S. Africa’s Leader Stands by Zimbabwe

Despite rising Western and domestic criticism over his backing of the regime in neighboring Zimbabwe, South African President Thabo Mbeki met with Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe on Thursday to discuss the deepening political and economic crises in the latter’s nation and to promise continued support.

Although Mbeki’s office initially said he would not meet opposition figures during his visit to Harare, Zimbabwe’s capital, the South African leader also held talks with Morgan Tsvangirai, head of the Movement for Democratic Change.

Mugabe, who has ruled since the end of minority white rule 23 years ago in what was then Rhodesia, has drawn increasing criticism for his nation’s economic chaos and his iron rule. The U.S. and European Union have imposed sanctions on the government, accusing it of rigging the 2002 presidential election and of human rights abuses, including the arrest and torture of opposition figures.

Mbeki’s trip came just days after Desmond Tutu, South Africa’s retired archbishop and a Nobel Peace Prize winner, attacked the president’s policy of so-called quiet diplomacy toward Zimbabwe. Many in South Africa’s ruling African National Congress party also are deeply perturbed that Mbeki has not condemned the alleged rights abuses under Mugabe.

The three-hour meeting underscored Mbeki’s determination to continue engaging Zimbabwe’s leaders despite his recent failure to have the country readmitted to the Commonwealth. Heads of the 54-nation group, consisting largely of former British colonies, ended a meeting in Nigeria deeply divided on the issue. Britain, Australia and New Zealand pushed through an extension of Zimbabwe’s suspension, which was imposed 18 months earlier over the disputed presidential election. Zimbabwe promptly withdrew from the group after the sanction.

Mbeki has played a role in efforts to bring Mugabe and opposition leaders together to resolve the nation’s crises. Mugabe said Thursday that “informal talks” with the opposition were underway, but Movement for Democratic Change spokesman William Bango said in a telephone interview that party leader Tsvangirai had no knowledge of such talks.

In recent years, Mugabe has pursued a policy of seizing white-owned land and redistributing it to blacks, which critics blame for the collapse of Zimbabwe’s agricultural sector, leading to economic chaos, unemployment and food and gasoline shortages. However, authorities say the crisis is the result of drought and hostile Western media coverage.

Figures released Wednesday put the nation’s annual inflation rate at 620%, one of the highest levels in the world. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs warned the same day that high prices for basic food items such as maize, sugar and flour put them beyond the reach of average families.

On Thursday, the U.N. Relief and Recovery Unit reported that Zimbabwe would face severe food shortages next year. It warned that water and sewer systems also were in rapid decline.

The International Monetary Fund announced two weeks ago that it would begin proceedings to expel Zimbabwe, after earlier suspending its voting rights, because of a lack of cooperation and arrears of $270 million. Even so, Zimbabwe’s Reserve Bank governor, Gideon Gono, said Thursday that he would appeal to to show “sensitivity and support” and reschedule the debt.

Early Thursday, opposition figures in Zimbabwe criticized Mbeki after a spokesman for the South African president initially said he had no plans to meet with anti-government figures or soften his approach.

Job Sikhala, a Movement for Democratic Change member of parliament who has been repeatedly arrested and says he was tortured, said he had lost hope in Mbeki as someone who might use his influence to press for change in Zimbabwe.

“He’s just here to comfort Mugabe,” Sikhala said in a telephone interview. “The truth on the ground is that President Mugabe has lost the respect of the people of Zimbabwe .... He’s becoming more and more irrelevant in the international community.”

A spokesman for Zimbabwe’s Information Ministry did not return repeated telephone calls seeking comment.

Underscoring concern over Mbeki’s policies, Tutu said Monday that there were no grounds for the South African leader’s appeal to the Commonwealth to lift Zimbabwe’s suspension. He called for condemnation of human rights abuses without fear or favor.

“Human rights are human rights, and they are of universal validity or they are nothing,” Tutu said. “What has been reported as happening in Zimbabwe is totally unacceptable and we ought to say so, regretting that it should have been necessary to condemn erstwhile comrades.

“The credibility of our democracy demands this,” he said.