Opposition leaders from Zimbabwe brought their case against President Robert Mugabe’s re-election to Washington, calling for an immediate cessation of the violence as a precondition for peace talks.
“We will have achieved nothing if there’s no change to the framework through which Robert Mugabe has been oppressing Zimbabwe,” said Loughty Dube, chairman of the Media Institute of Southern Africa.
Mr. Dube spoke by video conference from Johannesburg with Martinho Chachiua, manager of the Electoral Institute of Southern Africa, and Xolani Zitha, director of Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition, at a briefing hosted by the human rights group Freedom House on Monday.
Mr. Mugabe was elected June 27 in a one-candidate runoff ballot that the opposition party Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) boycotted after weeks of state-sponsored violence.
Ralph Black, MDC’s representative in the U.S., joined by phone from Dallas. Carol J. Thompson, deputy assistant secretary of state for African affairs, also participated.
While the African Union on Wednesday lent its support to the creation of a government of national unity between the MDC and Mr. Mugabe’s Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF), Mr. Black and Ms. Thompson rejected such an idea, calling it impractical.
“We support the African Union appointing a mediator,” Ms. Thompson said, “but we don’t see a government of national unity as being the right model.”
MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai on Wednesday echoed that rejection.
“A government of national unity does not address the problems facing Zimbabwe or acknowledge the will of the Zimbabwean people,” Mr. Tsvangirai told reporters after a meeting of his party’s national executive committee in the nation’s capital, Harare, according to Agence France-Presse.
Opposition leaders want a mediated transitional government that would allow for fair and free elections.
“For any talks to begin, there must be an immediate cessation of the violence” that has left scores of opposition supporters dead and forced 200,000 to flee from their homes, Mr. Black said.
Ms. Thompson said the U.S. is working on a U.N. Security Council resolution to establish multilateral sanctions; even if the resolution fails, however, the U.S. will press forward with its own sanctions.
“Now is the time … to hold Mr. Mugabe accountable for the situation in Zimbabwe,” she said. “We are looking for a credible solution that respects the will of the Zimbabwean people.”
Although Mr. Mugabe seems determined to hold on to power, “there’s no way ZANU-PF can rule the country for the next five years with the inflation they have,” said Mr. Zitha. “They are desperate” to regain legitimacy.
Inflation in Zimbabwe is the highest in the world, Mr. Chachiua said, and up to 90 percent of the population is unemployed.
Inflation is so high that it costs 10 million Zimbabwean dollars for a bus ride one day and 20 million dollars the next day.
While the opposition prefers political and peaceful means of solving the crisis, “there are prime conditions for social unrest and uprising,” Mr. Zitha said. “If [negotiations] fail, I think that is a very viable option.”
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