The Homepage of Vusumuzi Sifile Sibanda: Mugabe, Tsvangirai to meet this week

Tuesday, July 8, 2008

Mugabe, Tsvangirai to meet this week

BY Vusumuzi Sifile, Bertha Shoko, and Davison Maruziva

THE proposed new full-time mediator in the Zimbabwean crisis, AU Commission chair Jean Ping, and President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa are expected in the country this week amid speculation they will be seeking to bring MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai and President Robert Mugabe together.

African diplomats told The Standard last week that the two would be expected to arrive from the G-8 Summit in Japan and that they will be in Zimbabwe as part of efforts to get the MDC and Zanu PF to begin talks on a transitional arrangement.

Mbeki flew into Harare yesterday on his way to the G8 nations’ summit, which runs in Japan from tomorrow until Wednesday, when he and Ping are expected to travel to Zimbabwe.

During his two-hour stop over, Mbeki met Mugabe and representatives of Arthur Mutambara’s MDC formation, which was represented by Mutambara, Professor Welshman Ncube and Priscilla Misihairabwi-Mushonga at State House.

Ncube told The Standard that there had been no discussions and that the meeting had been for the leaders to mandate their negotiators to seek a settlement to the impasse.

Tsvangirai and his negotiators did not attend the meeting. They have said they will meet Mugabe in the presence of Ping.

Last week, the AU’s 11th Summit in Egypt passed a resolution enjoining the two Zimbabwean political parties to begin talks as a first step towards efforts to resolve the country’s eight-year-old crisis. The resolution also supported the proposal for a government of national unity.

Hopes of an accord between the two main political gladiators came in a week which saw prices spinning out of control, demonstrating for the first time the colossal nature of the problem facing the government and the urgency required to resolve it.

Prices of goods soared last week and for the first time since the political crisis, basic commodities were being quoted in the US dollar or the rand in what analysts said was an emphatic loss of confidence in both the government and the local currency.

Diplomats who spoke to The Standard saw this turn for the worse as one factor that could force the two parties to sit down and hammer out an acceptable means of running the country during the transitional period.

"One of the conditions is that Mugabe and Tsvangirai meet face to face," said one of the African diplomats. "Unlike Mbeki’s mediation, there will be a memorandum of understanding and a framework within which the talks will take place. The government is looking for a way out (of the crisis)."

Attempts to deal with the crisis came as more than 200 internally displaced Zimbabweans sought refuge at the US embassy in Harare, with the US ambassador to Zimbabwe, James McGee stressing that his country was and would continue to be "a friend of the suffering people of Zimbabwe. . ."

McGee was speaking in Harare on Friday during celebrations to mark the 232nd anniversary of the Independence of the United States. He said Zimbabweans deserved better.

Both Mugabe and Tsvangirai have expressed their willingness to open dialogue, but have each set conditions for participation in the talks. Tsvangirai says Mugabe should stop the violence against MDC supporters and "deZanuise" state institutions.

Tsvangirai last Wednesday said "the MDC remains committed to negotiations" based on results of the March 29 elections, not the run-off. He set conditions for dialogue.

"Our commitment to a negotiated settlement is not about power-sharing or power deals but about democracy, freedom and justice," said Tsvangirai.

"Significantly, the conditions prevailing in Zimbabwe today are not conducive to negotiations. If dialogue is to be initiated, it is essential that Zanu PF stops the violence, halts the persecution of MDC leaders and supporters, releases all political prisoners, disbands the militia bases and torture camps and that the security services halt their partisan operations."

He said he "will never compromise to betray these ideals".

"We cannot just go into those discussions or negotiations for the sake of it … The principle is a transition," Tsvangirai said. "But it must be a transition that is going to soft-land this crisis leading to elections … it should provide for a period in which a new constitution is hammered out, the deZanuisation of all these (state) institutions has to take place.

"For us it’s very simple, either they engage in negotiations or there is no engagement. They have elected themselves, they have inaugurated themselves, they can as well run the country. But we are saying we wish them good luck if they have to pursue that kind of self -destructive delusion."

In a measure indicative of the treacherous terrain the talks will need to negotiate Mugabe told a rally in Chitungwiza 12 days ago before the 27 June poll: "A Zanu PF victory does not mean we would push opposition parties into oblivion. The MDC won a considerable number of seats in Parliament, there is a role they would play in Parliament… Victory for us does not mean the death of MDC or any other party that wants to participate in our electoral process… We want our brothers in the MDC to come to us to discuss our problems…"

But speaking on his arrival from Egypt on Friday, Mugabe appeared to set conditions for talks saying the MDC should accept him as Head of State and that they should get the West to remove targeted sanctions.

Published in The Standard on 6 July 2008

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About Vusa

Vusumuzi Sifile Sibanda is a Zimbabwean journalist currently working as editor of The Mirror, a weekly newspaper in Gaborone, Botswana.

He joined the Mirror in January 2009 having worked s a Staff Writer for The Standard, Zimbabwe’s only independent Sunday newspaper for close to four years. He also had stints with the now defunct Parade Magazine and The Weekly Times newspaper.

Born in 1981 in Mberengwa, a rural district in the south western parts of Zimbabwe, on the boundary of Midlands and Matabeleland South provinces, Vusumuzi did his primary and secondary education at Danangombe Primary and Matabo Secondary schools respectively.

In 2000, he was named the best student in the Gwanda High School Advanced Level class. A year later, he became the first student from Gwanda High School to enrol at the National University of Science and Technology (NUST) in Bulawayo when he became part of 19 pioneer students in the Bachelor of Science Honours Degree in Journalism and Media Studies. He completed the programme in 2005.

