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Opposition Boycotts Southern African Summit on Zimbabwe

By Scott Bobb

Johannesburg

20 October 2008

The parties to the Zimbabwe crisis talks were to brief southern African leaders in Swaziland, but the opposition is boycotting the session because the leader of the main opposition party, Morgan Tsvangirai, has not been given a passport. VOA's Scott Bobb reports from our Southern Africa Bureau in Johannesburg.

The head of Zimbabwe's main opposition party, and prime minister-designate, Morgan Tsvangirai refused to travel to Swaziland for the summit of southern African leaders because the government of President Robert Mugabe has refused to give him a passport. For several months he has been obliged to request a special travel document for each trip abroad.

The secretary-general of Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change, Tendai Biti, said this could not continue.

"The travel document is an insult," he said. "To give the prime minister-designate, the leader of a party that has won [elected] the ruling party, a travel document that lasts for the three days that he is there is an insult and it is a reflection that they are not ready [to share power]."

Mr. Mugabe's ZANU-PF party one month ago signed a power sharing agreement with Tsvangirai and a smaller opposition party headed by Arthur Mutambara. Under the accord, Mr. Tsvangirai is to assume the newly created position of prime minister, but talks on a unity government were declared deadlocked on Friday.

Mutambara told reporters in the Swazi capital the opposition would boycott discussions without the presence of the veteran opposition leader.

"Without Mr. Tsvangirai there will be no discussion of Zimbabwe today," he said. "However, we have been assured that a jet has been sent to Harare to bring Mr. Tsvangirai to this meeting. Until such an activity has happened and Mr. Tsvangirai has come to this meeting there is no dialogue on Zimbabwe here."

A Zimbabwean official dismissed Tsvangirai's refusal to travel as a maneuver, saying he had been given a travel document because the government does not have the foreign exchange to import the material to make new passports.

The MDC said rather it was a deliberate attempt by the government to prevent Mr. Tsvangirai from traveling to brief heads-of-state on the political and economic crisis in his country.

Leaders of the political commission of the Southern Africa Development Community convened the summit after the talks deadlocked in Harare.

The Zimbabwean opposition won a majority of the seats in parliament in elections last March and Mr. Tsvangirai defeated Mr. Mugabe in the first round of the presidential vote. But Mr. Mugabe won the run-off election after Mr. Tsvangirai pulled out citing a campaign of intimidation in which more than 100 of his supporters were killed.