'Mbeki not a credible mediator'

04/05/2008 21:05  - (SA)

Johannesburg - President Thabo Mbeki can no longer be considered a credible mediator in the Zimbabwe crisis, the Democratic Alliance's parliamentary leader, Sandra Botha, said on Sunday.

When Parliament reconvened on Tuesday, Botha said, she intended moving a motion calling for a debate on the post-election crisis in Zimbabwe, and more specifically, probing Mbeki and the SA government's "distinct lack of action" on the matter.

Botha last month gave a representative of Foreign minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma a letter detailing proposed demands to the Mugabe government to help bring about an end to the post-election violence and political stalemate in Zimbabwe.

If the Zimbabwean government failed to meet these demands, the DA proposed that SA pursue more stringent measures, such as imposing targeted travel and financial sanctions on Zanu-PF's ruling elite, and calling for an international arms embargo on the country.

Despite having received these proposals, government had yet to respond to the crisis in any significant way, Botha said.

"To add insult to injury, we now know from reports in the media that President Mbeki not only endorsed the effort by Robert Mugabe's Zanu-PF to procure a massive cache of arms and ammunition from China, but that Mbeki instructed the Ministry of Defence and the National Conventional Arms Control Committee to allow the arms transfer to continue unhindered."

This morally bankrupt move would have contributed to the violent suppression of the Zimbabwean people by the military and the police there.

This was "further evidence that President Mbeki can no longer be considered a credible mediator in the Zimbabwe crisis".

Mbeki defends Zim stance

17/04/2008 10:36  - (SA) 

Johannesburg - South African President Thabo Mbeki defended his "quiet diplomacy" approach in Zimbabwe saying that "loud diplomacy" was no diplomacy and that his "no crisis" assessment had been misinterpreted, South African radio reported on Thursday.

"This story I said there was no crisis in Zimbabwe ... I haven't the slightest clue where it comes from," Mbeki said following a special UN Security Council session in New York, where African leaders were pressed to act on the post-election impasse in Zimbabwe.

Speaking to reporters after the meeting, Mbeki said his declaration in the Zimbabwean capital Harare at the weekend that there was no crisis was in response to a question about "the elections ... not about the socio-economic conditions or anything like that".

Mbeki, SADC's mediator in Zimbabwe, has been under fire in recent days for downplaying the tensions in South Africa's neighbour to the north.

Examining criticism of his softly-softly approach to Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, Mbeki asked: "What is loud diplomacy? Well it is not diplomacy, it can't be."

While some countries "may shout", southern African countries had a responsibility to try to broker agreement between Mugabe's Zanu-PF party and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), Mbeki said.

"I am quite certain it would be wrong for us to be shouting at the ZEC (Zimbabwe Electoral Commission)," he said.

Nineteen days after Zimbabweans voted in presidential elections the state-controlled ZEC is refusing to release the results.

MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai claims he won the presidency, but Mugabe's party says neither Tsvangirai nor Mugabe won outright and that a run-off is needed.

'A stolen election would not be an election at all'

"The credibility of the democratic process in Africa could be at stake here," UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon told the Security Council meeting on UN-African co-operation.

"If there is a second round of elections, they must be conducted in a fair and transparent manner, with international observers."

Mbeki's remarks about "loud diplomacy" appeared aimed at British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, leader of Zimbabwe's former colonial power, who warned Mugabe against stealing the election.

"A stolen election would not be an election at all," Brown said in New York.

A close aide to Mugabe reacted angrily to Brown's remarks accusing Britain of bribing election officials to achieve "regime change" and Brown of treating Zimbabwe like a colony.

"We tell him (Brown) clearly and without ambiguity that we are not a colony of the British," Patrick Chinamasa, who was reappointed as Justice Minister by Mugabe despite the poll outcome being unknown, said in remarks reported by the state-controlled Herald newspaper.

Meanwhile, South African police said they had cleared a Chinese ship carrying weapons, allegedly for Zimbabwe, to dock in the port of Durban.

"There are arms on the vessel and the ship is on the outer anchorage of the port and it's been docked here since April 14," a spokesperson for the police explosives unit in Durban said.

A customs official told Sapa on Wednesday there was a shipment destined for Zimbabwe.

It was not possible to immediately verify the report with Zimbabwean authorities. - Sapa-dpa

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US paper slams Mbeki

16/04/2008 15:55  - (SA)

Cape Town - The respected Washington Post newspaper has blasted President Thabo Mbeki for his policy towards Zimbabwe and accused the South African president of siding with Robert Mugabe against the people of Zimbabwe.

In a scathing editorial published on Tuesday the paper calls President Mbeki's foreign policy "perverse and immoral".

It says South Africa has consistently allied itself with the world's rogue states and against the Western democracies since serving a term on the UN Security Council last year.

South Africa "has defended Iran's nuclear programme and resisted sanctions against it; shielded Sudan and Burma from the sort of pressure the United Nations once directed at the apartheid regime; and enthusiastically supported one-sided condemnations of Israel by the UN Human Rights Council".

President Mbeki said on Saturday there was "no crisis" in Zimbabwe after holding his first face-to-face talks with Robert Mugabe since the Zimbabwe's disputed March 29 elections.

Mbeki, who stopped in Harare on his way to join southern African leaders in Zambia for an emergency meeting on Zimbabwe, said people should wait for the election commission to announce the long-awaited presidential result.

The Post said in its editorial that the only good news in "this sordid story" is that Mbeki's policy is increasingly unpopular in South Africa.

"The new president of Mr Mbeki's own African National Congress, Jacob Zuma, has distanced himself from the Zimbabwe posture, as have the party's secretary general and treasurer.

"Zuma defeated Mr Mbeki in a party election in December and is the front-runner to succeed him when he leaves office in a year. So democracy may yet rectify a foreign policy that is shaming South Africa - and preventing an end to Zimbabwe's misery".

Read the Washington Post editorial here.

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