HARARE – Talks aimed at resolving Zimbabwe’s protracted political crisis finally started in Harare Monday afternoon with the three parties in government haggling over their differences for nearly half a day.
Professor Welshman Ncube, negotiating on behalf of the MDC-Mutambara faction.
After missing the first 15 day deadline set by the SADC Troika in Mozambique early this month, the parties started their talks at 12pm on Monday and adjourned at 11pm.
SADC gave the parties 15 days and no further than 30 days to resolve their disputes.
All the six negotiators were present while and there were no additional persons in the negotiations.
According to Industry and Commerce minister, Professor Welshman Ncube, the talks were set to resume Tuesday.
They will run every day until the negotiating parties satisfy themselves they have exhausted all the outstanding issues raised by the MDC and Zanu-PF as per the Global Political Agreement (GPA) and the SADC communiqué in South Africa in January this year.
Ncube, secretary general of the smaller MDC faction led by Deputy Prime Minister Arthur Mutambara said the parties would not be pressured by the dates set by SADC.
“The 30 days set by the Troika is a timeframe for the facilitator to report the status of the talks and give whatever guidance he wants to give but we are certainly not guided by any deadline. We have never done that and we will never do it,” he said.
Ncube said there was no renewed acrimony among the parties during Monday talks.
“You are talking about people who have been negotiating for the past two or more years. There was nothing unusual whatsoever,” he said.
He further said there is nothing that has changed in the manner in which they have been conducting their talks even after the Troika summit in Maputo passed what sounded like an ultimatum on the feuding parties.
He said the negotiators will not be making any regular reports on the progress of the talks to their principals unless they ask for reports.
He also said South African President and facilitator in the talks has not informed them on his visit to assess the progress of the talks.
While the public acrimony has been between the mainstream MDC and Zanu-PF, Ncube said his MDC party also has its own demands on the fulfilment of the GPA,
“We are fighting for ourselves,” he said. “We have issues of our own. The fact that we are not masters at playing politics, grandstanding or defections does not mean we have no issues.
“We have our issues and lots of those issues which are in the public domain, We have issues about provincial governors, issues about themedia and so forth.”
As usual, Zanu-PF is being represented by Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa and Transport Minister Nicholas Goche while the MDC party led by Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai is represented by Finance Minister Tendai Biti and Elton Mangoma, minister responsible for investment promotion.
The smaller faction of the MDC is represented by Ncube and Priscilla Miscihairabwi Mushonga, in charge of regional integration.
The MDC seeks the reversal of all unilateral appointments of Zanu-PF loyalists by President Robert Mugabe which were made after the signing of the GPA in September last year.
They include those of the Attorney General, Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe governor, provincial governors and ambassadors.
The MDC also wants its treasurer general Roy Bennett, who is currently being tried for terrorism, to be unconditionally sworn into his position as deputy minister of agriculture.
It is also seeking a stop to continued invasions on productive farms by Zanu-PF supporters, state media bias against it, the failure by the National Security Council to meet regularly and the continued arrest of its activists on spurious.
Zanu-PF also wants the MDC to unequivocally commit itself to making calls for the lifting of western imposed targeted sanctions on its officials and businesses and the demolition of the so-called parallel government structures which it claims Tsvangirai is forming.
Additional Reporting: The Zimbabwe Times
What a joke this is; these people are not serious at all. Let’s just have new elections and save ourselves the trouble of waiting a few years while these politicians decide what they want to do.
Somebody said that if the politicians had invented football they would have been negotiating now whether the ball should be round or cuboid.
Welshman Ncube is now showing his true colors. They use these radio stations all the time and now they turn around and say this??
VOA Studio 7:
Informed sources say the talks are still being held up by bickering and a bloated agenda.Sources said Zanu-PF supported by the MDC formation of deputy prime minister Arthur Mutambara sought inclusion of the potentially divisive issue of so-called pirate radio stations such as VOA’S Washington based Studio 7 and London based SW Radio Africa, urging Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai to halt their broadcasts.
The MDC says it cannot control broadcasts from outside Z imbabwe. Both Zanu-PF and MDC sources say the talks are still in preliminary stages and no substantive issues have been discussed so far.
There seem to be a complete realization that they did put themselves in both political cul-de-sucs and oblivions. You fail to implement issues agreed almost 15mnths ago and gvt coffers are dry for patronages, campaigns, electoral by-elections, reforms, media reforms and Morgan is now being saluted by an oil rich and more powerful army, airforce, police and navy- my God as I see and smell bad breath from all electoral rejects. A nwe mediation assessment team is now in place to monitor progress as Mbeki seems to be now history. Even if MDC-T shouts on top of their voices they cant do anything to private radios, media and internet stations with Obama shouting about evils of Gukurahundi I do not see sanction being removed but the illegal ones will soon be replaced by legal ones after all nothing changed with the advent of the GNU/GPA as far as democracy is concerned.
Zuze, why did your morons sign a GPA which included those issues if they knew they had no control over them? They made their bed and must now lie on it or else they should fall on their swords.morons!!!