Posted on 03/29/2002 12:52:45 AM PST by Clive
Financial Gazette (Zimb)
Date posted:Fri 29-Mar-2002
Date published:Thu 28-Mar-2002
The two envoys met MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai on Thursday and Saturday last week and outlined their brief and how they intended to proceed in trying to break the impasse. They also met the top leadership of Zanu PF
Staff Reporter
African superpowers South Africa and Nigeria this week stepped up efforts to broker a comprise between Zimbabwe's ruling Zanu PF party and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) to ward off the crisis of illegitimacy facing controversially elected President Robert Mugabe's new administration.
Presidents Thabo Mbeki and Olusegun Obasanjo, sensing outright isolation of Mugabe and the refusal by many Zimbabweans and the West to recognise his win, have dispatched African National Congress secretary-general Kgalema Motlanthe and prominent West African diplomat Adebayo Adedeji to try to hammer a compromise between Zanu PF and the MDC.
The MDC has also refused to recognise Mugabe's re-election, saying the March 9-11 vote was massively rigged and thousands of its supporters denied the vote.
The two envoys met MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai on Thursday and Saturday last week and outlined their brief and how they intended to proceed in trying to break the impasse.
They also met the top leadership of Zanu PF, which included national chairman John Nkomo and administration secretary Emmerson Mnangagwa, both heavily tipped to become vice presidents and possible successors to Mugabe.
Mbeki and Obasanjo have given the duo three weeks to come up with a solution that will help bridge the rift between the two political parties and arrest the deteriorating political and economic crisis in the country.
According to sources, the two Zimbabwean political parties were asked to draw up agendas for talks as the first step to finding a compromise to the current crisis.
Diplomatic sources say African leaders are frantically making efforts to bring the MDC on board through the formation of a coalition government in order to facilitate recognition of the Zimbabwean government by the international community and unlock much-needed foreign aid that has been suspended.
The MDC has said it wants fresh elections conducted under international supervision by the United Nations within the shortest possible period.
Zanu PF however wants the MDC to accept the result of the presidential election and join it in a coalition government whose composition is not yet clear.
The sources said the formation of a coalition government being pushed by Mbeki and Obasanjo was the most ideal way to stave off international isolation of Zimbabwe but has been received with mixed feelings by the governing party.
Others say Zanu PF only wants the MDC on board to facilitate international recognition and the financing of its economic recovery programme and land reforms.
It is also believed that some hardliners in Zanu PF want the current treason charges against Tsvangirai to be used as a bargaining chip to arm-twist the MDC leader into a compromise with Mugabe.
The 54-nation Commonwealth, the 15-nation European Union and most of the former Eastern Bloc states, the United States, the Scandinavian countries and most Western states and Japan have refused to recognise Mugabe's re-election saying it was a blatant fraud and marred by state-sponsored violence.
Mugabe has received support from regional leaders as well as Nigeria, Russia, Iran and China.
It would be a major mistake for Tsvangirai to join a so-called "government of national unity" in which this party would be in the minority.
It would legitimize the regime and de-legitimize him.
War Veterans' training ZANU PF youths to hunt down opposition supporters--[Excerpt] The national chairman of the Zimbabwe Victims Rehabilitation Support Network (ZVRSN), Bopoto Nyandoro, said war veterans had also set up 10 bases in Mashonaland East where suspected opposition supporters were being tortured. He said a field study undertaken by ZVRSN had revealed that opposition Movement for Democratic Change supporters were being kidnapped, tortured and forced to reveal where their colleagues lived. He said the 10 bases were at Irene Farm, Igava, Pondarossa, Michel, Gumbeze, Sheba, Nyagambe, Mohoroza, Tranquility and Safari Farm, all located around Macheke. "Their (war veterans) strategy is that they kidnap and torture political opponents and force them to reveal where other supporters are living," he told the Financial Gazette. [End Excerpt]
BTW, Nigera is an absolute hell hole . Even the bottled wine has filth floatn in it. The food, in the open air markets is putrid, rancid, and rotting.
