Miliband slates SA failure to recognise Zimbabwe's crisis

DAVID Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, visiting South Africa for talks on the Zimbabwe crisis ahead of the G8 summit in Japan, yesterday started a political row with the president, Thabo Mbeki.

Mr Mbeki has resolutely asserted that there is no crisis in Zimbabwe. But Mr Miliband publicly demonstrated the British government's stark differences with Mr Mbeki by visiting some of the three million refugees who have fled into South Africa from Robert Mugabe's terror campaign – something Mr Mbeki has refused to do, describing the fugitives not as "refugees" but as "temporary shelterers."

Mr Mbeki, whose eight years of "quiet diplomacy" in Zimbabwe on behalf of the African Union (AU) and the Southern African Development Community have come to nothing, returned from yet another failed negotiation in Zimbabwe with his lieutenants blaming Britain for the breakdown.

Mr Mbeki had flown to Harare for an anticipated meeting between Mr Mugabe and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai. However, Mr Tsvangirai boycotted the meeting, saying Mr Mbeki could no longer be trusted and that a new mediation mechanism needs to be established to tackle the Zimbabwe crisis.

Mr Tsvangirai's refusal to engage with Mr Mbeki is a massive blow for the South African head of state, who wanted to arrive at the G8 summit today claiming a major Zimbabwe breakthrough to his credit.

In off-the-record briefings, Mr Mbeki's closest aides attacked Britain and the United States, alleging that their governments had advised Mr Tsvangirai to snub both Mr Mugabe and Mr Mbeki.

A spokesman for Mr Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), George Sibotshiswe, said the AU must appoint a permanent mediator to work with Mr Mugabe and declared the party would not attend any meeting designed to give legitimacy to Mr Mugabe's presidency.

He said: "We are concerned that people might have wanted to use the meeting to show the G8 that progress was being made in Zimbabwe when there is no progress."

At Johannesburg's Central Methodist Church, where 2,000 Zimbabwean refugees have found protection, Mr Miliband was visibly overcome by the plight of the people. Amid the stench of unwashed bodies in a building where people are camped head-to-toe on stairwells and in passages, doorways, offices and other rooms, including the vestry, the Foreign Secretary said: "No-one who meets the people here could do anything other than redouble their efforts to secure international consensus that the Mugabe regime is not a legitimate representation of the will of the people of Zimbabwe.

"It is imperative that a government be formed with respect to the 29 March (election] result because this is now a crisis, and it's affecting the whole of southern Africa."

Mr Miliband said the international community should "unite behind a tough, strong, clear UN Security Council resolution" calling for international sanctions against Mugabe.

"I've seen the human toll and the human face of the catastrophe, and it calls for a clear mix of diplomacy and sanctions," he said.

Even though voting was heavily rigged in his favour, Mr Mugabe lost the 29 March first round presidential poll to Mr Tsvangirai, obtaining only 43.2 per cent of the national votes cast to the 47.9 per cent of his rival.

Mr Tsvangirai needed an absolute majority of at least 50 per cent plus one vote to avoid a run-off election.

Mr Mugabe and his generals then launched a reign of terror in which more than 100 opposition supporters have so far been killed with about 1,500 listed as missing.

Mr Tsvangirai withdrew from the 27 June run-off poll to save his supporters from further violence.

Mr Mugabe ran unopposed and proclaimed himself re-elected, which means he will rule until he is in his 90th year.

WHAT'S NEXT

THABO Mbeki, a guest speaker at the G8 summit at Lake Toya, is expected to demand that the United States, Japan, Germany, Britain, France, Canada, Italy and Russia fulfil pledges, made at Gleneagles in 2005, to increase aid to Africa to $25 billion (£12.5 million) a year by 2010.

They are certain to condemn Zimbabwe's run-off election as a sham following violence against supporters of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).

Mr Mbeki, reported to be a close personal friend of Robert Mugabe, faces further embarrassment for failing to broker a mediation deal between Mugabe and the MDC leader, Morgan Tsvangirai.

He is certain to receive a frosty reception if he refuses to endorse international moves to tighten sanctions against Mugabe and his government.

Mr Mbeki, the South African president, is due to step down at the country's general election next year.