Condemning Mugabe won’t help say Mbeki, Dlamini-Zuma

South African President Thabo Mbeki said on Monday that condemning President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe would not solve the crisis over land redistribution.

In remarks to a conference of business leaders at Mabopane, near the capital, Pretoria, Mbeki said he and other regional leaders had already agreed in a recent meeting with Mugabe that there should be an end the political violence and farm occupations. They had also agreed that there had to be an agreement between Zimbabwe, Britain, the European Union and the World Bank to ensure proper re-distribution of the land.

South African Foreign Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma told a news conference in Geneva on Monday that events in Zimbabwe would have a direct bearing on South Africa: “That is partly why South Africa has taken the view that it has that our duty is not to stand on the mountaintops and condemn Zimbabwe, but to work with Zimbabwe to find solutions to the problem so that we can address the root causes of the problem.”