"Mbeki and Obasanjo have given the duo three weeks to come up with a solution that will help bridge the rift between the two political parties and arrest the deteriorating political and economic crisis in the country."
And if they don't ? What then ?
"It is also believed that some hardliners in Zanu PF want the current treason charges against Tsvangirai to be used as a bargaining chip to arm-twist the MDC leader into a compromise with Mugabe."
They are desperate.
"Mugabe has received support from regional leaders as well as Nigeria, Russia, Iran and China."
And they are irrelevant. None of these countries has the means to effect any change in Zimbabwe.
And Mugabe has created a pariah group in these young thugs, just as the child soldiers in Sierra Leone, Uganda and Liberia became pariahs to their own families who wanted nothing to do with them when it was over. When individuals brutalize, they themselves become brutes.
And Gadaafi has been giving Mugabe money and muscle*****More sinister is the fact that Gadaafi insisted on calling into conclave Harare's small community of Indian Muslims, telling them that they must assist Mugabe's plans by declaring a jihad (holy war) to throw the whites out. If they did not do this, he told the Muslim elders, he would bring in strong arm men from the Pagad movement in Cape Town with which he had close links. There has long been speculation that Gadaafi might have links to Pagad, an extremist Muslim vigilante movement often linked to bombings and murders in the Cape, including bomb attacks on US-linked enterprises such as the Planet Hollywood restaurant on the Cape waterfront, but this is the first open confirmation of the fact.
The bulk of Harare's Muslim community, consisting largely of merchants and professionals, was aghast at this demand and has failed to declare a jihad ,a failure which they believe lies behind the sudden spate of attacks on Muslim shops by Zanu-PF youths in the last ten days. For heaven's sake, said one Muslim merchant, we all do business with whites all the time. We rely on them and most of us are appalled by what Mugabe's doing. It's obvious that those youths who were sent to attack white and Muslim shops were meant to be punishing us for not complying.
However, Gadaafi - like Mugabe a virtual paranoiac in matters of personal security - had also left behind two extra bodyguards for Mugabe and four specialist coordinators. These men are believed to have experience in the training and handling of death squads and they have, in the last month, bought up 20 houses right around Zimbabwe to act as safe houses for the squads. The houses are strategically scattered only four are in Harare and there is one in every regional town or centre of any size. ****
And Gadaafi has been giving Mugabe money and muscle*****More sinister is the fact that Gadaafi insisted on calling into conclave Harare's small community of Indian Muslims, telling them that they must assist Mugabe's plans by declaring a jihad (holy war) to throw the whites out. If they did not do this, he told the Muslim elders, he would bring in strong arm men from the Pagad movement in Cape Town with which he had close links. There has long been speculation that Gadaafi might have links to Pagad, an extremist Muslim vigilante movement often linked to bombings and murders in the Cape, including bomb attacks on US-linked enterprises such as the Planet Hollywood restaurant on the Cape waterfront, but this is the first open confirmation of the fact.
The bulk of Harare's Muslim community, consisting largely of merchants and professionals, was aghast at this demand and has failed to declare a jihad ,a failure which they believe lies behind the sudden spate of attacks on Muslim shops by Zanu-PF youths in the last ten days. For heaven's sake, said one Muslim merchant, we all do business with whites all the time. We rely on them and most of us are appalled by what Mugabe's doing. It's obvious that those youths who were sent to attack white and Muslim shops were meant to be punishing us for not complying.
However, Gadaafi - like Mugabe a virtual paranoiac in matters of personal security - had also left behind two extra bodyguards for Mugabe and four specialist coordinators. These men are believed to have experience in the training and handling of death squads and they have, in the last month, bought up 20 houses right around Zimbabwe to act as safe houses for the squads. The houses are strategically scattered only four are in Harare and there is one in every regional town or centre of any size. ****
Another parallel is that Idi Amin was reputed to have syphilis dementia as is Mugabe.
Islam is most definitely on the march in sub-Sahara Africa and would love to see the extension of its influence there. Apparently Libya is buying farms in Zimbabwe and in South Africa.
We need to be sure these stories get that in the posting headline.
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