Mbeki sends generals to Zim

2008-05-12 23:26

Erika Gibson

Pretoria - A delegation of six retired generals, appointed by President Thabo Mbeki to investigate the violence in Zimbabwe, also will probably try to assess the extent of the army's role in the country's politics.

The generals were in Zimbabwe in the past week and began giving Mbeki feedback on Friday during his visit to Harare.

After a meeting with Mbeki on Monday, a presidential team of religious leaders said the generals, who were part of a larger South African mediation effort in Zimbabwe, also would speak to victims of violence and give Mbeki feedback.

It was coincidentally after a meeting with African religious leaders a week ago that this delegation's deployment was announced.

The presidency could not supply details on Monday about who was in the group.

A political analyst at the Institute for Security Studies, Chris Maroleng, believed there was a greater goal behind Mbeki's motivation specifically to include militarists in the group.

Speak the same language

This possibly was to first determine the extent and the role of the Zimbabwean armed forces in the political violence.

Second, it also needed to be determined how the security forces could eventually be reformed, when the elections were over.

"The generals probably find favour with the Zimbabwean generals more easily - they speak the same language.

Maroleng said: "I assume Mbeki probably asked them to propose solutions where they found issues."

The religious leaders said that they had agreed with Mbeki that the question of Zimbabwe had to be settled as quickly as possible.

As soon as the generals had made a full assessment, further steps could be taken to ensure that the next election took place peacefully.

Violence against Movement for Democratic Change supporters increased in the past week.

MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai hoped that this would make way for southern African leaders perhaps to deploy peace forces in Zimbabwe in the run up to the election.

Tsvangirai also asked the Southern African Development Community (SADC) to guarantee his safety before he returned to Zimbabwe.

At least 200 senior military commanders allegedly had been deployed since early April in charge of clusters of "war veterans", apparently to co-ordinate a campaign of victimisation against the opposition supporters.

Shrouded in secrecy

Maroleng said he could only speculate on the South African generals' mandate because no one officially had elaborated on it.

It was also not known how long the generals would be in Zimbabwe.

"It is doubtful that the public will be informed at all about their findings because everything is shrouded in secrecy.

"We definitely won't know of any evidence of serious offences (at the hands of the Zimbabwean security forces)."

- Beeld