The MDC led by Morgan Tsvangirai has said the issue of sanctions and so called ‘pirate radio stations’ was not their responsibility.

Addressing civil leaders in Bulawayo MDC National Chairman Lovemore Moyo,MDC-Matobo South., said the MDC flatly refused at the talks to speak out against a targeted travel ban on Mugabe and 106 senior ZANU PF members.

“The document we signed was clear that we refused responsibility for calling off the sanctions and clearly stated that it was not us who said Zanu PF supporters should beat up and rape people,” Moyo said.

Moyo also revealed that the so called one issue Mugabe and Mutambara agree with is that the Prime Minister should lead a few selected ministries and not have any executive powers.

“The deadlock in the talks arose out of a disagreement on who should have executive powers between the President and the Prime Minister and we could not agree on that as the two parties,” Moyo told the gathering.

“Zanu-PF proposed that Mugabe should have executive powers and should appoint Cabinet and chair Cabinet meetings while the Prime Minister should lead certain ministries and have no executive powers. We felt it would be wrong for the MDC to accept Mugabe as executive President”,said Moyo.

Another senior MDC official official said the issue of radio stations based outside Zimbabwe was out of place in the talks, ‘I was surprised to see the so called pirate radio stations included in the MOU,this is a non issue,ZANU PF must realise that these radio stations came about as a result of their repressive policies,this is more evidence of ZANU PF’s culture of dealing with symptoms instead of the disease …they should free the airwaves first’, he said.

‘Some of these stations are private companies and how do they expect the MDC to approach a private company and tell them to shut down.’, he added.

ZANU PF’s language describing the radio stations and agitation that they should be dismantled sharply resembles the same intolerance exhibited by P. K. van der Byl,Rhodesian’s information minister who once referred to the liberation movements ’s external radio stations as ‘Terrorist propaganda waves’.

During the Chimurenga war, the ‘Voice of Zimbabwe’ radio was beamed from Maputo, Mozambique. Zapu’s People’s Voice radio was broadcasted from Dar es Salaam, Lusaka, Cairo and on Radio Moscow.

The stations provided a different account of events and provided an alternative to the state media which was biased in favour of Ian Smith regime.

There are no independent radio stations in Zimbabwe and an attempt to launch one Capitol radio was immediately squashed by then Minister of Information Jonathan Moyo forcing its founder,former ZBC presenter Gerry Jackson to relaunch it from the United Kingdom as SW Radio Africa.

Contact the writer of this story at bulawayo@metrozimbabwe.com