A deadlocked deal and a torn people

BY PATRICK BILLINGS ‘If the hospital where I worked hadn’t been in such close proximity to the President’s house, they probably would have shot me.’
Charles Motopi left Zimbabwe six years ago when the situation, he said, was terrible but not comparable to now. A victim of government brutality many times, Mr Motopi was once forcibly ejected from his workplace at gunpoint.
Now Mr Motopi is President of the Australian branch of Zimbabwe’s main opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).
He says Zimbabwe has plummeted from the ‘bread basket of Africa’ to a tragic basket case. Inflation soars at a loony figure of 11 million per cent and thousands perish each week from destitution and disease, and all after 28 years under Mugabe rule.
‘Prices are quadrupling in a day, it boggles the mind,’ says Mr Motopi. ‘You are looking at a country where 5000 people die each week from AIDS and mass starvation affects the entire country. This is aside from the current political situation,’ he added.
After a brief interlude of hope after the civil catastrophe of the March elections, the political state in Zimbabwe has soured and now looks equally desperate. On September 15, former South Africa president, Thabo Mbeki, brokered an agreement between Mugabe and MDC leader, Morgan Tsvangirai. The power-sharing deal awards key ministries to the MDC while 84-year old President Robert Mugabe will retain control of the army.
Images of Mugabe and Tsvangirai shaking hands stunned Zimbabweans into a wave of optimism that swept across the country. But as Mbeki is ousted by his own party and Mugabe abandons talks in favour of addressing the United Nations in New York, the deal is looking shaky. ‘It is effectively dead,’ says Peter Murphy, Secretary of the Zimbabwe Information Centre, an Australian based advocacy group. ‘Everybody has to wait till Mugabe gets back from the United Nations. His leaving is a sign of his contempt for the power sharing deal.’
Mr Murphy says progress will be difficult considering Mbeki’s resignation. Mbeki was instrumental in convincing Mugabe to sign the deal and its current inertia will necessitate further involvement by the South African mediator. But with South Africa facing its own political upheaval it is doubtful what impact it can have on the chaos in neighbouring Zimbabwe.
Thirty-six-year-old Motopi soon revealed the extent of his pessimism.
‘It shows the arrogance that Robert Mugabe has displayed in the past, and also that he doesn’t really care about his country. Instead he chooses to go globe-trotting the world spreading his propaganda.’
When Mugabe addressed the U.N. General Assembly last Thursday, he rebuked critics of his leadership, telling the Assembly he would agree to ‘the letter and spirit’ of the power sharing deal.
Mr Motopi said a ‘letter and spirit’ commitment is critical if the suffering of Zimbabweans is to end, and that the nature of the agreement prevents Mugabe from smothering the MDC.
‘It shows the MDC is well informed of the tactics Mugabe uses to swallow the opposition. He might have underestimated the opposition,’ Mr Motopi said.
‘But if the opposition doesn’t get the key ministries involved in the day-to-day running of the government, I doubt the deal will succeed.’
‘If you look at this crisis it has gone beyond ten years now. Ten years of discussions, forums and resolutions without decisive action on the ground itself,’ he said.
If the deal falls apart, there is only one conclusion. ‘The people will continue to suffer,’ Mr Motopi said.