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This article participates on the following special index pages:
Talks, dialogue, negotiations and GNU - Post June 2008 "elections" - Index of articles
Mbeki
acting like Zimbabwe's second president
Zimbabwe
National Students Union (ZINASU)
August 23, 2008
ZINASU is dismayed
by Thabo Mbeki's impartial behavior as the chairman of SADC and
the current mediator to resolve Zimbabwe's embattled political stalemate.
Mr. Mbeki's role was supposed to be that of facilitating but he
has consistently acted as impartially thereby throwing his credibility
into disarray and drastically compromising his standing as a trusted
African Statesman that can help broker a deal that will be satisfactory
to all the people of Zimbabwe and not be seen as sabotaging or propelling
the interest of one party against the other.
Mr. Mbeki has
proposed that parliament be reconvened and ZANU PF is jumping to
the idea and hurriedly setting up the dates for the opening of Parliament
even though the talks are still to be concluded. There is no doubt
that the reconvening of parliament before the logical conclusion
of the talks clearly violates the very Memorandum
of Understanding which Mbeki set as the ground rule in consultation
with the negotiating parties. It remains to be seen who is going
to preside over the ceremony because Mugabe is an illegitimate leader
and Mbeki should not conclude and give us directives so to say when
the talks are still to reach a conclusion. This man is taking the
Zimbabwean people for granted and is responsible for exacerbating
the stalemate as he is giving instructions to Mugabe on how Zimbabwe
should move forward and thus overstepping his mandate as a facilitator
to act as Mugabe's deputy and advisor.
After the 29
March election which was the only credible, we saw a deliberate
withholding of the results for close to a month yet Mbeki had the
audacity of describing the situation as far from being a crisis.
Mbeki's actions clearly display a man who is far from being an honest
facilitator.
Mbeki is the
one who single handedly resurrected the confused Professor, Arthur
Mutambara back to the political scene after a dismal performance
in the March elections. Mutambara has no stake whatsoever as far
as the talks are concerned, because in our view, he is a stooge
and Mugabe's puppet disguised as an opposition leader. This clearly
shows that Mr. Thabo has been running the show under the guise of
mediation. Because of the above reasons Mr. Thabo it is now an open
secret that he is no longer just a facilitator of the talks but
rather the second president for Zimbabwe.
On this note
ZINASU calls upon Mr. Mbeki to:
- Abide by
and uphold the democratic will of Zimbabweans as expressed on
the 29th of March 2008.
- Ensure that
the ruling party allows humanitarian agencies to resume assisting
millions of people who are threatened by the obtaining humanitarian
catastrophe
- Provide decisive
leadership on the question of Zimbabwe which clearly threatens
the stability of the entire region. The continued overspill of
the Zimbabwean crisis to neighboring countries is devastating
to imagine.
- Expand the
mediation team that will help broker a peace deal acceptable to
all parties and reflective of the democratic expressions of the
people of Zimbabwe on the 29th of March 2008.
Visit the ZINASU
fact
sheet
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