Zimbabwe faces new deadline for reforms

ZIMBABWE: Zimbabwe averted a political meltdown Friday after Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai ended his boycott of the unity government, but faced a new deadline to resolve a slate of thorny disputes.

A summit of southern African leaders ended late Thursday with Tsvangirai agreeing to end his three-week boycott of the government that he formed in February with veteran President Robert Mugabe.

The summit gave the rival leaders 30 days to negotiate an end to their disputes, including a feud over key government appointments and the arrest and harassment of Tsvangirai loyalists.

South Africa was tasked with evaluating Zimbabwe’s progress and reporting back to the Southern African Development Community (SADC), the 15-nation bloc that acts as guarantor to the power-sharing deal.

Tsvangirai spoke only briefly afterwards to announce the end of the boycott, but Mugabe and his ZANU-PF party made no remarks.

The state-run Herald newspaper, however, brushed off Tsvangirai’s concerns and again insisted that Zimbabwe’s main problem was a western travel ban and asset freeze on Mugabe and about 200 members of his inner circle.

“ZANU-PF maintains that these (MDC’s concerns) are peripheral issues compared to the substantial issue of sanctions,” an unnamed source said in the paper.

“In fact, there is dishonesty on the part of the prime minister because he wants to use sanctions as leverage,” the source added. HARARE, Friday, AFP