Zimbabwe's MDC Formally Requests Southern African, AU Intervention in Unity Dispute
The MDC wants the organizations to pressure President Robert Mugabe to settle outstanding issues including the leadership of the Reserv
Zimbabwean Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change formation said Monday it has formally asked the Southern African Development Community and African Union to step in to help break an impasse within the country's unity government. The national council of Mr. Tsvangirai's MDC formation decided to seek SADC-AU mediation in a meeting Sunday in the southeastern town of Masvingo. Party Secretary General Tendai Biti wrote Monday to SADC Executive Secretary Tomaz Salamao and African Union Commission Chairman Jean Ping asking them to intervene, party sources said. The MDC wants the organizations to pressure President Robert Mugabe to settle outstanding issues including the leadership of the Reserve Bank and the Office of the Attorney General, as well as appointments of provincial governors, ambassadors and permanent secretaries for ministries, now all Mugabe appointees, even in MDC-controlled ministries. The MDC also objected to continuing seizures of white-owned commercial farms, which have hurt Zimbabwe's chances of getting reconstruction aid from Western donors, and President Mugabe's refusal to swear in Roy Bennett, a former member of parliament and treasurer of Mr. Tsvangirai's MDC formation, as deputy minister of agriculture. The Tsvangirai MDC issued a statement saying it remains “steadfast in its quest, drive and vision for a new and democratic Zimbabwe.” Grievances cited by the MDC executive and national councils included continued bias by state media and the Herald newspaper in particular; the MDC is demanding real reform of the state media as stipulated by the September 2008 Global Political Agreement for power-sharing. The power-sharing agreement is not the only such pact to be in trouble. Former members of the Zimbabwe African People's Union or ZAPU, a rival to ZANU in the liberation struggle but merged with the latter into ZANU-PF under the 1987 Unity Accord, are moving to secede from ZANU-PF, in effect abrogating the accord which ended a period of bloodshed in the 1980s mainly targeting members of the weaker ZAPU formation. In remarks published Monday by the state-controlled Chronicle newspaper published in the Matabeleland capital of Bulawayo, a former ZAPU stronghold, ZANU-PF politburo member Sikhanyiso Ndlovu said former ZAPU loyalists remain bound by the Unity Accord. In a special congress this weekend, ZAPU resolved to break away from ZANU-PF and fight to recover party properties seized by ZANU-PF in the Gukurahundi purge of the 1980s, and to abrogate the unity accord, accusing ZANU-PF of failing to honor its commitments.