galvanise solidarity ‘for the suffering people of Zimbabwe,’ and that the party leader took the opportunity to present their road map for a restoration of legitimacy in the country’s governance. The MDC has suggested the holding of an all-party conference, the drawing of a new constitution and holding free and fair elections as the only feasible solutions. Vice President Thokozani Khupe, Deputy National Chairman Lovemore Moyo and the Secretary for International Affairs Professor Eliphus Mukonoweshuro all accompanied Tsvangirai on the trip. His delegation is expected back before the weekend and set to participate in weekend rallies planned for Nkayi and Kwekwe.

Meanwhile on the sidelines of Tsvangirai’s trip, the Botswana Civil Society Solidarity Coalition for Zimbabwe petitioned that country’s parliament to persuade SADC to adopt a more robust approach towards Zimbabwe. It’s reported the group has held several rallies in the past to campaign against the abuse of Zimbabweans in Botswana.