ZIMBABWE: Negotiations Must Move 'Outside the Box'

• by Ali Gharib (washington)
• Thursday, December 18, 2008
• Inter Press Service

A power-sharing deal in Zimbabwe is unlikely and bound to fail, said a new report released this week on the Southern African nation's continuing political uncertainty and growing humanitarian crisis.

The report from the International Crisis Group (ICG), an organisation dedicated to preventing and resolving deadly conflicts, called for an abandonment of the Global Political Agreement (GPA) signed by the opposing parties on Sep. 11, which has not yet restored political order.

'No new power-sharing formula...seems likely to produce a workable outcome,' said the report, calling negotiations 'hopelessly deadlocked'.

But the report said that a non-negotiated end to the uncertainty was not realistic.

'There is a possible negotiated way forward that could avoid Zimbabwe's complete collapse. But it will need a radical shift in negotiating objectives by the country's leaders and regional states...,' said the report. '[S]ecuring an end to Zimbabwe's nightmare is going to require a fundamentally new approach.'

The urgency of resolving the political impasse is compounded by what the report called a 'now full-blown humanitarian crisis'.

Economic strife has led to a food shortage, widespread unsanitary conditions, and a collapse of Zimbabwe's healthcare system.

The crisis has recently manifested itself in a cholera outbreak. More than 1,000 people have died from the treatable disease and tens of thousands of cases are reported.

'The systems in the country that should be in place to take care of the people have totally failed,' U.S. ambassador to Zimbabwe James McGee told National Public Radio Tuesday. 'Every major hospital in [Zimbabwe's capital] Harare has closed; every one. There's no emergency rooms -- no nothing -- there.'

Earlier this month, demonstrations against poor working conditions by group of medical workers in uniform were broken up by riot police brandishing batons in a poignant example of a violent meltdown of institutions.

Mugabe's Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) party and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) have been locked in an often violent power struggle since March, when the MDC won both a plurality in the presidential race and a majority of parliamentary seats.

The results were rejected by Mugabe, who called a run-off election in June that was plagued by political violence -- sometimes by the state -- and which gave Mugabe the win, but has been roundly rejected by the international community.

A July memorandum of understanding between the factions laid the groundwork for the GPA, which called for a unity government based on Mugabe staying on as president, Tsvangirai taking the premiership, and a mutually agreeable division of cabinet posts and their responsibilities to be decided later.

'The agreement stipulates that that president and prime minister must agree on the ministries that each supervise, but does not say how disagreements between them are to be resolved,' said the ICG report. 'The lack of detailed provisions on allocation of ministries immediately became a problem, as ZANU-PF insisted (and continues to insist) on retaining the key security and economic posts.'

Indeed, many of the setbacks have been due to the unwillingness of Mugabe to give up these powers.

Mugabe and his policies are largely blamed for the Zimbabwean economic downturn of the late 1990s following a period of stability.

Furthermore, Mugabe has been accused of using state security apparatuses to engage in political violence, including the widespread violence that discredited the June election and has continued to break out across the country. Giving up control of security organisations would loosen Mugabe's grip on Zimbabwe's power structures.

'Home affairs is a vital portfolio, as it oversees the police and the electoral process,' said the report. 'Mugabe's refusal to concede this ministry to Tsvangirai, at the same time as he insists on controlling the defense and state security posts, shows that he regards the entire security apparatus as the necessary guarantor for ZANU-PF's retention of power.'

'ZANU-PF's refusal to concede any genuine share of power slowly drained the GPA's credibility,' said the report.

With the GPA rendered useless by Mugabe's stonewalling, ICG suggests a new system that would keep both Mugabe and Tsvangirai out of government for the meantime.

'The core idea is to establish a transitional administration, run by non-partisan experts, in which neither Mugabe nor Tsvangirai would have any position,' suggested the report. 'It would be mandated to implement fundamental political and economic reforms to stabilize the economy and prepare new presidential elections in eighteen months.'

In the proposed plan, Mugabe would step down and the presidency, premiership, and cabinet posts would remain empty for the full year and a half.

The chief administrator of the temporary 'non-partisan transitional administration' could be pulled from the private sector, civil society or an international body, and would not be eligible for either top post in government after administration hands authority over to the elected government.

The report's recommendations also call for former South African president Thabo Mbeki to be removed as negotiator for a perceived lack of neutrality. The Southern African Development Community (SADC) and the African Union (AU) would be responsible for choosing an appointment.

International involvement in Zimbabwe has been rather erratic, and the report calls for more concrete roles, including special assignments from the U.N., SADC, and AU to 'assist the transitional government and monitor cooperation.'

The report also says that the transitional authority will be able to call on fellow SADC countries to deploy troops to Zimbabwe to 'promote stability'.

© Inter Press Service (2008) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

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