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For those of you who didn’t read the fine print this morning, President Thabo Mbeki has been quietly shafted once more by President Jacob Zuma, this time as mediator in the Zimabwean peace process.
Mbeki was mediator while president and this continued afterwards. But yesterday it came to a dramatic end with an announcement by Zuma that stated: “President Jacob Zuma has constituted a three-person Facilitation support team to work on the Zimbabwean process. The President’s political adviser Charles Nqakula leads the team, working with Special Envoy Mac Maharaj and international relations adviser Lindiwe Zulu.”
Mbeki was not among the three persons. AFP pressed Zuma’s spokesman, Vincent Magwenya for an explanation. He offered this: “Former president Thabo Mbeki’s role was in the context of him being the head of state.”
Well, not quite. Zuma very warmly announced that Mbeki would continue with mediation despite the fact that he was no longer president.
So it was a shafting. A long-overdue shafting, actually.

Here follows the full statement:
President Zuma appoints Facilitation Support Team
25 November 2009
The SADC Summit held on the 5th of November in Maputo, Mozambique, decided that the signatories to the Global Political Agreement, Zanu-PF, the MDC led by Morgan Tsvangirai and MDC led by Arthur Mutambara should engage in dialogue within 15 days, not exceeding 30 days, and that the dialogue should include all outstanding issues relating to the implementation of the Global Political Agreement.
The Summit directed the Facilitator, President Zuma, to assess progress and report back to the Chairperson of the Organ on Politics, Defence and Security Cooperation at the conclusion of the 15 day period.
The Facilitation team will soon engage with the parties as emissaries of the President, and report back to President Zuma.
The dates of their visit to Harare, Zimbabwe have not been finalized.

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  4. A big weekend for Mbeki, Zuma and the ANC
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Comments

 

JohnBMal

November 26, 2009 at 8:58 pm

I think you have a serious thinking problem. The argument that this is a long overdue shafting does not hold water.

If you look at the record, Zuma has been harder on Tsvangirai than Mbeki. He has been on record calling for the lifting of sanctions – something Mbeki never did,

The problem with white South African analysis is that it is based more on wishful thinking than anything else.

 

Tsuro

December 11, 2009 at 4:23 pm

The announcement by Zuma is good news. It signals South Africa’s genuine commitment to resolving the problems in our country. To have serious negotiators on this team shows that South Africa means business and that the problems in Zimbabwe will take a lot of tough talking to resolve. They will be prepared to bang heads together.

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    I am Ray Hartley, the editor of The Times, South Africa, a daily newspaper which was launched in June 2007 under the Sunday Times umbrella. I'm also the editor of Times LIVE.

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