Talks to try to find a solution to Zimbabwe’s political crisis continued in Harare yesterday despite a downbeat assessment by Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe on the progress so far.
Asked by reporters after he left the talks on Monday whether the negotiations on a power-sharing government were going well, Mugabe said: “Not exactly,” but said that negotiations would continue.
Mugabe, his rivals and South African President Thabo Mbeki, who is mediating, have been in closed-door talks at a Harare hotel since Sunday morning. The talks had been expected to end on Sunday evening, and the repeated extensions indicated they were deadlocked.
The chief obstacle has been differences over what role, if any, Mugabe would have in a possible unity government. Main opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai has said he could work with moderates from Mugabe’s ZANU-PF party, but not with Mugabe. ZANU-PF has insisted Mugabe remain president, and he may be balking at ceding much power to Tsvangirai.
Mugabe left Monday’s session before Mbeki or Tsvangirai, who said as he left that “we will advise on the issues as we move forward.” He did not elaborate.
Yesterday’s session was scheduled for the afternoon, after celebrations of Armed Forces Day, a Zimbabwean national holiday.
The talks in Harare involving the top leaders expand on negotiations their deputies had been holding in South Africa since the factions signed a July 21 agreement setting out terms for power-sharing negotiations.
In a speech earlier on Monday, Mugabe called the July 21 agreement an “auspicious development [that] has paved the way for full-scale negotiations raising the prospect for an all-inclusive government.”
Days after the talks framework was signed, US President George W. Bush expanded the number of Mugabe loyalists subjected to travel and other sanctions. That week, the EU broadened similar sanctions.
“It is regrettable that our detractors continue to impose more sanctions,” Mugabe said in his speech. “We therefore call on Britain and its allies to remove sanctions to enable us to freely chart our destinies.”
Mugabe has repeatedly accused former colonial power Britain of plotting to subjugate Zimbabwe again. But on Monday, he did not return to his accusations that the opposition was Britain’s puppet.
Mugabe spoke in English and Shona on Monday for about 25 minutes — unusually brief for him — to more than 10,000 people at a cemetery outside Harare on the holiday honoring political leaders and veterans of the struggle against colonial rule.
The March elections led to waves of violence across Zimbabwe.
Tsvangirai came first in a field of four, but did not win by the margin necessary to avoid a second round against second-place finisher Mugabe. Tsvangirai withdrew from the June 27 runoff because of attacks on his supporters blamed on Mugabe’s party militants and security forces.
HISTORIC: After the arrest of Kim Keon-hee on financial and political funding charges, the country has for the first time a former president and former first lady behind bars South Korean prosecutors yesterday raided the headquarters of the former party of jailed former South Korean president Yoon Suk-yeol to gather evidence in an election meddling case against his wife, a day after she was arrested on corruption and other charges. Former first lady Kim Keon-hee was arrested late on Tuesday on a range of charges including stock manipulation and corruption, prosecutors said. Her arrest came hours after the Seoul Central District Court reviewed prosecutors’ request for an arrest warrant against the 52-year-old. The court granted the warrant, citing the risk of tampering with evidence, after prosecutors submitted an 848-page opinion laying out
STAGNATION: Once a bastion of leftist politics, the Aymara stronghold of El Alto is showing signs of shifting right ahead of the presidential election A giant cruise ship dominates the skyline in the city of El Alto in landlocked Bolivia, a symbol of the transformation of an indigenous bastion keenly fought over in tomorrow’s presidential election. The “Titanic,” as the tallest building in the city is known, serves as the latest in a collection of uber-flamboyant neo-Andean “cholets” — a mix of chalet and “chola” or Indigenous woman — built by Bolivia’s Aymara bourgeoisie over the past two decades. Victor Choque Flores, a self-made 46-year-old businessman, forked out millions of US dollars for his “ship in a sea of bricks,” as he calls his futuristic 12-story
FORUM: The Solomon Islands’ move to bar Taiwan, the US and others from the Pacific Islands Forum has sparked criticism that Beijing’s influence was behind the decision Tuvaluan Prime Minister Feletei Teo said his country might pull out of the region’s top political meeting next month, after host nation Solomon Islands moved to block all external partners — including China, the US and Taiwan — from attending. The Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) leaders’ meeting is to be held in Honiara in September. On Thursday last week, Solomon Islands Prime Minister Jeremiah Manele told parliament that no dialogue partners would be invited to the annual gathering. Countries outside the Pacific, known as “dialogue partners,” have attended the forum since 1989, to work with Pacific leaders and contribute to discussions around
END OF AN ERA: The vote brings the curtain down on 20 years of socialist rule, which began in 2005 when Evo Morales, an indigenous coca farmer, was elected president A center-right senator and a right-wing former president are to advance to a run-off for Bolivia’s presidency after the first round of elections on Sunday, marking the end of two decades of leftist rule, preliminary official results showed. Bolivian Senator Rodrigo Paz was the surprise front-runner, with 32.15 percent of the vote cast in an election dominated by a deep economic crisis, results published by the electoral commission showed. He was followed by former Bolivian president Jorge “Tuto” Quiroga in second with 26.87 percent, according to results based on 92 percent of votes cast. Millionaire businessman Samuel Doria Medina, who had been tipped
RSS