No agreement in sight as talks deadline passes

By Alex Bell
30 March 2010

An agreement meant to be thrashed out by Zimbabwe’s feuding political parties has remained out of sight, with a deadline for an agreement to be reached passing on Monday.

The deadline was set by South African President Jacob Zuma earlier this month, when he intervened in the dispute over outstanding issues of the Global Political Agreement. Zuma, who is the Southern African region’s appointed facilitator, came away from the mediation trip lauding ‘progress’ in the form of a package of measures to rescue the fragile coalition. He set three dates for party negotiators to meet and to work out an agreement on how to move the unity government forward, details that are meant to be presented in a report on Wednesday.

But the talks’ deadline passed on Monday with no conclusion or agreement, and the negotiators were set to meet again on Tuesday after Cabinet adjourned. Zuma’s own mediation team meanwhile jetted back into the country on Monday to ‘assist’ the negotiators, but its is widely believed that there is no chance of a meaningful solution coming out of this latest round of talks.

Observers have commented that it is more likely that a deadlock will once again be reached, and all the signs are pointing in that direction. ZANU PF, which has failed to fully honour the GPA, has already reiterated that it will not budge until Western imposed targeted sanctions are lifted. The party blames the MDC for the measures being in place, and argues it is Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s responsibility to campaign for the sanctions to be removed.

“The sanctions must go. If they don’t, there is nothing, no concession we will make. None whatsoever,” Mugabe said in an address to members of his party’s central committee last week.

Zuma clearly has done nothing to persuade Mugabe and ZANU PF to implement the GPA, instead choosing to campaign on their behalf for the sanctions removal. Zuma, while on a state visit to Uganda this weekend, once again singled out the targeted sanctions as the main stumbling block in the progress of Zimbabwe’s unity government. He told a joint press conference with Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni that the punitive measures against Mugabe and his cronies create an ‘imbalance’ in the power-sharing government.

Political commentator Professor John Makumbe said on Tuesday that Zuma’s handling of the situation was disappointing but not surprising, given his obvious allegiance to Mugabe. Makumbe explained that Zuma’s ‘package of measures’ was too good to be true and would never have been agreed to by ZANU PF, “who still wield all the power in this government.” Makumbe added that Mugabe is taking full advantage of “Zuma being in his back pocket, because he knows there will be no pressure on him.”

Meanwhile there remains a blanket of secrecy over the talks, with the negotiators still not speaking to the media about what has been happening. Once again, Zimbabweans are being left in the dark, forced to speculate what the future of their country will be. Observers have said this shows a deep and worrying disregard by both ZANU PF and the MDC for the people, who are still suffering under the unity government. It is equally worrying the President Zuma, a man who is head of a country with a totally free media, does not seem to feel that Zimbabweans deserve the same right.