From: Yemane Natnael (yemane_natnael@yahoo.com)
Date: Mon Sep 15 2008 - 12:36:06 EDT
Zimbabwe Rivals Sign Power-Sharing Agreement
By CELIA W. DUGGER and ALAN COWELL
Published: September 15, 2008
HARARE, Zimbabwe — After more than 28 years of unbroken power, President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe signed an agreement with the opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai on Monday to divide the responsibilities for running the troubled country.
While many of the pieces of the long-awaited deal remained either
unresolved or unannounced, Mr. Tsvangirai said the agreement “sees the
return of hope to all our lives.”
Despite some questions about how the
agreement would be implemented after so much acrimony and hostility
between the two men, Mr. Mugabe said: “We are committed to the deal. We
will do our best.”
Opposition supporters at the ceremony in a
Harare hotel celebrated the signing, but Western diplomats said they
were still awaiting a text of the deal to see how power was actually to
be divided.
The arrangement was reached after weeks of
negotiations that opened in July. The negotiations followed a season of
contested elections, scarred by bloodletting and intimidation, which
the opposition blamed on the government. Mr. Tsvangirai claimed victory
in the first round of elections in March. But he boycotted a
presidential run-off in June, citing political violence, leaving Mr.
Mugabe as the sole candidate.
Despite the violence and bad
feelings between the two sides, the sight of Mr. Mugabe, Mr. Tsvangirai
and a second opposition leader, Arthur Mutambara, clasping hands beside
Thabo Mbeki,
the South African president who mediated the deal, prompted some
participants to suggest that Zimbabwe’s fortunes might have changed
after years of autocracy and economic chaos.
Mr. Tsvangirai said
a sense of hope “provides the foundation of this agreement that we sign
today that will provide us with the belief that we can achieve a new
Zimbabwe.”
For his part, Mr. Mugabe seemed far less
accommodating, using a speech after the signing ceremony to renew his
accusations that Britain, the former colonial power, and the United
States were responsible for Zimbabwe’s problems.
“African
problems must be solved by Africans,” he said. “The problem we have had
is a problem that has been created by former colonial power. Why, why,
why the hand of the British? Why, why, why the hand of the Americans
here? Let us ask that.”
Mr. Tsvangirai, often labeled an agent
for the British in the state media, said in his own remarks that it was
time for Zimbabwe to open up to international donors — Britain and the
United States among them — who were seeking to feed the multitude of
hungry Zimbabweans.
The moment was another milestone in Zimbabwe’s political history.
Almost
three decades ago , Mr. Mugabe, leader of the political party that
claimed the loyalty of the biggest of two guerrilla armies fighting
white minority rule in the country, formerly called Rhodesia, was
brought only reluctantly to negotiate a peace deal in 1979 rather than
press for a military outcome.
Some years later, Mr. Mugabe struck
a unity agreement with a fellow nationalist leader, Joshua Nkomo, that
led to Mr. Nkomo’s political eclipse.
Mr. Tsvangirai said his
commitment to the agreement showed that “my belief in Zimbabwe and its
peoples runs deeper than the scars I bear from the struggle” — a
reference to the beatings he received in detention.
The full
details of the agreement seemed unclear. Introducing the signatories,
Mr. Mbeki, the South African leader who staked much political and
diplomatic capital on negotiating the accord, referred to Mr. Mugabe as
president, Mr. Tsvangirai as prime minister and Mr. Mutambara as deputy
prime minister.
As the two sides have negotiated over power,
Mr. Tsvanigrai has sought control of the police, which he believes were
involved in a campaign of violence against his supporters during the
election.
Mr. Mugabe dwelt in his speech on the role in
negotiating a settlement played by Zimbabwe’s neighbors, referring back
to the days when a belt of southern African lands bordering the last
bastions of white rule in Africa called themselves “frontline” states
and supported liberation movements, including those in Zimbabwe.
“They have come to our assistance once again,” he said.
Mr. Mugabe reserved his main credit for the deal for Mr. Mbeki, describing his mediation as “noble work.”
Talking
about the negotiations that led to the agreement, Mr. Mugabe also said
there were “lots of things in the agreement that I don’t like, and
still don’t like.”
However, he said, “we are all Zimbabweans
and is there any other road, any other route to follow? History makes
us walk the same route.”
With Zimbabwe’s economy virtually
collapsed and inflation running at more than 11 million per cent, the
new government in Zimbabwe is likely to need huge financial support
from some of those outside powers Mr. Mugabe blamed so vehemently for
its woes.
And some of those outsiders remained skeptical about the implementation of the agreement.
David Miliband, the British foreign secretary, echoed a European Union statement linking aid to reforms.
“The
new government needs to start to rebuild the country,” Mr. Miliband
said in a statement. “If it does so, Britain and the rest of the
international community will be quick to support them.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/16/world/africa/16zimbabwe.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin
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