Mbeki briefs Mugabe on negotiations
Mbeki briefs Mugabe on negotiationsBy George Chellah in Harare, Zimbabwe
Friday August 01, 2008 [04:00]
SOUTH African President Thabo Mbeki has expressed satisfaction at the progress of the inter-party negotiations between ZANU-PF and the two MDC formations. And MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai said he hoped the inter-party talks would give President Robert Mugabe an honourable exit.
President Mbeki flew into Harare on Wednesday to apprise President Mugabe and splinter MDC leader Professor Arthur Mutambara on the progress of the talks, which are currently adjourned.
The South African leader who had almost an hour-long closed-door meeting with President Mugabe at State House told reporters that he was in Harare to brief President Mugabe.
"I came just to brief President Mugabe about how far the negotiations process has gone. I met Tsvangirai yesterday Tuesday in Pretoria and did the same," President Mbeki said. "Talks are progressing well. Naturally, there are some matters that require negotiators to come back to consult the principals."
President Mbeki explained that negotiating teams were trying hard to stick to the agreed timeframe in the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) that was recently signed. He said the negotiators were back in Harare to consult their principals.
"They want to resume negotiations on Sunday," President Mbeki said.
Later in the day, President Mbeki met Prof Mutambara at the South African Ambassador's residence before flying back home.
And Tsvangirai told Britain's Channel 4 News that he hoped the inter-party talks would give President Mugabe an honourable exit.
"The role of Robert Mugabe and the role of Morgan Tsvangirai in the envisaged co-sharing government will have to be discussed by the negotiating parties. I am not in any position of defining what his role would be," Tsvangirai told Channel 4 News. "What I would hope is that it will allow him a process of an honourable exit."
And in a statement yesterday, MDC acting spokesperson Tapiwa Mashakada, who is also party deputy secretary general claimed that violence and murder had continued despite the inter-party dialogue process.
"In spite of the ongoing SADC-brokered dialogue in South Africa, two MDC activists were last week murdered by ZANU-PF supporters.
The body of Fungisai Ziome, an MDC activist who was abducted at her home on 23 July 2008, was discovered in a maize field on Saturday morning in Glendale, Mazowe South constituency, in Mashonaland Central Province," Mashakada stated. "Ziome, of Ward 13 in Glendale, was an active MDC supporter who was abducted by ZANU-PF supporters who then mutilated, burnt and dumped her body, which was later, discovered in the early hours of Saturday by passers-by in the area.
A report was made about the murder to the police but no arrests have been made. The MDC and Ziome's relatives are waiting for a post mortem before burial arrangements are made."
Mashakada further claimed that another person, Kingsley Muteta died at Harare's Avenues Clinic on Saturday after being beaten by a suspected mob of 12 ZANU-PF supporters at his parents' homestead in Mudzi.
Labels: MoU, MUGABE, THABO MBEKI
posted by MrK @ 4:09 AM
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