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PAP: Zim has not rejected our fact-finding delegation
Mail & Guardian (SA)
May 18, 2007

http://www.mg.co.za/articlepage.aspx?area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__africa/&articleid=308846

Johannesburg - Zimbabwe has not officially rejected a Pan African Parliament (PAP) decision to send a team of fact-finders to the country, PAP president Gertrude Mongella said on Friday. "There has been no official communication from the government of Zimbabwe," she said in a briefing at the close of the PAP's seventh ordinary session in Midrand. "... And I would not like to pass judgement on the government of Zimbabwe before I get any official communication." The fact-finding mission was approved by 149 PAP members last Friday. Only 29 - including most of the Zimbabwe delegation - voted against it, and three abstained. However, it was later suggested in the media that the Zimbabwean government intended blocking the mission's entry to the country, as it had done to similar delegations in the past.

It had long been decided that the PAP work only on "official communication" to prevent any misunderstandings, said Mongella. The PAP would send Zimbabwe an official communication of its intention to send in fact-finders, "and its response must be officially communicated". "So let me wait for official communication, then we'll know how we deal with the situation," she said. Mongella said the date of the mission had not yet been determined. "We just finished today [Friday], so when we are ready we'll announce the date," she said. In debate on the proposal to send in fact-finders, delegates from Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries said it had charged President Thabo Mbeki with facilitating between parties and he should be given a chance to do so.

Mongella hoped the two initiatives would "reinforce" each other. "We are all interested in having a peaceful Zimbabwe," she said. "People should not be feeling it's either/or. What is needed is every effort to make sure a peaceful situation is restored in Zimbabwe." She said people sometimes thought missions were sent to countries only to do policing. "The spirit in the Parliament is to know what is going on." It had to have access to the information it needed to discuss the matter in "an informed way" and to debate positive action in solving the problems of Zimbabwe. Asked about the lack of involvement of the youth in dialogue in Zimbabwe, Mongella said: "That is why we're going there: to see what's on the ground. If we knew the situation now, we wouldn't find it necessary to go there and see the situation on the ground." The team would, among other things, have to see the elders and the traditional leaders.

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