Zimbabwean opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai rejected an African Union (AU) decision to keep South Africa’s president solely in charge of efforts to resolve Zimbabwe’s political crisis.
Speaking to reporters at his home in Harare, Tsvangirai said on Wednesday that his group would not participate in talks about forming a governing accord with President Robert Mugabe’s government unless an additional mediator was appointed.
The opposition leader’s comments came a day after an AU summit reconfirmed South African President Thabo Mbeki as mediator.
“Our reservations about the mediation process under President Mbeki are well known,” said Tsvangirai, head of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). “Unless the mediation team is expanded ... and the mediation mechanism is changed, no meaningful progress can be made toward resolving the Zimbabwe crisis.”
“If this does not happen, then the MDC will not be part of the mediation process,” Tsvangirai said.
Tsvangirai has repeatedly called on Mbeki to step down from his mediation role, saying Mbeki’s refusal to publicly criticize Mugabe amounts to appeasement. Mugabe has extolled Mbeki’s role.
The opposition “as the winner of the last credible elections on March 29, 2008, should be recognized as the legitimate government of Zimbabwe,” Tsvangirai said. “While the MDC remains committed to negotiations, these must be based on the March 29 results and must move towards a transitional agreement.”
Tsvangirai said violence against Mugabe critics had continued, with at least nine supporters killed and hundreds beaten and forced to flee since a one-candidate presidential runoff held last Friday.
US Ambassador to Zimbabwe James McGee said a Zimbabwean driver for the embassy disappeared three days ago, emerging on Wednesday to say he had been accosted by unknown assailants, blindfolded and taken to a small room where he was questioned and denied food or water.
The incident appeared to be an attempt to intimidate people connected with the US embassy, which has been a vocal critic of Mugabe.
“The violence seems to be at least at the same level [as before the runoff]. It may even be getting worse,” McGee said in an interview. “We’ve heard stories, unconfirmed, of hit lists. But we do know for a fact that people are being murdered. People continue to disappear.”
Tsvangirai came in first in a field of four in the first round of presidential voting in March. Electoral officials said Tsvangirai did not win the simple majority and scheduled a runoff against second-place finisher Mugabe. State-supported violence against opposition members forced Tsvangirai to withdraw days before Friday’s runoff.
Mugabe held the vote anyway, despite international condemnation.
He was declared the overwhelming winner on Sunday and immediately held an inauguration ceremony.
Zimbabwean state media, meanwhile, focused on Wednesday on reports that the government was willing to talk and prominently showed official tallies from last week’s runoff, apparently to underline Mugabe’s expectations of being the senior partner in any deal with Tsvangirai.
Mbeki’s spokesman, Mukoni Ratshitanga, said any question of expanding the mediation team would have to be left to the Southern African Development Community, the main regional body that appointed Mbeki mediator more than a year ago and the group that the AU has said should remain in charge of the effort.
Mbeki told his state broadcaster he saw his role as merely helping Zimbabweans resolve their crisis themselves, rejecting outside intervention, such as calls from European nations, to void what they saw as a sham election.
French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner told France 2 public TV that the EU would not accept any Zimbabwean government other than one led by Tsvangirai and called last week’s presidential runoff a “farce.”
EU spokesman John Clancy added on Wednesday that EU governments were studying possible additional sanctions against Mugabe and his government, in addition to already existing travel bans and an assets freeze in place on Mugabe, his Cabinet ministers and top party officials. Those could include further aid cuts or economic sanctions preventing European companies from doing business in Zimbabwe.
The US is also considering tougher sanctions.
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