Mbeki visits Zimbabwe

| Friday May 9, 2008 00:00

Mbeki, the Southern African Development Community (SADC)'s mediator on Zimbabwe, earlier this week dispatched senior aide Sydney Mufamadi to meet political players in Zimbabwe over violence that has broken out across the country since March 29 polls won by the opposition.

'He is coming to meet Mugabe and the opposition to discuss the violence and to try to see if there could be a kind of a way forward,' said one diplomat, who spoke on condition he was not named.

Both Mbeki's spokesman Mukoni Ratshitanga and Mugabe's spokesman George Charamba were not immediately available for comment on the matter.

Political violence broke out in many parts of Zimbabwe almost immediately it became clear that opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai and his Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party had defeated Mugabe and his ZANU PF party in the March polls.

The MDC and human rights groups have accused Mugabe of unleashing ZANU PF militias and the army to beat and torture Zimbabweans into backing him in a second round presidential ballot.

The run-off presidential election is due to be held at a yet unknown date after the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission said Tsvangirai defeated Mugabe but failed to garner more than 50 percent of the vote needed to take power under the country's electoral laws. The MDC says at least 24 of its supporters have been murdered while another 5 000 have been displaced in the violence that has raised international outcry with United Nations chief Ban Ki-Moon, the United States and Zimbabwe's former colonial power Britain urging African leaders to do more to end the crisis.

The Harare administration denies authorising violence and instead says it is the MDC that has carried out political violence to tarnish Mugabe's name.

Mbeki, who controls Africa's biggest economy and is Mugabe's most important neighbour, is seen as best positioned to influence the Zimbabwean leader to back off from violence and remove all impediments to the democratic process.  

However, Mbeki has faced criticism over his handling of the Zimbabwe crisis not least from the MDC, which says he has failed to apply pressure on Mugabe, and says he should be relieved of his duties as SADC chief mediator. (ZimOnline)