Low expectations of Mugabe, Annan and Mbeki meeting

By Violet Gonda
30 June 2006

As the African Union summit starts this week there is massive speculation that the United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan may use this opportunity to meet with Robert Mugabe. Although speculation is rife that Annan might use the visit to press the 82 year old leader to step down, political commentator Professor Stanford Mukasa said nothing substantial or significant will come out of this meeting especially since it’s reported that it may be held on the sidelines and not on the agenda of the AU summit.

Furthermore, Mukasa said Mugabe has met the UN Secretary General several times and made assurances that he will resolve the crisis each time.

Mukasa believes there is nothing that Annan can do to pin Mugabe down to a specific agenda or a specific programme of action. “Kofi Annan is a lame duck. He is stepping down as Secretary General of the United Nations in a few months time. By December this year he will be stepping down and I don’t think anybody can expect him to accomplish much. He has been informed about the crisis in Zimbabwe and he has done absolutely nothing,” he said.

But international pressure is mounting for the African Union to put pressure on the Mugabe regime. South African Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister Aziz Pahad was reported this week saying it was likely that Annan and Mugabe would meet on the fringes of the African Union summit. Pahad also said that if such talks did take place, it was likely that President Thabo Mbeki would also be involved. "In the context of our proximity and the role we have been playing up to now one would expect that he would be invited," Pahad said.

The Mugabe regime has been holding Annan at arms length since last year’s Operation Murambatsvina which the UN described as a disastrous action that affected at least 2.4 million and left 700 000 homeless. The Secretary General has been planning to see the outcome of Mugabe’s so-called clean up exercise but the Zimbabwean government have said there is no need for Annan to visit because it had embarked on a re-housing operation. But evictions are still continuing in Zimbabwe.
Robert Mugabe also rejected foreign mediation attempts when he was speaking at the funeral of Tichaona Jokonya, the information minister who died last Saturday.
Addressing mourners on Thursday Mugabe said there was no political crisis in the country requiring foreign mediation. "Lately, we have heard about so-called 'initiatives' to rescue Zimbabwe. We don't need rescuing because we are not about to die…We may be suffering, yes, but we will never die. What we need is support for the economy.”
Both factions of the Movement for Democratic Change issued statements responding to Mugabe.
Nelson Chamisa, spokesperson of the Tsvangirai MDC said, “President Robert Mugabe’s assertion that the economy has not collapsed and that Zimbabwe does not need any rescue package all but confirms that Zanu PF and Mugabe are in a perpetual state of denial and have taken permanent residence in cloud cuckoo land. Mugabe seems to have plucked pages from Ian Smith’s colonial regime hymnbook. Smith made the notorious statement that he had “the happiest natives” in Africa. Similarly, Mugabe is claiming he has the happiest subjects who are not in need of any rescue package. It is characteristic of dictators the world over to be locked in a permanent state of self-delusion,” said Chamisa.
Spokesperson of the Mutambara MDC Gabriel Chaibva said Mugabe’s statements on the state of the economy were disappointing. “Inflation is at more than 1200%, unemployment over 85%, 800,000 people were made homeless, thousands of others need food aid urgently, the health delivery system has totally collapsed and unaffordable even for the rich, electricity cuts are a permanent feature and very soon our theatres will be operating on candle light, education standards have plummeted as teachers flee classrooms because of poor remuneration.”

He added, “AIDS and HIV continue to take toll of the population as government fails to provide ARVs, our farmers are facing chronic shortage of essential farm inputs, basic commodities are out of reach of the ordinary person, the public transport system has virtually collapsed and the frontiers of poverty continue to advance unstoppably, threatening to engulf the whole nation.”

Chaibva said with such a scenario one would expect the Head of State to seek every opportunity to explain his government plans in dealing with the deep rooted crises he is facing.