|
afrol News, 11 May - The Inter-party dialogue between the Zimbabwean ruling party, ZANU-PF, and the oppositional Movement for Democratic Change, MDC, temporarily has ended in failure. The governmental party says it cannot accept the opposition's court application seeking the nullification of the supposedly rigged March presidential elections. The ZANU-PF delegation to the talks - initiated after an initiative by Nigeria and South Africa - made a statement saying the talks would be deferred because of a number of new developments that had "far-reaching implications on the dialogue." The head of the ZANU-PF delegation, Zimbabwe's Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa, said that "the fact that the MDC has gone to court with the core issues on the agreed agenda means that the judicial process must be allowed to run its course and to have the contentious issues finalised and resolved legally as a matter of prudence in the interest of the rule of law." Minister Chinamasa also accused the MDC opposition - which holds it in fact had won the violent March presidential elections - of the "planting of false stories in the media alleging ZANU-PF violence." The MDC further had involved the British High Commissioner in the talks, ZANU-PF claims. The ZANU-PF controlled daily 'The Herald' claim that "the British government has been sponsoring the MDC and its prime minister, Mr Tony Blair even declared that his government would only recognise an MDC win in the presidential election," further explaining why the talks had to end. The MDC however denies all these allegations. Professor Welshman Ncube, MDC Secretary-General and the leader of the MDC delegation to the Inter-party dialogue, today stated that his party interprets the ZANU-PF action as this party's "clear and complete pull out from the talks." Ncube further dismisses "as hypocritical nonsense the four reasons tendered by ZANU-PF for their pull out from the talks." The MDC especially reacted to the ZANU-PF argument that the talks hade been impeded by the MDC action of "going to court over the stolen election", as the MDC calls it. Ncube quotes ZANU-PF's Information Minister Jonathan Moyo, saying on 8 April that "we are ready to dialogue with them [the MDC] or anyone else. But if they have a problem with the election, they know what to do. They should go to the courts." Ncube replies that "this is precisely what we have done and we do not know what ZANU-PF's complaint now is." On ZANU-PF's allegation of inflammatory newspaper advertisements, Ncube refers to what he sees as ZANU-PF's own inflammatory newspaper advertisements in the state-controlled media. "It is in fact ZANU-PF that is guilty of violating article 4.2 of the rules of procedure governing Inter-party dialogue, which enjoins participants to respect the confidentiality of the deliberations," Ncube says, pointing to Moyo's divulgation of "confidential information" about the talks in state television on 10 April. The allegation that the MDC was using the British government in the dialogue was rejected by Ncube, naming it "errant nonsense" as the MDC was in no way consulting the British on its decisions and actions. "We have no time for ZANU-PF's usual nonsense of its imaginary MDC/UK relationship," Ncube concluded on this popular Zimbabwean belief, nurtured by ZANU-PF controlled media. Ncube also categorised ZANU-PF's allegation of "planting false stories in the media" alleging ZANU-PF violence being "without substance." The MDC delegation leader pointed to statistics. "Since January 2002, ZANU-PF as slaughtered 47 MDC supporters and members of the public perceived as such by ZANU-PF. Out of the 47 people that have died at the hands of ZANU-PF since January 2002, 15 have been slain in post election retributive violence by ZANU-PF militias," Ncube states. ZANU-PF's Chinamasa has turned to the Nigerian and South African facilitators, asking them to advise the MDC to desist from planting false stories in the media, placing inflammatory advertisements and using the British government in the dialogue. "Such conduct is contrary to the spirit of the dialogue and runs the risk of jeopardising the whole process of the talks," Chinamasa said. Ncube, on the other hand, holds that ZANU-PF's petition to Nigerian and South Africa "is surely an insult to Presidents Olusegun Obasanjo and Thabo Mbeki whom the ZANU-PF leadership gave its word that they would engage in the dialogue."
|
