Southern African leaders meet on Zimbabwe crisis

MAPUTO – Zimbabwe’s rival leaders met with the head of a regional security body yesterday, ahead of an emergency summit aimed at hauling a fragile power-sharing deal out of a three-week impasse.

Mozambican leader Armando Guebuza held one-on-one talks with Zimbabwe’s veteran President Robert Mugabe and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, the opposition leader who joined a unity government in February.After their discussions, the summit was set to open with leaders from the Democratic Republic of Congo, South Africa, Swaziland and Zambia.’It’s an important meeting,’ said Tomaz Salomao, secretary general of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), the regional bloc that brokered Zimbabwe’s unity deal.’I don’t know if it will be a decisive meeting or not, but I think it will help move beyond the crisis Zimbabwe is facing,’ he added.Long-time rivals Mugabe and Tsvangirai agreed to form a unity government in the wake of deadly violence that erupted after disputed elections last year.The pact helped arrest Zimbabwe’s economic free-fall and created an opening to repair its international ties, amid Western calls for greater signs of reform from Mugabe, the country’s ruler since 1980.But the agreement has been plagued by disputes over the appointment of provincial governors and Mugabe’s unilateral re-appointment of central bank chief Gideon Gono and attorney general Johannes Tomana.Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) also claims its lawmakers have been targeted for government persecution.Tsvangirai’s decision to suspend ties on October 16 was sparked by the renewed detention of MDC treasurer Roy Bennett on terrorism charges.Armed police raided Bennett’s house last month claiming they were searching for weapons. But the MDC accused Mugabe’s Zanu-PF party and security forces opposed to the unity government of staging the raid for political reasons.After cutting ties with the ‘dishonest and unreliable’ Mugabe camp, Tsvangirai embarked on a regional tour, appealing to southern African leaders to intervene in the stand-off.Yesterday’s summit was organised by regional bloc SADC’s security and defence troika, which currently comprises Mozambique, Swaziland and Zambia and is chaired by Guebuza.Leaders from the troika countries, current SADC chair the Democratic Republic of Congo and regional powerbroker South Africa will hear a report from a fact-finding mission that visited Zimbabwe last week, said Salomao.He said the summit would also address the political situations in Lesotho and Madagascar, both of which have been plagued by instability in recent months.- Nampa-AFP