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Zim deal 'victory for Tsvangirai'
22/07/2008 08:43 - (SA)
Harare - Three months after the voting and violence began, embattled President Robert Mugabe and his opposition rival agreed to hold talks about sharing power to bring an end to Zimbabwe's deadly political crisis.
But Zimbabweans worn down by the daily grind of finding food in a country with the world's worst inflation had little energy to celebrate on Monday. Instead, they lined up outside banks for Zimbabwe's new $100bn note - enough to buy two loaves of bread.
Monday's handshake to discuss forging an "inclusive" government was a victory for opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai, who beamed as he signed the deal nearly three months after winning the first round of the presidential vote.
For him, the agreement contained a key opposition demand: an end to the political violence that had killed dozens, injured thousands and sent tens of thousands fleeing from their homes.
Mugabe 'appears nervous'
Talks would begin on Thursday in Pretoria, the South African capital, but would not include either leader, an official from Tsvangirai's party said on condition of anonymity.
Mugabe, who had ruled Zimbabwe for all 28 years since independence and just last month declared election victory, appeared nervous at the ceremony.
Head bent and looking beaten as he stood between two jubilant opposition leaders, Mugabe never once looked at Tsvangirai during the hour-long ceremony. Afterward, he shook hands with everyone except his rival.
Asked about it at a news conference later, he posed for journalists, giving Tsvangirai a limp handshake.
Also present was President Thabo Mbeki, the mediator. Shrugging off criticism about his approach on Mugabe, Mbeki had long argued that dialogue - and not punitive sanctions - was the only way to deal with the long-time African leader.
Mugabe, 84, had been in power since 1980 and for years was revered for leading the seven-year bush war to oust the white-minority government that ruled the former British colony.
White farmers 'back' Tsvangirai
He was praised for promoting reconciliation with whites, promising white commercial farmers who were the backbone of the economy and owned two-thirds of the country's best farmland that they, too, had "a place in the sun".
But in 2000, Mugabe lost a referendum that sought to allow the government to appropriate white-owned farmland without compensation and to resettle black peasant farmers on the properties.
Mugabe accused white farmers of backing Tsvangirai, who had become leader of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change in 1999, and set loose so-called "war veterans" from his ruling Zanu-PF party to violently invade the farms.
Despite Mugabe's claim of seizing the farms for Zimbabwe's blacks, most of the land went to Mugabe's ministers and generals and was left to lie fallow.
Today, Zimbabwe - once a supplier of food to the region - was an economic disaster zone with an official inflation rate of 2.2 million percent and 80% unemployment.
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Zimbabwe Special Report
