African leaders on Monday failed to break the deadlock in forming a unity government in Zimbabwe, with a fight for control of the powerful home affairs ministry threatening to sink the power-sharing deal.
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai met for 13 hours with key regional leaders, but they left with only an agreement to seek an urgent summit of 15 African nations in hopes of reaching a deal.
A communique said the two sides still disagreed on which party should control the home affairs ministry, which oversees the police.
It urged all 15 leaders of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) to hold a “summit to further review the current political situation in Zimbabwe as a matter of urgency.”
The summit urged the rivals “to genuinely commit themselves in finding a lasting solution to the current deadlock.”
“The people of Zimbabwe are faced with difficult challenges and suffering that can only be addressed once the inclusive government is in place,” it said.
The rivals signed a power-sharing deal six weeks ago that calls for 84-year-old Mugabe to remain as president while Tsvangirai becomes prime minister.
But Mugabe has refused to cede control of home affairs, which Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) says it should hold the ministry to reassure its supporters who suffered political violence during election campaigning this year.
The party accuses the police of widespread human rights abuses, a concern highlighted as 47 people were arrested and eight injured on Monday when police violently broke up a protest by 100 activists who tried to march by the summit.
Police fired teargas and beat the crowd of students and activists, just 300m from the hotel where the leaders were meeting, organizers said.
“We are shocked by this brutality” during the summit talks, he said.
The country remains paralyzed by the political battle that has crushed the hopes of ordinary Zimbabweans yearning for an end to the turmoil.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon stressed the urgency of breaking the political impasse, saying in a statement that he was “distressed about the growing human cost of the crisis in Zimbabwe, in particular given the signs that the humanitarian situation in the country may worsen.”
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