HARARE - A special SADC committee on politics, defence and security has agreed to hold a full-scale extraordinary summit to break the deadlock over Zimbabwe's power-sharing agreement, diplomatic sources have said. Angola, Mozambique and Swaziland - who make up SADC's troika - and Thabo Mbeki, the mediator who brokered Zimbabwe's power-sharing deal, have arIts intention is to break the logjam over outstanding issues, including the continued tenure of Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) governor Gideon Gono, Attorney General Johannes Tomana and also ensuring that Roy Bennett, the MDC agriculture minister-designate and provincial governors take oath of office.
Officials of the 14-member Southern African Development Community (SADC) said the summit could be held within the next two weeks in an attempt to persuade President Robert Mugabe to implement the accord he inked last September.
But Mugabe has refused to fulfil his end of the bargain. He has staunchly refused to sit down with his other two principals Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and Deputy Prime Minister Arthur Mutambara to choose a new Reserve Bank governor and Attorney General (AG).
Tomas Salomao, the executive secretary of the SADC, was not immediately available for comment, but an official in the SADC secretariat in Botswana said the planned summit would consider recommendations on the way forward for Zimbabwe’s GNU.
Tsvangirai and Mutambara two months ago wrote to SADC chairman Jacob Zuma taking issue with Mugabe’s refusal to choose a new central bank governor and AG.
They also wanted to invalidate the unilateral appointment he made of the two senior officials without agreement with the other two principals as the agreement states.
SADC had agreed to review Zimbabwe’s GNU after six months, but has been forced to call a meeting earlier to deal with a defiant Mugabe.