MDC-T spokesman Douglas Mwonzora told SW Radio Africa on Thursday that he was assured by President Jacob Zuma’s facilitation team that the SADC technical committee will be in the country before the end of November.
Members of the team are to be seconded by their Heads of State who sit on the Troika, which is chaired by the South African President. Other members of the Troika are Zambia and Tanzania.
Mwonzora met the facilitation team of Lindiwe Zulu and Charles Nqakula in Harare on Wednesday. He said they discussed the deployment of the team, which Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai described to journalists in Harare on Wednesday as being ‘long overdue.’
At a summit in Livingstone back in March SADC resolved to appoint a team that would help speed up implementation of the issues already agreed to by the country’s political parties. This was after the regional leaders criticized the unity government for their slow progress in implementing the GPA.
SADC has since held summits in South Africa and Angola, which simply ‘reaffirmed’ the resolutions that were made in Livingstone with no movement in sight on the deployment of the team.
According to Mwonzora the team is supposed to provide regular progress reports on the implementation of the outstanding GPA issues and, where possible, take appropriate action.
‘We are praying that the team will come as promised because we have seen in the past that ZANU PF has been resisting the appointment of these officials to sit in JOMIC,’ Mwonzora said.
ZANU PF has insisted that they will not accept the involvement of Troika representatives in Zimbabwe’s affairs. But Mwonzora said it is not up to them to decide, and no election in Zimbabwe will be deemed credible without monitoring by SADC authorities.
Asked about ZANU PF’s statement that it has lost faith with the GPA forum of negotiators and wanted other platforms to deal with outstanding issues, the MDC-T legislator for Nyanga North told us he was not amused by that.
‘What do you expect from a party that reneges on anything that it agrees on? There are several issues in the GPA that have been resolved but ZANU PF has failed to implement them. So who is being a stumbling block? They were told by SADC to stop violence, but violence has escalated in the past few months.
‘It is disingenuous for ZANU PF to try and blame the MDC. We all know they are not comfortable with Zuma’s firmness and they want him and his team out. That is what they mean when they say they want the establishment of other platforms for negotiations,’ Mwonzora added. – SW Radio Africa
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