Tsvangirai steps up diplomatic offensive

Zimbabwe’s opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leader Morgan Tsvangirai held high-level talks last week with senior leaders of the FRELIMO government of Mozambique and the official opposition, RENAMO, the ‘Daily News’ reported on Tuesday. The MDC leader said that his separate meetings in South Africa with Almerino Manhengo, the Mozambican Minister for National Security, and Afonso Dhlakama, leader of RENAMO, had been facilitated by the South African government of President Thabo Mbeki. The MDC said the meetings were part of a diplomatic campaign by the party to engage regional leaders in dialogue on the political and economic situation in Zimbabwe.

But the newspaper reported that a spokesman for the Mozambican High Commission in Harare said on Monday the embassy was “not aware” of Tsvangirai’s meeting with Manhengo. The South African High Commissioner, Jeremiah Ndou, said Tsvangirai was the leader of the MDC and travelled in and out of South Africa on private business which had nothing to do with the South African government.

Tsvangirai said the South African and Mozambican governments had briefed President Mugabe on his meetings with Manhengo and Dhlakama. He said: “The meetings were with the full knowledge of the South African government and Mugabe himself. The meeting with Dhlakama, which is being portrayed by Zanu-PF as a clandestine one between the MDC and Renamo, was not clandestine at all.”