orate
preparations. A
local venue was reserved exclusively for us, it was surrounded by a
security
net and we were supposed to be 10 from each side.
MDC duly arrived in good time, the South African facilitators were
there –
many were drawn from South Africa’s own transition process, and Edison
Zvobgo arrived by car from Masvingo. The first day no one else arrived
but
two CIO officers from Pretoria arrived to “collect” Dr. Zvobgo who was
very
apprehensive. He was supposed to lead the first session and he said he
could
not in the absence of his colleagues and not understanding what was
going
on.
Clearly Mugabe had instructed his people not to participate and we
broke up
after a useful discussion amongst ourselves about what we might do on
our
own and how the process might be restarted. Nothing further happened
and the
“talks” never got off the ground. Publicly, as at present, there was no
comment or acknowledgement of the planned talks or any recriminations.
This time it seems to me that there is much more pressure. The
international
community has bought into the process, Mbeki is moving quickly and
using
South Africa’s very considerable weight and Mugabe has been forced to
accept
the process by his peers. It is also quite clear that a real collapse
of the
economy might be immanent if nothing is done soon.
Eddie Cross