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13 July 2008
By Nelson Banya
HARARE (Reuters) - President Robert Mugabe's party and the opposition failed last week to agree a framework for talks to end Zimbabwe's crisis, the opposition said on Sunday, but state media said negotiations would continue.
The first preliminary talks between the two sides since a disputed election were adjourned on Friday without agreement, a spokesman for the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) told Reuters.
Election-related violence that has killed 113 MDC activists since the first round of voting in March was continuing and this led to the talks stalemate, MDC spokesman Nelson Chamisa said.
The MDC faction led by presidential candidate Morgan Tsvangirai and a smaller grouping led by Arthur Mutambara began preliminary discussions on Thursday with officials from Mugabe's ruling ZANU-PF under the auspices of South African mediators in Pretoria, the South African capital.
"There was (no agreement). The matters are still outstanding. It's not about the table discussions in Pretoria but about what's happening on this side of the Limpopo (river)," Chamisa said.
"We still have to clear the course for meaningful talks." Despite Chamisa's denials, Zimbabwean state media reports on Sunday suggested an agreement had been reached on a way forward for negotiations.
The state-owned Sunday Mail said the parties had agreed on a "working framework" which "paved the way for serious talks". A South African newspaper, The Sunday Independent, said the negotiating parties would sign an agreement to guide "intensive talks" that would begin in Harare on Wednesday and run until the end of July.
The talks would focus on the formation of an inclusive government, it reported. Tsvangirai defeated Mugabe in a March 29 presidential election but failed to win the absolute majority needed to avoid the second ballot. The MDC leader then withdrew from the June 27 runoff vote citing political violence, and has refused to negotiate a power-sharing deal until the government halts the bloodshed. Chamisa accused the ruling party of continuing violence.
"Our MPs, councillors and members are being victimised. We still have attacks targeting our sympathisers. In fact it's as if the MDC is a banned organisation," Chamisa said. "Under these circumstances where you have a deficit of goodwill it is difficult to engage in meaningful dialogue."
The MDC announced on Friday what it said was the latest death in the violence of one of its officials, Gift Mutsvungunu. His decomposing body was found in a Harare suburb on Thursday, with eyes gouged out and severely burned buttocks, it said. Once prosperous Zimbabwe has the world's highest inflation rate, estimated to be at least 2 million percent. Millions of its people have fled abroad in search of food and work.
Tsvangirai is under intense African pressure to enter full-blown negotiations with Mugabe, who has branded the MDC puppets of the West and vowed to never let them take power. Mugabe, 84, who has ruled since independence from Britain in 1980, insists the opposition must recognise his landslide victory in the election last month.
Mugabe's government on Saturday welcomed the failure of a Western-backed U.N. Security Council resolution to impose sanctions over its violent presidential elections, calling it a victory over racism and meddling in its affairs. Russia and China on Friday vetoed the resolution, which would have imposed an arms embargo on the southern African country and financial and travel restrictions on Mugabe and 13 other officials.
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