DONNA BRYSON, Associated Press
- Zimbabwean government and opposition officials met in South Africa on Thursday to try to find a way out of their country’s crisis, with the opposition pressing for an end to attacks on its supporters.
Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai said he sent a team to Pretoria, the capital, led by his top deputy Tendai Biti to lay down conditions for talks, not to open negotiations.
Chief among the conditions is an end to violence blamed on Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe’s supporters.
“At present the state-sanctioned violence and repressive legislation employed by the regime is designed to silence the Zimbabwean people,” Tsvangirai said in a statement.
His Movement for Democratic Change is “committed to finding a peaceful, negotiated solution to the Zimbabwean crisis and we will take every opportunity to clarify our position and to allow the voice of the Zimbabwean people to be heard,” he said.
The opposition says more than 90 of its supporters have been killed since Tsvangirai won a first round of presidential elections in March. He did not win the 50 percent plus one vote necessary to avoid a runoff against second-place finisher Mugabe.
Zimbabwe’s crisis has deepened since Mugabe claimed victory in a widely denounced June 27 presidential runoff in which he was the only candidate. Tsvangirai pulled out days before the race because of the violence.
Opposition conditions for holding talks also include a mediator to be appointed alongside South African President Thabo Mbeki, whose had overseen talks on and off for more than a year. The opposition says Mbeki is biased in Mugabe’s favor.
Tsvangirai also calls for the release of political prisoners, allowing humanitarian organizations to resume work in Zimbabwe and convening parliament. Tsvangirai’s supporters won control of parliament in legislative elections held alongside the presidential vote.
Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf lent her support Thursday to the opposition’s stand on mediation.
Sirleaf said Mbeki’s efforts on behalf of the main regional group, the Southern African Development Community, should continue, but “we hope they will welcome another outside mediator to work with them.” She said such a mediator should be “high profile.”
Sirleaf, among the most respected of a new generation of leaders in Africa, spoke Thursday at a news conference in Johannesburg. Sirleaf will deliver later this week the annual lecture marking former President Nelson Mandela’s birthday.
She also said Zimbabwe’s June 27 run-off was not free and fair. Other African leaders, including Mbeki, have not been so blunt.
Zimbabwe’s opposition has been denying reports that talks were set to resume — even after a court hearing Wednesday at which Biti’s lawyer told a judge Biti needed to have his passport returned so he could go to South Africa for the talks.
The judge ordered the return of the passport, which Biti had been forced to surrender when he was arrested during Zimbabwe’s recent runoff election campaign and charged with treason.
Recently, Mugabe’s party has shown increasing eagerness to start talks, apparently in the hope of persuading U.N. Security Council members to reject a U.S.-drafted resolution to impose sanctions on Mugabe and some of his top political and security officials.
The council is expected to vote on the resolution this week.
Both sides say they are willing to form a coalition government, but they differ on who should lead it.
Mugabe’s ZANU-PF wants Mugabe at the head, something the opposition and Mugabe’s critics in the West have rejected. Tsvangirai bases his claim to leadership the results of the first round of presidential voting.
Zimbabwean government spokesman Bright Matonga made clear Thursday its position on Mugabe had not changed, saying: “President Mugabe is the president of Zimbabwe for the next five years.”
On Thursday, a South African policy group said Zimbabwe’s opposition was increasingly striking back at ZANU-PF with violence, creating a “recipe for civil war.” The study was based on analysis of documents, interviews with government officials across Africa, research in Zimbabwe and other sources.
Peter Kagwanja, who wrote the Human Sciences Research Council report called “Saving Zimbabwe”, said opposition attacks have gone from spontaneous to organized. Kagwanja called for intervention from the African Union and Mbeki’s mediation team.
Opposition spokesman Nelson Chamisa, speaking by telephone from Harare, Zimbabwe, said the group’s members have never been violent.
“We have been victims. And even under very extreme circumstances, we have continued to resist the temptation of fighting fire with fire,” Chamisa said.
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