Previously loath to confront Mr Mugabe over the near-constant stream reports
of human rights abuses in Zimbabwe
and the failure to implement a power-sharing deal agreed more than two years
ago, Jacob Zuma has now issued a sharp rebuke to Africa's oldest leader.
Speaking at a regional summit in Sandton, Johannesburg, attended by 14 heads
of state, Mr Zuma rejected Mr Mugabe's attempts to present Zimbabwe as
secure and ready for elections this year.
In a report put before the Southern African Development Community, he warned
that violence, harassment, hate speech and politically-motivated arrests had
to stop.
Mr Mugabe reportedly told Mr Zuma that claims his supporters were prepetuating
political violence in Zimbabwe were made up. Mr Zuma was said to have
replied:"I do not manufacture things, my reports are based on things
that are happening in the country, based on facts."
Lindiwe Zulu, a member of Mr Zuma's mediation team, said his firm stance had
not gone down well with his neighbour: "The meeting had mixed feelings
with some expressing displeasure and discomfort." To Mr Mugabe's
chagrin, and despite frenzied lobbying by senior aides of his Zanu PF party
before the summit, SADC's members adopted Mr Zuma's recommendations.
Tomaz Salomao, SADC's executive secretary, said that Mr Zuma's report,
initially tabled at a SADC meeting in Livingstone, Zambia, was "final."
"No one has the power or mandate to change what (was) deliberated in
Livingstone," he said.
Monitors will now be sent to Zimbabwe to police the completion of reforms laid
out in the Global Political Agreement signed when ZanuPF entered into a
power-sharing government with the now Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai's
Movement for Democratic Change in 2008.
Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State whose current tour of Africa is
seen partly as an attempt to persuade SADC members to hold Mr Mugabe to the
power-sharing deal, said she was "encouraged".
"This is what we expect him to implement and we are grateful for the
leadership of (those) in the region who are making it very clear what the
way forward should be," she said.
