'Elders' urge MDC to join unity government

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• Motlanthe wants Zim rivals to be sworn-in

• Tsvangirai eyes new Zimbabwe government in 2 months

• South Africa withholds aid to Zimbabwe

• Text: statement by South Africa cabinet on Zimbabwe

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• MDC (Tsvangirai) national council resolutions

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• Zanu PF asks Mugabe to form new government

• SADC leans heavily on Tsvangirai to share Home Affairs

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• Document: SADC communique on Zimbabwe, DRC

Posted to the web: 25/11/2008 08:50:46
THE Elders have urged Zimbabwe’s opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) to go into government with President Robert Mugabe in the interests of the country, as a fresh round of talks on a power sharing government opened in South Africa.

Former UN secretary general Kofi Annan, former US president Jimmy Carter and Mozambican social activist Graca Machel were briefing journalists in Johannesburg about their three-day fact-finding mission on Zimbabwe’s humanitarian crisis.

After being barred from travelling to Zimbabwe, the three met in South Africa with the leaders of Zimbabwe’s neighbours, South Africa and Botswana, Zimbabwe’s MDC faction leaders, Morgan Tsvangirai and Arthur Mutambara, and representatives of NGOs, Western donors and UN agencies.

Carter said the reports they had received were “all indications that the crisis in Zimbabwe is much worse than anything we had ever imagined”.

People were queuing for hours at bank ATMs to withdraw a maximum Z$500,000, “about two cents in US dollars, not even enough to pay for a third of a loaf of bread.”

While inflation was officially put at 231mn%, the actual inflation rate was “2,000 times greater than that,” Carter said.

All public universities and the country’s four main hospitals had closed and Zimbabweans were succumbing at an alarming rate to a cholera outbreak that has claimed nearly 300 lives since August and infected 6,500 people, he said.

The crisis in Zimbabwe has tracked the political crisis caused by the breakdown in power-sharing talks between Mugabe’s Zanu PF party and Tsvangirai’s MDC.

Calling on the parties, who began a fresh round of talks on Tuesday, to implement their September unity deal, Carter said the MDC could try to redress the power imbalance after the government is up and running by using its parliamentary majority to pursue a reform agenda.

“If there are any obvious inequities subsequently in the proper sharing or dividing of power they can be corrected some of them at least not only by immediate changes to the law but over a period of time,” until a new constitution was in place or over the next 18 months, Carter said.

Machel also warned against wishing Mugabe, 84, out of the picture.

“As we stand, the institutions of power are in certain hands. You have to work with those hands to open them and release it.”

Tsvangirai’s MDC rejected the call by the Elders that it should form a unity government with President Mugabe - and work through the kinks later.

"We understand the direness and precariousness of the situation but a longer gestation period (for the unity government) makes more sense than a short period that will result in abortion," spokesman Nelson Chamisa said.

The Elders is a brains trust of leading activists and former world leaders founded by anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela on his 89th birthday in 2007.

Mugabe’s government denied them visas to enter Zimbabwe over the weekend, saying they had not consulted officials about their visit. The rebuff followed allegations in state media that their visit was a “partisan mission” and a “rescue package” for the MDC.

Annan criticised Zimbabwe’s neighbours in the 15-nation Southern African Development Community for its softly-softly approach towards Mugabe, who has clung onto power despite placing second to Tsvangirai in a March presidential vote and his party having its parliamentary majority overturned by the two MDC factions.

“I think it’s obvious that SADC could have and should have maybe done more,” he said.

Carter advised SADC, the African Union and the UN to send teams to assess the situation in Zimbabwe, a once bountiful country where over 3 million people now need food assistance because of the government’s disastrous policies and recurring drought.

“I don’t think it is wise to keep this horrible tragedy a secret.”

Earlier, South Africa’s ruling African National Congress (ANC) leader Jacob Zuma said the ANC would send envoys to Zimbabwe because the situation demanded more than a “wait and see” approach.

Zuma warned that the two sides needed to urgently reach an agreement to tackle the cholera outbreak that has killed nearly 300 people, including four who had come to South Africa to seek treatment.

“Let us find a way to implement the agreement for the sake of Zimbabweans. We cannot stay with the agreement without implementing it. It is now an urgent matter, because people are dying. The Elders believe the situation in Zimbabwe is very bad. They believe that things could collapse in a few months time,” Zuma said.

He added: “There is an outbreak of cholera. We got it from Zimbabwe. So we are not dealing with a theoretical situation. We are dealing with a situation that is affecting the lives of people.”
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