ANC congress to discuss Zimbabwe

Just a day after presidential hopeful and incumbent African National Congress (ANC) Deputy President Jacob Zuma criticized President Thabo Mbeki’s infamous quiet diplomacy on Zimbabwe, the South African government has once more displayed its indirect support of tyranny and cronyism in Zimbabwe by slamming a recent decision by the United States government to expand its sanctions to include more than 40 other of Mugabe’s cronies and six children of his cronies studying in that country.
Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister Aziz Pahad criticized such moves as nonsensical and a collective punishment that would scuttle President Thabo Mbeki’s mediation efforts.
The United States is among other countries that slapped the Mugabe regime with ‘smart’ sanctions for stifling democracy and spearheading human rights abuses in the crisis-plagued country.
“Adding another 40 names does not help us at this critical stage (of mediation talks),” he is quoted as saying in a press briefing in Pretoria on return from the European Union-Africa Summit held in Portugal last week where European leaders criticized Zimbabwean President Mugabe.
Zuma this week Pahad’s comments also come hot on the heels of the Zimbabwean government had branded German Chancellor Angela Merkel as a racist, fascist and a Nazi following her criticism of Mugabe at the EU-AU summit that was held in the Portuguese capital, Lisbon.
South Africa, well-known for its widely criticized quiet diplomacy on Zimbabwe, is the mediator of the Zimbabwean crisis.
Although parties involved in the talks maintain that there has been steady progress, nothing on the ground suggests that-CAJ News.