Full-scale talks aimed at resolving Zimbabwe’s months-long political crisis are now expected to begin in South Africa today, a report in state media said yesterday.
Zimbabwean Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa, chief negotiator for President Robert Mugabe’s ZANU-PF party, told the Herald it had been agreed with the opposition to begin the talks only when all the delegates were in place.
“All parties to the dialogue agreed that talks should begin on Thursday,” he told the daily.
The talks had initially been due to begin on Tuesday but Chinamasa said that all the delegates should now arrive in South Africa by the end of yesterday and would then “travel to the venue for the talks, wherever that would be.”
Chinamasa and ZANU-PF’s other senior negotiator Nicholas Goche stayed in Harare on Tuesday to attend a Cabinet meeting while opposition officials also delayed their travel plans.
A source in the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) said its top negotiator Tendai Biti had flown out of Harare yesterday but it was not known whether the party’s Bulawayo-based chairman Lovemore Moyo had left.
Mugabe, main MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai and Arthur Mutambara, head of a breakaway opposition faction, penned a memorandum of understanding on Monday to pave the way for talks.
“This is just the first step on a journey whose duration and success is dependent on the sincerity and good faith of all parties involved,” Tsvangirai said in a statement Tuesday.
Although the venue of the talks has been kept under wraps, the negotiations are expected to take place in Pretoria. The rivals have set themselves a tight two-week timeline to wrap up the talks aimed at agreeing on the line-up of a new government.
Mugabe was re-elected in a one-man run-off last month after Tsvangirai pulled out, citing a campaign of intimidation and violence against his supporters that had killed dozens and injured thousands. The vote was widely condemned in the West as a sham, with the EU warning that it would not deal with a government unless headed by Tsvangirai.
EU foreign ministers agreed in Brussels to strengthen sanctions against Mugabe as a means of pressuring him to agree to share power with the opposition — a sign the West plans to keep the pressure on Mugabe.
British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said Monday’s face-to-face meeting between Mugabe and Tsvangirai — their first in 10 years — was only “a first step,” and that EU nations were expecting more proof that Mugabe was willing to sign up to a transitional government with the opposition.
Also See: A screwdriver, not a hammer, could help to heal Zimbabwe
Drug lord Jose Adolfo Macias Villamar, alias “Fito,” was Ecuador’s most-wanted fugitive before his arrest on Wednesday, more than a year after he escaped prison from where he commanded the country’s leading criminal gang. The former taxi driver turned crime boss became the prime target of law enforcement early last year after escaping from a prison in the southwestern port of Guayaquil. Ecuadoran President Daniel Noboa’s government released “wanted” posters with images of his face and offered US$1 million for information leading to his capture. In a country plagued by crime, members of Fito’s gang, Los Choneros, have responded with violence, using car
Two former Chilean ministers are among four candidates competing this weekend for the presidential nomination of the left ahead of November elections dominated by rising levels of violent crime. More than 15 million voters are eligible to choose today between former minister of labor Jeannette Jara, former minister of the interior Carolina Toha and two members of parliament, Gonzalo Winter and Jaime Mulet, to represent the left against a resurgent right. The primary is open to members of the parties within Chilean President Gabriel Boric’s ruling left-wing coalition and other voters who are not affiliated with specific parties. A recent poll by the
TENSIONS HIGH: For more than half a year, students have organized protests around the country, while the Serbian presaident said they are part of a foreign plot About 140,000 protesters rallied in Belgrade, the largest turnout over the past few months, as student-led demonstrations mount pressure on the populist government to call early elections. The rally was one of the largest in more than half a year student-led actions, which began in November last year after the roof of a train station collapsed in the northern city of Novi Sad, killing 16 people — a tragedy widely blamed on entrenched corruption. On Saturday, a sea of protesters filled Belgrade’s largest square and poured into several surrounding streets. The independent protest monitor Archive of Public Gatherings estimated the
Irish-language rap group Kneecap on Saturday gave an impassioned performance for tens of thousands of fans at the Glastonbury Festival despite criticism by British politicians and a terror charge for one of the trio. Liam Og O hAnnaidh, who performs under the stage name Mo Chara, has been charged under the UK’s Terrorism Act with supporting a proscribed organization for allegedly waving a Hezbollah flag at a concert in London in November last year. The rapper, who was charged under the anglicized version of his name, Liam O’Hanna, is on unconditional bail before a further court hearing in August. “Glastonbury,
RSS