Diplomatic deal to stop land invasions

President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa is reported to have brokered a deal with President Robert Mugabe to help put an end to the land invasions, according to one of South Africa's leading weekly newspapers, 'The Sunday Times'.

According to news reports, Britain and the United States have agreed to help fund a structured land reform programme. Reports said the plan would also involve the International Monetary Fund (IMF) restoring relations with the Zimbabwean government and helping the country's cash strapped state-owned electricity and fuel companies.

The reports said that the deal followed a week of "intense behind-the-scenes diplomacy" in which Mbeki spoke by telephone to US President Bill Clinton, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and European Union executive commission president Romano Prodi, to get their undertaking to support land reform in Zimbabwe.

In return, Mugabe was said to have agreed to end the land invasions and to take the necessary steps told parliamentary elections. Speaking to BBC radio, Peter Hain, Britain's Foreign Office Minister said: "What we have is the beginning of an African engagement of the search for an African solution
to an African problem within the rule of law."

At a regional summit in the tourist resort of Victoria Falls on Friday, Mbeki, Mozambican President Joaquim Chissano and Namibia's Sam Nujoma were reported to have "warned" Mugabe that Zimbabwe's spiralling lawlessness would destabilise the region. They also told him that his policy of sanctioning the illegal occupation of farms would undermine the region's economic revival.

At a news conference after the summit Chissano, Nujoma and Mbeki repeatedly referred to the Zimbabwean president as a "champion of the rule of law", saying he was "committed to ending the violence" - utterances diplomats said were aimed at publicly committing him to sticking to the agreement.