INTERNATIONAL pressure on Zimbabwe’s major political
players, Zanu PF and MDC to urgently come to the negotiating table to unlock
the political logjam continues to grow with the United States (US) adding its
voice, saying the talks should be mediated by a neutral arbiter.
This comes amid reports that representatives of the two
parties were already in Switzerland attending a peace-building workshop aimed
at facilitating the dialogue process.
MDC’s chief of staff Sesil Zvidzai told NewsDay from Basel
that the workshop was meant to enable them to share notes with representatives
of other countries.
“We are looking at case studies in areas like Syria, the
Tunisian situation and how it turned out after the Arab Spring and many other
examples,” Zvidzai said.
“Although this is not specifically for Zimbabwe, the
experience that we are getting here is helpful in the sense that people must
dialogue. This is about what is good for us as a country.”
But Zanu PF national spokesperson Simon Khaya Moyo said he
was unaware of the workshop or any party representative seconded to that
gathering.
Some of the delegates to the workshop, which started this
week, were drawn from church, government and the National Peace and
Reconciliation Commission (NPRC).
In a statement on Tuesday, US State Department deputy
spokesperson Robert Palladino said only a national dialogue could solve
problems bedevilling Zimbabwe.
“The US calls on all sides to come together immediately in
a national dialogue process that must be credible, inclusive and mediated by a
neutral third party,” Palladino said.
“In order for such a dialogue to succeed, the government of
Zimbabwe should end its excessive violence and intimidation, immediately
release the civil society activists, who have been arbitrarily detained and
hold security force members responsible for human rights violations and abuses
accountable.”
The US said the sanctions on President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s
government would only be lifted after he has implemented significant political
and economic reforms in line with his inauguration speech.
“We also reiterate our call for the government of Zimbabwe
to enact promised political and economic reforms,” the statement read.
President Donald Trump’s government also blamed Mnangagwa
for using excessive force on civilians.
“US remains seriously concerned about excessive force by
the government of Zimbabwe security forces since January 14, which has resulted
in at least 13 deaths, 600 victims of violence, torture or rape and more than 1
000 arrests,” the statement read.
Mnangagwa has since denied that his government was behind
the killings and challenged affected families to provide evidence of the
attrocities.
Recently, Mnangagwa invited to State House all the
presidential candidates that participated in last year’s harmonised elections
to map up the framework for the proposed dialogue.
Although MDC leader Nelson Chamisa boycotted Mnangagwa’s
indaba, the opposition leader later attended a prayer breakfast meeting
organised by the church, which was snubbed by the Zanu PF leader.
Zimbabwe Council of Churches secretary-general, Kenneth
Mtata, said the Swiss workshop was part of capacity-building for different
actors involved in the dialogue process.
He said after the
prayer breakfast meeting held in Harare, they were confident of bringing the
two protagonists together.
“The next steps would be to make a debriefing process with
different key stakeholders, including the President who must get first-hand
information of the whole process with whom we will share information of how the
process must unfold going forward so that it is effective and inclusive to
produce expected results that enhance national peace, justice and prosperity
for all Zimbabweans,” Mtata said.
“After this, we will move on to define issues regarding
mandate. There are many possibilities of convening national dialogue.”
He said they will likely have a broader consultative forum,
which will lead them to a stage of finding suitable conveners of the dialogue.
Mtata also said they hope to have Parliament’s buy-in so as
to have a legally binding mandate.
He said the convening process and convening team will then
set up the framework for national dialogue with the scope of the dialogue and
different levels of participation and the implementation plan.
“The national dialogue has begun, but has not yet been
formalised. The President has launched the dialogue with political parties and
we think that what is required now is to converge all the processes into the
all-encompassing national dialogue,” he said.
Mtata said the process must have long-lasting solutions for
the country, adding that they were not in any way discouraged by negativities.
“We are not discouraged by those who are trying to throw in
spanners in the works. There are those with negative views of this whole
process and, therefore, will invent some stories and work with some conspiracy
theories,” he said. Newsday
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