Mugabe rejects talks with Tsvangirai

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By Staff Reporter

ZIMBABWEAN President Robert Mugabe is rejecting pressure from fellow African leaders to re-start talks with the opposition on political reforms, the state-run Herald said on Tuesday.

The Herald reported Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, the current chair of the 53-nation African Union (AU), met Mugabe twice last week on the sidelines of a AU summit in Libya to press him to re-open negotiations with the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).

President Thabo Mbeki also held a meeting with Mugabe in Sirte to push for crisis talks with MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai, the newspaper said.
But Mugabe's spokesperson George Charamba was quoted in the report as saying the only contact the government would have with the MDC would be in parliament.

"We went to an election, the MDC was rewarded with what the voter thinks it deserves - namely 41 seats - that earned it a place in parliament and within which any contact envisaged with the ruling party will take place.

"We are convinced this is sufficient contact," said Charamba.

Mugabe has in the past steadfastly ruled out talks with the opposition, charging the MDC is a front for Britain which he accuses of being bent on driving him from office.

Talks brokered by South Africa and Nigeria between the MDC and the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union - Patriotic Front (Zanu-PF) broke down in May 2002 after participants agreed only on the agenda.

The following year church leaders engaged in shuttle diplomacy between the two sides to resuscitate the talks, but to no avail.

Representatives of the two parties later met in an effort to prepare for the substantive talks, but nothing has come of it.

Zimbabwe is in the throes of economic and political crises with unemployment hovering at 70%, severe shortages of fuel and food and hyperinflation that is rendering the national currency worthless.

A housing demolition campaign launched nearly two months ago has compounded the crisis as hundreds of thousands of Zimbabweans have been left homeless.

The opposition has called for changes to the constitution and electoral reforms following three polls in 2000, 2002 and in March this year that the MDC has said were undemocratic - Sapa/AFP
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