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Mugabe: 'No price too high'
News 24
August 01, 2007

http://www.news24.com/News24/Africa/Zimbabwe/0,,2-11-1662_2157380,00.html

Johannesburg - There was no price too high to allow Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe to step down, Mail & Guardian publisher Trevor Ncube said in Johannesburg on Wednesday.

"If that means giving Robert Mugabe immunity from prosecution, let that be done," he told a public debate on leadership in Zimbabwe at the University of the Witwatersrand.

Letting Mugabe go would give Zimbabwe the opportunity to start again, he said.

Ncube was on a debating panel with Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition activist Eleanor Sisulu, and Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa director Tawanda Mutasah.

The event was part of a series of conversations on African leadership.

'I have a problem with that'

Ideally, Ncube wanted Zimbabweans to reject both the ruling Zanu-PF and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).

However, that left the question of where a new leader would come from.

"I doubt that leader is going to come from the MDC.

"... for now we might find ourselves looking for leadership within the Zanu-PF," he said.

Mutasah disagreed.

"Zimbabwe deserves free and fair, legitimate elections in the truest sense," he said.

Whoever was elected - even if that was Mugabe - "let them run Zimbabwe and govern the country because it is what the people chose as their leadership," he said.

Mutasah criticised the talks being conducted by President Thabo Mbeki on behalf of the Southern African Development Community in an attempt to resolve the crisis in Zimbabwe, because they excluded the Zimbabwean people.

"We need to make sure these talks do not happen in a closet.

"If ordinary people are excluded from the table, I have a problem with that," he said.

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