Posted on 03/17/2002 4:34:17 PM PST by ATOMIC_PUNK
HARARE (Reuters) - South African President Thabo Mbeki and Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo were due to meet President Robert Mugabe on Monday over Zimbabwe's deep political crisis, but analysts held out little hope of progress.
They said the leaders of Africa's two most powerful countries were likely to push Mugabe, who won a controversial presidential election marred by violence and charges of vote rigging, to consider forming a government of national unity.
The talks come the day before a crucial meeting in London of the so-called Commonwealth troika on Zimbabwe, which is due to discuss suspending the southern African country from the grouping of Britain and former colonies.
Mbeki and Obasanjo are members of the troika along with Australian Prime Minister John Howard. Commonwealth analysts believe Howard is likely to favor some form of suspension which Mbeki would oppose, leaving the deciding vote to Obasanjo.
But senior aides to Obasanjo said in Lagos on Sunday that he looked most unlikely to back the suspension of Zimbabwe.
Commonwealth observers issued a damning report on the Zimbabwean polls, which have also been condemned by the United States, the European Union and former colonial power Britain.
Mugabe, in power since 1980, was sworn in for another six-year term on Sunday at a colorful ceremony held within the secure confines of his State House office complex.
Sources in the South African government said on Friday Mbeki was trying to persuade Mugabe to include the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) in a unity government to help avert Zimbabwe's suspension from the Commonwealth.
In a possible response, Mugabe urged MDC supporters to work with his ruling ZANU-PF party, but he did not refer directly to a joint administration.
In a move analysts said was probably related, Presidents Bakili Muluzi of Malawi and Joaquim Chissano of Mozambique met Mugabe's defeated MDC challenger Morgan Tsvangirai on Sunday and urged him to work for national unity.
"We tried to appeal to him that it is important that Zimbabweans work together for the transformation of this country otherwise you will all lose out," Muluzi told state television.
Chissano added: "He said he will not do anything to jeopardize the Zimbabwean people, although he does not agree with the outcome of the election."
Tsvangirai has called Mugabe's victory in the March 9-11 poll "daylight robbery."
MDC AGAINST UNITY GOVERNMENT
Masipula Sithole, a leading Zimbabwe political analyst, said Mugabe might be amenable to the national unity government idea in the face of increasing international isolation, but the MDC was likely to prove more difficult to persuade.
"I don't think (Mbeki and Obasanjo) will succeed because the MDC is unlikely to want to be incorporated in a government they think is in power as a result of a stolen election," he said.
In an interview with Reuters on Friday, Tsvangirai ruled out the idea of joining Mugabe, saying he did not want to legitimize electoral theft.
John Makumbe, an analyst and a fierce critic of Mugabe's government, said that could be why 78-year-old leader might just accept Mbeki and Obasanjo's proposal.
"He will most likely agree to a government of national unity with the hope that the MDC itself will refuse the offer and that way he will look like an angel and MDC as a dragon," he said.
Information Minister Jonathan Moyo was quoted by the government-controlled Herald newspaper on Saturday as dismissing the idea of a unity government as "a horse that has been killed many times before."
Zimbabwe is in the fourth year of a deepening recession and faces large-scale famine this year after a drought and the disruption of the farming sector by government land seizures.
Mugabe's inauguration on Sunday was boycotted by the United States, European Union countries, New Zealand, Canada and the MDC -- among the many critics who denounced the election as unacceptably flawed.
South Africa has yet to pronounce formally on the validity of the election.
Mbeki and Obasanjo? What happened to Shoobydoobie and Wopbopaloopbop? How's about Yomommabango and Upsydaisy? Where were Oingoboingo and Floppsyloppsy?
Those are the folks who can really solve some problems poopsie!
Below is what ran this morning in the Houston Chronicle.
March 17, 2002, 9:23PM - Mugabe sworn in, blasts West- Associated Press
[Full Textt] HARARE, Zimbabwe -- President Robert Mugabe was sworn in for another six-year term Sunday and urged fellow Zimbabweans to join his fight against Western imperialism.
Mugabe won the March 9-11 election against challenger Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, who posed the most significant threat to Mugabe's 22 years of autocratic rule. Many observers said the election was rigged.
Mugabe said Britain, Zimbabwe's former colonial power, and its "white allies" in the West were critical of the poll because Tsvangirai, their favored candidate, lost.
"But it is our people who decide, who must say so, not you, sirs, and not one person in 10 Downing Street," the official residence of British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Mugabe said.
"Thanks to the people of Zimbabwe for loudly saying: Never again shall Zimbabwe be a colony. I thank them for their resolute anti-imperialist stand."
Mugabe won the election with a disputed 56 percent of votes cast to Tsvangirai's 42 percent. [End]
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