MBEKI TO HOLD TALKS WITH MUGABE !
South African President Thabo Mbeki is in Zimbabwe for talks with Robert Mugabe, amid growing concern over violence ahead of next week's poll.
Mr Mbeki has mediated between Mr Mugabe and the opposition MDC, which said it expected little from the talks.
President Mugabe will face MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai in a second round presidential election on 27 June.
The meeting comes as UN head Ban Ki-moon expressed "profound alarm" over pre-poll violence in Zimbabwe.
If current conditions - including intimidation and arrests of opposition leaders - continued, the election outcomes would be in question, the UN Secretary General said.
This follows a warning from an African poll observer that he would not endorse the vote if current violence levels continued.
Marwick Khumalo, head of the Pan-African Parliamentary observers, told the BBC his team had received horrendous reports of attacks and the political environment was not conducive to a free poll.
South Africa's foreign affairs ministry said Mr Mbeki's trip on Wednesday to see Mr Mugabe in the Zimbabwean city of Bulawayo was part of his efforts to mediate between the country's veteran president and Mr Tsvangirai.
There has been growing international concern about the political violence
The BBC's Peter Biles in Johannesburg says this is the third time in as many months that Mr Mbeki has been to Zimbabwe.
But with the vote just days away, there is a growing sense of urgency with political violence beginning to spread from the countryside to the towns, he says.
Mr Mugabe has been waging a fierce campaign to extend his 28-year rule since Mr Tsvangirai failed to win enough votes to score an outright victory in March's disputed first round.
Meanwhile, Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga called for an international peacekeeping force to be deployed in Zimbabwe to ensure a free and fair vote.
Mr Odinga - who earlier said Mr Mugabe should quit and labelled the run-off a "sham" - made the call during a meeting with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in Washington.
Ms Rice added: "It is time for the leaders of Africa to say to President Mugabe that the people of Zimbabwe deserve a free and fair election."
The British Prime Minister Gordon Brown says he has spoken to the leader of South Africa's governing African National Congress, Jacob Zuma, about the possibility of deploying 1,000 election observers from the ANC.
Mr Mbeki has mediated between Mr Mugabe and the opposition MDC, which said it expected little from the talks.
President Mugabe will face MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai in a second round presidential election on 27 June.
The meeting comes as UN head Ban Ki-moon expressed "profound alarm" over pre-poll violence in Zimbabwe.
If current conditions - including intimidation and arrests of opposition leaders - continued, the election outcomes would be in question, the UN Secretary General said.
This follows a warning from an African poll observer that he would not endorse the vote if current violence levels continued.
Marwick Khumalo, head of the Pan-African Parliamentary observers, told the BBC his team had received horrendous reports of attacks and the political environment was not conducive to a free poll.
South Africa's foreign affairs ministry said Mr Mbeki's trip on Wednesday to see Mr Mugabe in the Zimbabwean city of Bulawayo was part of his efforts to mediate between the country's veteran president and Mr Tsvangirai.
There has been growing international concern about the political violence
The BBC's Peter Biles in Johannesburg says this is the third time in as many months that Mr Mbeki has been to Zimbabwe.
But with the vote just days away, there is a growing sense of urgency with political violence beginning to spread from the countryside to the towns, he says.
Mr Mugabe has been waging a fierce campaign to extend his 28-year rule since Mr Tsvangirai failed to win enough votes to score an outright victory in March's disputed first round.
Meanwhile, Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga called for an international peacekeeping force to be deployed in Zimbabwe to ensure a free and fair vote.
Mr Odinga - who earlier said Mr Mugabe should quit and labelled the run-off a "sham" - made the call during a meeting with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in Washington.
Ms Rice added: "It is time for the leaders of Africa to say to President Mugabe that the people of Zimbabwe deserve a free and fair election."
The British Prime Minister Gordon Brown says he has spoken to the leader of South Africa's governing African National Congress, Jacob Zuma, about the possibility of deploying 1,000 election observers from the ANC.
In other developments:
• The MDC's second-in-command, Tendai Biti, who was arrested last week accused of treason, appeared in court on Wednesday in leg irons and was denied access to his lawyers.
• The opposition has said that in contravention of electoral law, it is being denied access to public media controlled by Mr Mugabe's ruling Zanu-PF.
• An election observer was killed in an attack in Karuru, a town north of Harare, early on Tuesday, as his family looked on, a local observer group said
• Local election observers are to be screened by the government to ensure they have "no preconceived ideas" about the vote
• The UN accused Zimbabwe's authorities of an escalating pattern of harassment after one of its human rights officials was expelled from the country
• The government lifted a ban on aid agencies which distribute food and Aids treatment
posted by jackaranda at 7:15 pm
1 Comments:
“U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, appearing at a news conference with Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga, called on African leaders like Mbeki to send Mugabe a strong message.”(source:www.cnn.com)
The text above is full of hypocrisy, dirty diplomatic policy and 'democrazy' techniques of America and the west to get their interest served in every country in Africa. Why is it that the US did not call for a re-run elections in Kenya? Why should Kibaki be inducted into office after losing elections and giving Odinga the Prime Minister position since he won the elections.
Africans must open their eyes and reason with their minds and identify all these tricks and flasehood of the West. We must live peacefully with our own will less influenced and soiled by a Western influence. ONLY AFRICANS CAN SOLVE THEIR OWN PROBLEMS FOR THE LONG TERM. All the policies of the western will only last as long as their interest get served.
Africa was peaceful until they came and told some of our selfish leaders the resources that we have that are too much for us. Check! Where there are more resources, there are more conflicts and civil wars. And where there are not resources, the people live peaceably.
Rarely will you see a resourced country not in flames. Those rare cases, it may be because they are toothless and do not know what they have. They smile as their resources are exploited.
Let’s be wise and reason. Zimbabwe was not the way it is now, until the western interest was not served. Africa WAKE UP!
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