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Mbeki rolls out Zim plan
Vincent Kahiya, The Independent (Zimbabwe)
April 13, 2007

http://www.theindependent.co.zw/viewinfo.cfm?linkid=11&id=10424&siteID=1

President Thabo Mbeki has started to roll out Sadc's plan for mediation between President Mugabe's government and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change in a development which once again tests his ability to bring the two warring parties to the negotiating table.

Zanu PF has embarked on a campaign to subdue the MDC and civil society through arrests and torture of opponents.

Diplomatic sources yesterday said Mbeki had started the mediation process. They said he has written to President Mugabe and the MDC setting out the scope of the work to be accomplished. As part of the same effort, staff from the Sadc secretariat arrived in the country on Wednesday to study the country's economic situation, especially the large grain deficit.

Sources this week said there were Sadc leaders keen to use aid as a bait to entice Mugabe towards the negotiating table.

The Mbeki project - contained in a four-page letter to MDC leaders Morgan Tsvangirai and Arthur Mutambara and copied to Mugabe - is a roadmap to achieving a negotiated settlement that would ensure the holding of free and fair elections next year.

In an SABC interview at the weekend, Mbeki said: "In reality, we don't have much time ... the Zimbabweans have got 11 months to do everything that is necessary to ensure those elections are free and fair and that the outcome of those elections is not contested by anybody."

The plan, largely based on ensuring that Zimbabwe conforms to the Sadc norms and guidelines on the holding of free and fair elections, challenges Zanu PF's desire to hold elections under the current legal framework. The party has endorsed the harmonisation of the presidential and parliamentary polls and is planning to amend the constitution to increase the number of seats in both Houses.

The opposition and civic groups want the elections to be held under a new constitutional dispensation. They are also calling for the repealing of oppressive laws such as the Public Order and Security Act (Posa) and the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (Aippa).

Mugabe last year said the current Lancaster House document was "sacrosanct" because people had fought for it. His government has also said there was nothing draconian about Posa or Aippa.

The Mbeki letter states that there should not be issues that are non-negotiable in the envisaged dialogue. The Sadc position is that parties to the negotiations should not put forward conditionalities.

"If the parties have issues, they can raise these as part of the negotiations," said a Sadc diplomat.

The levelling of the electoral paying field is also high among opposition demands. Tsvangirai told a press conference yesterday that he would negotiate with President Robert Mugabe's ruling party to try to end a crisis he says has seen 600 political activists abducted and tortured this year.

He was confident the crisis that erupted after the government's violent crackdown on the opposition last month could be sorted out in direct talks.

"This crisis is going to be resolved through negotiation, and (the ruling) Zanu PF and MDC will sit down and negotiate," said Tsvangirai, who was among dozens of anti-Mugabe activists who were arrested at an aborted March 11 prayer rally in Harare.

He said the Mbeki initiative was not an extension of his "quiet diplomacy" but a Sadc project agreed at the Dar es Salaam summit last month.

Tsvangirai told journalists that Mbeki's focus was on how to make Zimbabwe carry out an election whose result is not disputed.

"The Sadc mandate entrusted to Mbeki includes levelling the political playing field and ensuring that the outcome of elections is not disputed," Tsvangirai said.

"We have told President Mbeki that we don't want another election under the current constitution and electoral laws because they will produce predetermined results."

Contacted for comment yesterday, Mutambara said he could not discuss the contents of the Mbeki letters saying it was important to "protect the integrity of the mediation process and to allow the facilitation to be effective".

He however confirmed that the MDC had since the Sadc summit in Tanzania two weeks ago been working for a negotiated settlement to resolve the country's simmering crisis.

He said the respective secretary-generals of the two factions, Tendai Biti and Welshman Ncube, had already held two meetings with Mbeki's office to discuss the preliminaries of the mediation plan.

Mbeki's plan is in line with calls to hold a presidential election next year as opposed to Mugabe's original proposal to extend his term to
2010.

Sources however said the MDC was uncomfortable with holding the election in March next year. The party wants a "transitional arrangement" that will allow for the adoption of a new constitution, the repeal of oppressive laws and the setting up of new institutions to run internationally-supervised elections.

The MDC has already written to Mbeki acknowledging his mediation efforts but expressing concern over the holding of the election in the next
11 months.

A follow-up meeting between Mbeki's office and the MDC leaders is scheduled for Monday.

At the meeting, MDC officials are expected to update Mbeki's office on the continued crackdown on opposition supporters by state agents in the name of fighting terrorism.

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