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Southern African leaders meet on Zimbabwe
Tony Hawkins, Financial Times (UK)
August 15, 2007

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/41f35296-4b45-11dc-861a-0000779fd2ac.html

Zimbabwe will top the agenda at the two-day Southern African Development Community summit in the Zambian capital of Lusaka, but observers are almost unanimous in predicting little or no progress on the crisis.

When the Southern African leaders last met in Tanzania at the end of March, they appointed South African President Thabo Mbeki to mediate between the Zimbabwe government and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, while also instructing SADC's executive Secretary, Mr Tomaz Salamao to prepare a report recommending measures to revive Zimbabwe's collapsing economy.

Neither appears to have made much headway and earlier this week the South African Foreign Minister, Mrs Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma distanced her government from a South African report circulating amongst diplomats in Lusaka that blames Britain for "strangling Zimbabwe's economy" and accuses London of "persisting with its activities to isolate Zimbabwe."

The leaked report claims also that talks between President Robert Mugabe's ruling Zanu-PF party and the opposition MDC are close to agreement.

But in an interview with South African state radio Mrs Dlamini-Zuma said President Mbeki was still working on his report to the summit, and some analysts in Harare believe that the leaked report is more likely to have been the work of the SADC Secretariat than the South African government.

In a move that has angered the Zimbabwe government, South Africa widened the scope of mediation talks on Tuesday when its local government minister, Mr Sydney Mufamadi agreed to meet representatives of a number of Zimbabwe civil society groups.

A member of the Zimbabwe delegation, Mr Jacob Mafume of the Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition said issues discussed at the four-hour meeting included constitutional and electoral reform, the rule of law, media freedom and the activities of the police. A Zimbabwe government official criticised the meeting saying it had given credibility to unrepresentative and unelected individuals.

The opposition MDC says there has been no meaningful progress in the two substantive sessions of talks between the two sides, while Mr Mugabe has shrugged off the SADC mediation initiative, saying that Zimbabwe does not need a new constitution. On Monday he reaffirmed the government's plans to call "harmonised" presidential and parliamentary elections, under the existing constitution, next March.

The constitution is currently being amended to increase the number of representatives in both the lower and upper houses of parliament, in such a way that will increase the number of MPs elected by rural constituencies which are the government's stronghold.

Despite the mood of low expectations, there have been two major changes in the situation since the SADC leaders last met nearly five months ago. Zimbabwe's economic meltdown has accelerated dramatically forcing the government to impose blanket price controls at the end of June that are already beginning to break down while factory warehouses and supermarket shelves become increasingly bare.

Secondly, Zimbabwe's immediate neighbours - but especially South Africa - are becoming increasingly concerned at the growing flood of Zimbabwe refugees across their borders. One informed estimate is that 100,000 people a month (about one percent of the population) are emigrating, mostly illegally, from the country each month. Most - perhaps 3,000 a day - are going to South Africa, as a result of which there is growing pressure on President Mbeki to find a solution to the seven-year-old Zimbabwe crisis.

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