A political analyst says South African President Jacob Zuma did not put enough pressure to ensure President Robert Mugabe resolves the ongoing stalemate in Zimbabwe’s coalition government. Rejoice Ngwenya said President Zuma missed a great opportunity to resolve the ongoing crisis as he ends a three-day official visit to Zimbabwe Thursday. “Frankly speaking, President Zuma has been very disappointing because he has given too many excuses why Mr. Robert Mugabe should not be called upon to account on reneging on the agreement. And really we feel that he lacks the depth to be able to deal with Mugabe’s political chicanery… and I don’t think he is going to move Mugabe much,” He said. Mr. Zuma is backed by the Southern African Development Community (SADC) to resolve the Zimbabwe crisis after years of sharp disagreements between President Mugabe’s ZANU-PF and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).

 

Whatever President Zuma may have gained for our country during his state visit to Britain, the sad thing is he failed to seize the one opportunity he had to transform his international image completely -- which was to come out strongly with a decisive new policy to resolve the protracted mess in Zimbabwe. To show that he is not just a continuation of Thabo Mbeki on this morally definitive issue. Instead he tried to persuade British Prime Minister Gordon Brown to scrap what he called the European Union's "sanctions against Zimbabwe." This was dumbfounding. He must have known it was a non-starter. There are no sanctions against Zimbabwe. There are only targeted sanctions against 200 individuals and nine companies known to be the prime villains who have looted the land and its resources, impoverished the people and committed crimes against humanirty. The sanctions have declared those individuals persona non grata and frozen their assets in the countries applying them.

 

A leading Zimbabwe Human Rights lawyer on Wednesday called for urgent regional action to save the country from sliding back into chaos, amid growing fears of a major upsurge in violence and tension in the rural areas. Dewa Mavhinga told us the escalation of violence in the country should be one of the central issues and themes discussed by President Jacob Zuma of South Africa and the three principals to the Global Political Agreement. ‘The reason why this issue should be on the agenda is because the resurgence of state sponsored violence across the country has not changed despite the formation of the inclusive government. There is so much evidence that the country has not moved beyond the old days of ZANU PF’s use of violence to intimidate voters,’ Mavhinga said.

 

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe's Zanu-PF party has rebuffed Western media's assertions that China is not a true friend of Africa but one that is bent on exploiting its vast natural resources. Party national chairman Simon Khaya-Moyo told Xinhua on Wednesday that China's relations with Africa were founded on mutual trust, equality and a win-win situation. "Those Western countries criticizing the relations know that China is a powerful nation which is about to overtake the United States as the world's economic power," he said. "The West is going to China more often than other countries so China is a giant and that's why they want to castigate it."As Zimbabwe and Africa develop their relations with China, there has been Western criticism of China's sincerity -- that its growing economic interest in Africa is based on a search for raw materials to power its economy.