Land crisis meeting set for September

Six southern African heads of state are to meet in Harare next month to find solutions to Zimbabwe’s land crisis, according to news reports. The decision was taken during a meeting between SADC chairman and Malawian President Bakili Muluzi, Mozambican President Joaquim Chissano and Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe in Mozambique’s port city of Beira on Monday.

“We have decided that the troika plus three other member states should go to Zimbabwe. This is a regional approach we are making,” AFP quoted Muluzi as saying after the meeting. “What the region is saying is that there is nothing wrong with Zimbabwe seeking to acquire land, we all support that process, there is nothing wrong about that.” The troika Muluzi was referring to consists of Angola, Namibia and Malawi. They, along with Mozambique, Botswana and South Africa, were directed at a recent Southern African Development Community (SADC) summit to meet and search for solutions to Zimbabwe’s crisis.

According to the report, Mugabe said he had extended the invitation to the heads of state. “I invited them to come and see the situation for themselves, where we are, how far we have gone, the work we have done to date on our own and assess the issue of violence which is played upon by Britain, assess also the ... role of war veterans, the role of government and ... look at things objectively, taking into account also the negative role of the (white) farmers,” the report quoted Mugabe as saying during a television interview. Mozambican presidential spokesman Estefane Moholovi told AFP that the meeting would be held by mid-September, but no firm date had been fixed.

Meanwhile, a report in Johannesburg’s ‘The Star’ newspaper on Tuesday said that during their meeting with Mugabe, Muluzi and Chissano had reiterated the need to resolve Zimbabwe’s crisis without violence and to prevent it from snowballing across the region. A senior Zimbabwean foreign ministry source was quoted as saying: “Their (Chissano and Muluzi’s) message was the same one that SADC leaders have been saying - let land redistribution proceed without violence.”

According to the report, the official said that Muluzi and Chissano had agreed there was a need for SADC to launch an initiative to appeal for international aid to fund Zimbabwe’s land reforms. “However, all that would be made easier if President Mugabe is seen as doing something to stop commercial farm violence,” the official was quoted as saying.

Before the meeting, Muluzi reportedly said that the aim of the initiative was to find a lasting solution to Zimbabwe’s land crisis, while Chissano cautioned that sanctions against Zimbabwe would hurt the entire southern African region. Mugabe, he said, appeared receptive to efforts to solve the country’s economic problems peacefully. President Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria is scheduled to hold separate talks in Abuja on 6 and 7 September to mediate between Zimbabwe and Britain under the aegis of the Commonwealth. Foreign ministers from Australia, Britain (which has been calling for international sanctions against Zimbabwe), Jamaica, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa and Zimbabwe are expected to attend the meeting.