Envoys leave Zimbabwe after ‘opposition meeting blocked’
• President Mnangagwa arm-twisted the agenda of the meeting with South Africans to suit himself, says insider
President Cyril Ramaphosa’s special envoys to Zimbabwe left the neighbouring country empty handed after they were blocked by the government from meeting the opposition, sources close to the visit told Business Day Tuesday night.
Ramaphosa sent former speaker of parliament Baleka Mbete and former ministers Sydney Mufamadi and Ngoako Ramatlhodi on a fact-finding mission on the crisis in Zimbabwe. But the mission proved to be a damp squib after the envoys were blocked from meeting opposition leader Nelson Chamisa.
Chamisa spokesperson Fadzayi Mahere said Ramaphosa’s envoys had failed to meet the opposition leaders despite having planned to do so. “We can only assume that the failure to meet the MDC Alliance delegation was a result of demands by the Zanu-PF delegation, ” she said.
Efforts to get comment from the special envoys on Tuesday were unsuccessful.
The situation in Zimbabwe has deteriorated significantly with the government using the security institutions and the police to brutally crush dissent.
The source, who declined to be named but was privy to the meeting between Emmerson Mnangagwa and the special envoys, said the Zimbabwean president, who is also the current SADC chair for the organ on defence and security co-operation “arm-twisted” the agenda of the meeting to suit his own side.
“Mnangagwa was quite combative and used his relationship with Ramaphosa to dismiss all criticism that he has been facing. At the end of the day, the meeting was cordial and the president did not receive any negative reactions from the team,” said the source, who attended the meeting.
Criticism of SA’s handling of the crisis in Zimbabwe is increasing after some South African nationals joined their Zimbabwean counterparts on Saturday to demonstrate against the state’s brutality. EFF leader Julius Malema last week criticised the Zimbabwean government for using heavy-handed tactics to crush dissent.
On Tuesday, ANC’s international relations committee chair, Lindiwe Zulu joined the bandwagon of those attacking the Zimbabwean government saying the time had come to be frank about the unrest in Zimbabwe.
“In the ANC’s view, yes, there is a political crisis in Zimbabwe, and we have to be frank and honest about it,” said Zulu, who is also social development minister.
“If we are to help the situation, then we have to be frank and honest about it because we are asking the question, ‘where is the dignity in all the Zimbabweans who are here?’,” Zulu said in a television interview said.
“We have had board meetings where we were looking at the situation in Zimbabwe and what else can we do from the African’s comrade point of view of engaging with Zanu-PF in particular as a sister party. We call each other sister parties. “We are saying as ANC, we want to be open, we want to be frank, honest in our engagement and we expect the same [from Zanu-PF],” she said.
DIGNITY
“We are asking ourselves a question where the dignity of the Zimbabweans who are here is.
“Where is the dignity of the young women and others working here, some of whom are working in our industries and are being laughed at, sneered at. We are asking ourselves where is the dignity of turning away people who are crossing the border illegally and all that,” she said.
She said SA needed to think about some of those things, be very frank with their Zimbabwean counterparts “without necessarily breaking relations because we are neighbours”.
“We need to be frank with each other and help each other to make sure that Zimbabwe is what Zimbabweans and the rest of Africa want it to be.”