Talks if success is certain

2003-08-23 22:29

Harare - A Zimbabwean government minister said on Saturday the ruling Zanu-PF party will not be rushed into talks with the opposition Movement of Democratic Change (MDC) unless the talks successfully end the country's political and economic woes.

Pressure has been mounting in recent months on the country's largest political parties to meet to iron out the political and economic problems bedevilling the country.

"Talk we must eventually and when we do, a successful conclusion should be guaranteed," Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa was quoted as saying on state television on Saturday.

"Because of the importance of the matter, nothing should be hurried or rushed. We should never be stampeded into these talks if there is danger that success will not be guaranteed," he said to journalists at a UN-organised media seminar in the northern resort town of Kariba.

The proposed talks which broke down last year are expected to find ways of pulling the southern African country out of dire economic straits and a months-long political stalemate over the disputed presidential election of March 2002.

Last year's talks had been brokered by South Africa's President Thabo Mbeki and Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria.

Local church leaders last month launched fresh efforts to persuade President Robert Mugabe's party and the MDC to resume the talks.

Talks between Mugabe's camp and the MDC, headed by Morgan Tsvangirai, ended in deadlock last year after both sides managed only to draft an agenda of a common programme.

The MDC has said it has taken "risky" actions to facilitate dialogue with the country's governing party. It has dropped, from its proposed agenda, one of the key and contentious issues that led to the breakdown of last year's talks -- Mugabe's legitimacy.

But Mugabe last week put a damper on the prospects of the resumption of the talks when he said the MDC needs to "repent" before any inter-party dialogue took place.

"Those who seek unity must not be enemies...there cannot be unity with enemies of the people," Mugabe said.

Zimbabwe African National Union - Patriotic Front (Zanu-PF) has accused the MDC of being a front of the Western nations that are against Mugabe's controversial land reform scheme of taking land from whites giving it to blacks.

"MDC should not seek to go into dialogue with their hidden agenda to achieve an imposed solution or to achieve what it failed to achieve through attempted assassination, stayaways, rolling mass actions," Chinamasa added.

- AFP