Troika Hands over Zimbabwe Issue to SADC

(PANA)--An emergency summit of heads of State of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) will be held in the next week or two, following the failure ofthe SADC organ on Politics, Defence and Security Cooperation to break the deadlock over the formation of a new Zimbabwean government.

The SADC organ takes the form of a troika, currently consisting of Swaziland, Mozambique and Angola. The troika met on Monday, chaired by Mozambican President Armando Guebuza, after it had proved impossible to discuss Zimbabwe at a previous troika meeting in Swaziland, a week ago, because the Zimbabwean government refused to grant a passport to Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the Movement for Democratic change (MDC), and the winner of the first round of the presidential elections of 29 March.

Although the Harare meeting lasted 13 hours, deep into the night, no solution was found that would lead to implementation of the 15 September power sharing agreement signed between Tsvangirai, ZANU-PF President Robert Mugabe and the leader o f a breakaway MDC faction, Arthur Mutambara. All the troika could do was refer the matter upwards, to a full SADC summit.

When the meeting ended, at 01.15 Tuesday morning, SADC Executive Secretary Tomas Salomao reported that the troika was recommending that a regional summit be held as soon as possible for ‘further consultations’ over the Zimbabwean crisis. Salomao added, however, that the disagreement between the ruling ZANU-PF and the two factions of the MDC had been narrowed down to who should control the Home Affairs Ministry, which controls the police. He claimed that there was now ‘tacit agreement’ over the other ministries that had been in question - finance, foreign affairs, local government and justice and gave no details of this agreement.

Salomao said the troika had indicated three possible solutions. There could be two home affairs ministers, one from ZANU-PF and one from the MDC .Or one party could appoint the minister and the other the deputy minister. Or the ministry could rotate between the two parties every six months or every year. Salomao said the troika wanted the three Zimbabwean parties to choose one of these options.

The troika also stressed that the challenges and suffering facing the Zimbabwean people could only be overcome by the establishment of ‘an inclusive government’. When asked what would happen if a full SADC summit failed, Salomao declared categorically ‘I can assure you that we will reach an agreement so that option is not relevant’.

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