While still studying at NUST in June 2003, Vusa joined Parade Magazine, then Zimbabwe’s leading monthly magazine for Industrial Attachment. The very day he joined the publicatioon, on June 2 2003, the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) embarked on their "final push". This was a real rude awakening for a young, raw journalist.

In November 2003, when all indications were that Parade would not continue publishing, Vusa left to join the World Agroforestry Centre/International Centre for Research in Agroforestry (ICRAF) where he worked as an intern communications assistant for the organisation’s Southern Africa regional programme. At ICRAF, he worked as an assistant Editor of the organisation’s regional publications, Miombo Voices ans Living with Trees in Southern Africa, as well as the organisation’s website, www.icrafsa.org. He was also a regular contributor to the organisation’s international weekly, Transformations. He also collaborated with Livai Matarirano in establishing Agroforestry Forum, an agroforestry newsletter focusing mostly on the ICRAF Zimbabwe national programmes and its partners.

In addition to his Bachelor’s Degree, Vusa also has a number of other qualifications like Reporting Politics, Multimedia and Online Journalism, Population and Rural Development. During his stay at ICRAF, Vusa participated at a number of training programmes, with the two main ones being the Integration of Gender into Agroforestry Development (2003) and Teaching with Trees in Southern Africa (2004).

Towards the end of 2004, Vusa and nine other students from his class grouped themselves to form the editorial team of The Weekly Times newspaper. Despite being inexperienced, the team managed to produce a high quality weekly newspaper, which proved to be an alternative source of information for Zimbabweans. So serious was the newspaper that the authorities saw it as a threat, resulting in it being forced to shutdown in February 2005 after publishing just six issues.

During his at The Weekly Times, Vusa also contributed to Tariro/Ithemba Magazine, a publication focusing on orphans and vulnerable children (OVC). The magazine was edited by Parkie Mbozi, his industrial attachment supervisor at ICRAF Southern Africa.

His experience as a communications assistant inspired Vusa to write a dissertation titled: “An assessment of the knowledge and understanding of agroforestry issues by newspaper journalists in Bulawayo”.

On completion of his studies, Vusa joined The Standard newspaper as a junior reporter and rose through the ranks to the position of a Senior Staff Writer. He is also a regular contributor for reputable international news agencies.

Vusa is a God fearing journalist. He is a born again member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Zimbabwe (ELCZ). Among other positions in the church, Vusa is the current chairperson of the Luther League (Youth) Fellowship in the Martin Luther Deanery of the ELCZ.

As part of his contribution towards the ministry of the Gospel of Christ, Vusumuzi is among the founders of Anointing Magazine, a fortnightly Christian magazine published in South Africa. He is the magazine’s deputy editor.

My Writings

Zimbabwe impedes Sadc intergration’

By Vusumuzi Sifile

THE continued economic and political meltdown in Zimbabwe is endangering any prospects of regional integration within the Southern Africa Development Community (Sadc), political analysts have said.
During a debate in Harare recently, the analysts were unanimous that the current situation in Zimbabwe was making it virtually impossible to integrate the region.
The debate focused on what role Zimbabwe could play in helping to integrate Sadc.
Among other factors was Zimbabwe’s inflation rate, estimated at more than 14 000% — more than 1 000 times the average across the region.
Weber Chinyadza of the MDC, who presented the argument, said although there had not been much effort in integrating the SADC region, Zimbabwe would “make the attainment of the integration objectives difficult”.
“The rest of the region is suffering as a result of Zanu PF’s misrule,” said Chinyadza. “Zimbabwe is short-changing the rest of the Sadc members. How can you integrate Zimbabwe, with an inflation of 14 000% with, say, Botswana, whose inflation rate is about seven percent?”
Chinyadza said the huge difference between the official and parallel market exchange rate was inconveniencing other countries.
The chairperson of the National Constitutional Assembly (NCA), Dr Lovemore Madhuku said “the levels of human rights abuses in Zimbabwe are not found anywhere in Sadc”.
“The extent of human rights abuses on its own makes it difficult for Zimbabwe to fit into a community of nations with respect for human rights,” Madhuku said.
“Our political culture is clearly outside the framework that is necessary for integration. Zimbabwe is not so much in a class of its own in terms of creating problems for the SADC. For example, we have Angola which still wants to rerun the 1990 presidential elections, and Swaziland which is still run by a monarchy. But the difference between Zimbabwe and those countries is that in those places there is a genuine effort to implement the Sadc guidelines on the holding of free and fair elections.”
Madhuku said Zimbabwe had polarised regional and world politics, making it difficult to implement any form of integration. He said “each time the issue of Zimbabwe is raised, so many other irrelevant issues arise, diverting people’s attention” and as such, if the “Sadc were to be serious with any form of integration, they have to handle the Zimbabwean issue with openness”.
At the same time, said Professor John Makumbe, it was impossible for the rest of Sadc to integrate without Zimbabwe, as “the country is literally at the centre of the region”.
“The country’s position at the centre of the region forces every infrastructure to somehow touch Zimbabwe. Our position makes Zimbabwe key to any efforts to integrate the region,” Makumbe said.
The newly conferred Professor jokingly added that Zimbabwe was already implementing its own form of regional integration.
“The whole country is now a training centre where people are trained and exported into the region. Zimbabwe is exporting victims of human rights violations into the region and elsewhere, forcing neighbouring countries to spend lots of money on deporting Zimbabweans,” Makumbe said.

The Homepage of Vusumuzi Sifile Sibanda

Tuesday, July 8, 2008

Mugabe, Tsvangirai to meet this week

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