Tsvangirai Pledges to Meet Resolution Deadline

Zimbabwe’s Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai has assured his supporters of his commitment to resolve the contention between him and President Robert Mugabe before the expiry of a 30 day deadline imposed by regional countries.

Speaking at a rally in Harare, Tsvangirai confirmed that he was holding meetings with Mugabe’s ZANU-PF party, clarifying however that the meetings were not to negotiate but to define the government’s framework within the time limit set by the Southern African Development Community (SADC).

Tsvangirai said although economic sanctions were crippling Zimbabwe’s economy, they were intended to pressurize Mugabe and ZANU-PF to meet the demands of the power-sharing agreement.

A SADC summit in November ended a three-week boycott by Tsvangirai and his MDC party from the unity government. Tsvangirai was protesting disloyalty and continued intimidation of his party members by Mugabe.

Zimbabwe was hit by a humanitarian crisis after a government decision to suspend the actitvities of international aid agencies at the height of the post election crisis that followed Mugabe’s reelection in polls marred by irregularities.

Tsvangirai recently visited Libyan President Muammar Gadaffi, who is the current African union Chairman, and briefed him on developments towards solving the political rifts.

Political analysts read the visit as an effort to pressure Mugabe into implementing the Global Political Agreement fully. [ER]