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Zambia calls emergency SADC summit on Zimbabwe
By Godfrey
Marawanyika
THE Zimbabwe opposition's bid to build up pressure on Robert Mugabe
after disputed polls bore fruit on Wednesday as plans were unveiled
for a weekend summit to discuss the escalating crisis.
Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai also accused 84-year-old President Mugabe of a "de facto military coup", saying he was deploying troops all over the country to intimidate people ahead of a possible run-off election.
While Tsvangirai toured the region, urging leaders to prevent Zimbabwe from sliding into chaos, the president of neighbouring Zambia said he would gather his peers for talks on Saturday aimed at breaking the deadlock, which has persisted since the March 29 polls.
Eleven days on from polling, there has still been no word on the outcome of the presidential election, with officials maintaining the line that they are still busy collating and verifying the votes.
But the announcement by Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa, the current chair of the 14-nation Southern African Development Community (SADC), is set to add to the pressure for the results to be finally unveiled.
"Given developments immediately following the elections, I have decided as chair of SADC to call for an extraordinary summit on Saturday 12 April to discuss ways and means of assisting the people of Zimbabwe," said Mwanawasa in a statement.
The aim of the summit would be to try and break "the current impasse as well as adopt a coordinated approach to the situation in that country."
Mwanawasa has been one of the few regional leaders to publicly voice his concerns about the situation in Zimbabwe, comparing the plight of the country's economy to the sinking of the Titanic.
South Africa's Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka said Wednesday the international community has unrealistic expectations of what South Africa could do in the Zimbabwean crisis.
Speaking at the end of a two-day visit to The Hague in the Netherlands, Mlambo-Ngcuka said it was important for the region to regroup and tackle the issue.
Mlambo-Ngcuka said: "We think it’s important that SADC regroups so that we can have an outcome that it is consistent with what you would expect after an election, and by all means we won’t allow a situation that will lead to bloodshed."
The former British colony now has a six-figure inflation rate, unemployment is beyond 80 percent while average life expectancy stands at 37 years.
Mugabe, who has presided over his country's descent from regional model to economic basket case in the 28 years since independence, has often bridled at any kind of outside intervention.
The prospect of a SADC get-together was however welcomed by Tsvangirai's party which has previously castigated the region for its "deafening silence".
"We hope that President Mugabe will be asked to stand down" at Saturday's summit, the Movement for Democratic Change's secretary-general Tendai Biti told a press conference.
Stepping up his rhetoric ahead of the summit, Tsvangirai painted a grim picture of the situation in the country in an interview with Time magazine.
"The military leaders in the establishment are trying to subvert the will of the people.
"This is, in a sense, a de facto military coup. They have rolled out military forces across the whole country, to prepare for a run-off and try to cow the population. It's an attempt to try to create conditions for Mugabe to win," he said.
Opposition hopes that the country's high court would order the commission to announce the results before the summit were dashed when a judge said he would only decide whether to issue such a ruling on Monday.
Although the aftermath of the election has so far been largely peaceful, the MDC said Mugabe loyalists had begun intimidating and attacking opposition supporters.
"Villagers have been beaten, some of our agents and candidates have been tracked and some fled their homes. People are in distress," said Chamisa.
"And the reason they are being given is that they voted the wrong way."
There was no immediate way of confirming the MDC's claims although they follow reports that Mugabe loyalists have also invaded several dozen of the country's last white-owned farms.
One key Mugabe lieutenant said the MDC were themselves guilty of fomenting unrest with their pre-emptive victory declarations.
"The (victory) claims are basically to destabilise the country," Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa told reporters.
Chinamasa also accused the white farmers of trying to stir up trouble and looking to reverse Mugabe's land reform programme under which some 4,000 farms have been expropriated by the state since the start of the decade.
"Any suggestion to reverse the land reforms is a non-starter," he said.
"They should
not play with the tail of the lion." - AFP
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