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Pretoria hosts secret Zimbabwe talks
Alec Russell, Financial Times (UK)
May 21, 2007

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/71ccde6c-07b9-11dc-9541-000b5df10621.html

South Africa has brought together delegates from President Robert Mugabe's Zanu-PF party and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change in a first round of secret talks to try to resolve the crisis in Zimbabwe, the Financial Times has learnt.

Launching a process that South African sources liken to the clandestine negotiations that led to the end of apartheid, officials from Zimbabwe's rival parties were flown to a lake resort near Pretoria 10 days ago.

The Zanu-PF delegation of Patrick Chinamasa, the minister of justice, and Nicholas Goche, the labour minister, met first South African officials, and then had a groundbreaking tripartite meeting with representatives from the MDC.

"After a rocky start" the two delegations agreed to convene again in early June to confirm the ground rules for negotiations, said a source close to the process. Formal talks between two teams of four delegates would then be held in the middle of June, he added.

The revelation of the meeting is the first clear sign of the urgency in Pretoria over the crisis across its northern border, since regional leaders mandated South Africa's President Thabo Mbeki seven weeks ago to mediate between the two sides.

With Zimbabwe's security forces continuing a crackdown on the opposition, the MDC's leaders remain deeply suspicious of Mr Mugabe's intentions and doubtful that South Africa will be able to force him to hold free and fair elections next March, as scheduled. But news of the start of negotiations will at least temper the scepticism that Zimbabwe's opposition and some in the west have felt about South Africa's commitment to its mission.

In the past few years as Pretoria has pursued a policy of "quiet diplomacy", Zimbabwe's economic implosion and political repression have intensified. The official rate of inflation is nearly 4,000 per cent but the actual figure is widely believed to be far higher.

Mr Mbeki last week told parliament that the mediation was going "very well" but he would not elaborate.

A key moment in the process came two weeks ago when he dispatched three top aides on a secret trip to Harare where they met Mr Mugabe and his two vice-presidents. Zimbabwean sources said Mr Mugabe had reacted furiously when he received a letter from Mr Mbeki setting out his plans for mediation. But after meeting the South African delegation he appears to have been more accommodating and appointed his two negotiators.

The MDC is split into two camps. Each sent two delegates and both camps have adopted a common position on the talks. Their main pre-conditions to take part in parliamentary and presidential elections scheduled for March are: an immediate cessation of violence on the ground; the appointment of independent electoral institutions and a vote for the several million Zimbabweans who have fled the economic chaos into neighbouring countries.

Mr Mugabe has not yet publicised his terms. Only recently Nathan Shamuyarira, Zanu-PF's spokesperson, said that talking to the MDC was a waste of time because it was a "puppet opposition".

Diplomats monitoring the process cautioned that for the time being the negotiations were still just "talks about talks", a phrase used of the initial negotiations over the end of white rule in South Africa. All the while, one diplomat added, Mr Mugabe's supporters were continuing their harassment of the opposition.

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