Financial Gazette (Harare)


NEWS
29 November 2007
Posted to the web 29 November 2007

By Rangarirai Mberi
Harare

SENEGALESE President Abdoulaye Wade is on a collision course with South Africa's Thabo Mbeki after he proposed to lead a committee of five African leaders to intervene in the Zimbabwean crisis and end the country's row with Britain.

Wade has proposed that a group of African leaders mediate between Zimbabwe and Britain, and also between President Robert Mugabe and his internal opponents.


Although Wade said Mbeki would be part of this group, it is clear the South African leader would view such an arrangement as an attempt to diminish his influence in Zimbabwe.

"We should, at the level of heads of state, together with brother Mbeki, undertake mediation. I think that Zimbabwe should be treated as an African problem, to be solved by all African leaders," Wade told reporters yesterday after meeting President Mugabe.

Asked whether his proposal does not usurp the Mbeki process, Wade retorted: "Thabo Mbeki does not have the sole right to meet with (President) Mugabe.

"Mbeki has done a lot, but the problem has not been solved", he said.

Late yesterday, Wade met leaders of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) at his hotel, and this could further escalate his old rivalry with Mbeki. There was no immediate comment from the MDC on the discussions it held with the Senegalese president.

Wade's bid to broaden mediation efforts in Zimbabwe beyond the ongoing Mbeki process is unlikely to be supported by the Southern African Development Community (SADC), which has mandated the South African head of state to end the political impasse in Harare.

President Mugabe himself seemed lukewarm towards Wade's proposal, not backing it outright, and only saying he remained open to engaging in dialogue with Britain as suggested by his Senegalese counterpart.

"We have never said 'no' to speaking with them (Britain). It's the other side that's the problem. We do not know how they expect to solve matters when they refuse to speak with us," President Mugabe said.

He said he had given Wade "more than he perhaps expected, the history of our dispute with Britain, all the agreements they have broken, especially on land."

Two previous planned trips to Zimbabwe by Wade were cancelled with no official explanation being given.

Both leaders stuck to mandatory diplomatic decorum yesterday, masking deep suspicion of Wade's motives within government.

After his visit was aborted, Herald columnist Nathaniel Manheru, who is said to be privy to the thinking within ZANU PF and the government, said Wade was the "dutiful" African leader who "thinks he can do better than Mbeki in bringing about a resolution of an impasse, which has already been unlocked."

Government is opposed to a broadening of the mediation to include the rest of Africa, as this would suggest the country was in "total crisis", one senior government official told The Financial Gazette yesterday.

Zimbabwean government officials also tried to make much of Wade's disclosure he would contact British Prime Minister Gordon Brown to brief him on his talks with President Mugabe.

Brown has said he will not attend next month's EU-AU summit in Lisbon after Portugal said it would invite President Mugabe.

The quarrel has threatened the entire summit, which other governments on both sides are anxious to hold.

President Mugabe has strongly resisted all previous attempts to bring the Zimbabwean crisis to a broader international forum. He has relied on Mbeki to use South Africa's seat on the United Nations Security Council to keep Zimbabwe off the UN agenda.

On the sidelines of the last UN general assembly in September, President Mugabe angrily rejected a proposal by secretary general Ban Ki-moon to send a UN envoy to Zimbabwe to assess the humanitarian and rights situation in the country.

The meeting was held just days after ZANU PF and the MDC had agreed on Constitutional Amendment 18, and President Mugabe told Ban this was evidence the SADC mediation was enough and no international intervention was necessary.

President Mugabe would hardly have been pleased last month when Wade called him "a bad lawyer with a good cause", suggesting he had used the wrong methods when trying to correct historical wrongs. But President Mugabe said yesterday Wade was "family".

His involvement in Zimbabwe will however exacerbate his rivalry with Mbeki, which was evident in the West African's responses to questions from journalists yesterday.

Wade is a critic of Mbeki's leadership on the New Partnership for Africa's Development, and has always tried to dilute Mbeki's influence on the continent.

Last week, Mbeki cancelled a visit to Dakar, citing a clash with the Commonwealth summit in Uganda.



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Copyright © 2007 Financial Gazette. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com).
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National Report


Why I have come to Zim: Wade

I will speak to Zimbabwe's political opposition . . . I too was an opposition leader for 27 years
SENEGALESE President Abdoulaye Wade was in Zimbabwe yesterday, meeting President Robert Mugabe and suggesting a wider role for Africa in ending the impasse between Zimbabwe and Britain. Here, he writes exclusively for The Financial Gazette on his efforts.

AS an African I am at home in Zimbabwe.

It is important that I reiterate that I have not been mandated in anyway or by anyone to come to Zimbabwe.

I have no agenda other than my own. I came from Senegal at my own initiative, much in the same way as I have visited a dozen African countries at times of conflict and tension.

Why? Because I am committed to helping our continent solve its own problems and advance in its most difficult challenges. That's why, as the friction heats up in Europe, I have come this distance to see President Mugabe.

In over 10 years, we have seen little progress in resolving the struggle that Zimbabwe has had with Europe, especially the United Kingdom, despite the earnest and noble efforts of President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa who has continued to work diligently.

But the reality is that no one country alone can resolve international tensions.

We must understand that no single nation can help Zimbabwe. Africa has not done enough to come to the assistance of this nation. I come to Harare as an individual leader, but with a larger sense of African responsibility.

On the eve of the highly-important EU-Africa Summit in Lisbon next month, it is essential that African leaders engage in dialogue with European leaders; our economic and political welfare is not served if key players do not participate.

It would be unfortunate if the United Kingdom were to choose to be isolated by this quagmire. I plan to speak directly to Prime Minister Gordon Brown following my conversations here with President Mugabe.

It is as a pan-Africanist and above all a man of goodwill that I wish to sit down with my African brother. I may fail to bring about anything positive, but at least I will have tried.

I also will speak to Zimbabwe's political opposition. Knowing more is essential. As readers know, I too had been an opposition leader for 27 years so I can fairly say that I know something about this subject.

I have clearly stated to the international press on numerous occasions that the internal affairs of a sovereign nation should not be meddled with by another head of state, and thus whether I agree or not with President Mugabe's domestic politics is not relevant to my presence in Zimbabwe or to our conversations.

More concretely, I believe that Africa must enlarge its mechanisms for inter-African dialogue, and thus I have recommended to President Mugabe that a committee of five African Heads of State — which may of course include President Mbeki — be constituted to assist in the normalisation of relations between Zimbabwe and the United Kingdom. I am here as a facilitator to this very wish.

One must remember that the problems at the heart of Zimbabwe's diplomatic impasse go far beyond Zimbabwe itself. And thus Africa must show much greater solidarity in treating historical injustices.

None of us had chosen to be colonised. African leaders left President Mugabe alone to resolve the imbalance of land ownership, and we should have been collectively more involved.

Fundamentally, President Mugabe, it must be said, has a justified cause, an African cause. No one wanted to assume the responsibility for compensating white land owners. Perhaps the EU now will have to own this task?

There are also sanctions against this country, and Africa has done little to have these removed. That too, I am in Zimbabwe to address.

My entourage and I travelled a long way yesterday — an eight hour flight from Dakar — at my own country's expense, with a firm belief that no problem, not even those that are big, old, and complicated, are too daunting to be solved. And, when it concerns the collective reputation of the African continent and its dynamic march toward a new era of economic and political emergence, I want the people of Zimbabwe to know that their great-uncle in Senegal is not far away.

lAbdoulaye Wade is the President of Senegal and one of Africa's most senior statesmen.

The Financial Gazette