Mbeki's failed Zimbabwe diplomacy blasted

Guardian:

South Africa's president, Thabo Mbeki, was given a fierce grilling by G8 leaders yesterday at a private meeting at which they told him that they did not believe his mediation efforts in Zimbabwe were succeeding. They also rejected his suggestion that Robert Mugabe remain as titular head of Zimbabwe. At what was described as a fiery meeting, President George Bush, German chancellor Angela Merkel and Canada's prime minister, Stephen Harper, all challenged Mbeki's assertion that his quiet diplomacy was working, a claim that was also questioned at the same meeting by some African leaders, including the Nigerian president, Umaru Yar'Adua, and John Kufuour, president of Ghana.

But Mbeki warned Britain and the US that Zimbabwe could descend into civil war if they pressed for tougher sanctions against the Mugabe regime.

As the meeting took place it emerged that the tortured and burnt body of a Zimbabwe opposition party worker had been found on a farm belonging to an army colonel, two weeks after the activist was abducted. The Movement for Democratic Change said the discovery of Joshua Bakacheza's corpse came amid a renewed intensification of violence as the government attempts to break resistance to recognition of Mugabe's victory in the widely condemned June 28 election.

At least 20 opposition activists have been murdered since the ballot.

The G8 is expected to issue a statement today calling for sanctions unless Mugabe responds to mediation. There is increasing frustration among some western heads of government that they are asking their electorates to donate $25bn for Africa by 2010 when some of Africa's most senior leaders are unwilling to take a stand in favour of democracy and human rights.

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Mbeki has been an obstacle to a settlement in Zimbabwe by siding with the thugocracy behind Mugabe and doing nothing to stop the murder of opposition leaders and voters. His concern about a civil war is absurd. Mugabe's thugs are already making war on the people of Zimbabwe and Mbeki is either willfully ignorant or blind or does not care. He has also lost the confidence of the leaders of the G-8.