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Mbeki grilled by G8 leaders over Zimbabwe mediation

South African President Thabo Mbeki was given a fierce grilling by G8 leaders on Monday at a private meeting at which they told him that they did not believe his mediation efforts in Zimbabwe were succeeding. They also rejected his suggestion that President Robert Mugabe remain as titular head of Zimbabwe.

At what was described as a fiery meeting, US President W. George Bush, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper all challenged Mbeki’s assertion that his quiet diplomacy was working, a claim that was also questioned at the same meeting by some African leaders, including Nigerian President Umaru Yar’Adua and Ghanaian President John Kufuour.

But Mbeki warned the UK and the US that Zimbabwe could descend into civil war if they pressed for tougher sanctions against the Mugabe regime.

As the meeting took place it emerged that the tortured and burnt body of a Zimbabwe opposition party worker had been found on a farm belonging to an army colonel, two weeks after the activist was abducted. The Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) said the discovery of Joshua Bakacheza’s corpse came amid a renewed intensification of violence as the government attempts to break resistance to recognition of Mugabe’s victory in the widely condemned June 28 election.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s spokesman insisted Britain wanted an outcome in Zimbabwe that reflected the first-round election results, in which opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai gained the highest number of presidential votes and his MDC party won control of the parliament.

Britain has been accused by Mbeki’s aides of trying to persuade Tsvangirai not to meet him. Mbeki had flown to Harare for an expected meeting between Mugabe and Tsvangirai, but Tsvangirai stayed away, saying that a new mediation mechanism needed to be established to tackle the crisis. A spokesman for Japan, the G8 hosts, reported: “Some African leaders mentioned that we should bear in mind that Mugabe will retire in a few years. Putting pressure on Zimbabwe, including sanctions, might lead to internal conflict. We should be discreet and careful.”

A UN Security Council resolution drafted by the US and backed by the UK would require the freezing of financial assets of Mugabe and 11 of his officials, and a bar on their travel outside Zimbabwe.

Russia opposes sanctions on Zimbabwe, a Russian official said at the G8 meeting yesterday.

Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade also said yesterday that sanctions should not imposed.

“I said that sanctions wouldn’t be useful and that they wouldn’t change the regime,” Wade said.

“I was supported by all African leaders,” he said. “We Africans called for a continuation of mediation that’s under way.”

“I understand that Westerners have to react to public opinion, which is shocked by images of massacres. They can’t not react. But for us Africans, sanctions aren’t going to resolve anything,” he said.

Wade said he had asked Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy in separate meetings at least to delay sanctions if they insist on imposing them.

Meanwhile, Zimbabwean state media said yesterday that Mugabe’s ruling party and the MDC would resume talks to resolve the crisis.

Zimbabwean Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa told the Herald newspaper that the MDC had agreed to the resumption of negotiations with ZANU-PF under the mediation of Mbeki.
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