Southern Africa leaders start Zimbabwe summit

LUSAKA (Reuters) - SOUTHERN(SO.NY)African nations began anemergency summit on Zimbabwe's election deadlock on Saturdaybut South Africa's Thabo Mbeki said there was no crisis.

Zambia, which called the meeting of the 14-nation SouthernAfrican Development Community (SADC), expressed concern aboutthe situation in its neighbour, where a long delay in issuingpresidential poll results has raised fears of violence.

Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe did not attend the summit.

"This summit should focus on helping Zimbabwe to find ananswer that genuinely reflects the mood of the people," saidSADC chairman and Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa in hisopening remarks.

"SADC can no longer continue to stand by and do nothingwhen one of its members is experiencing political and economicdifficulties."

President Mbeki, the most powerful leader at the summit,advocates "quiet diplomacy" in Zimbabwe and seemed not to sharethe regional and international concern over the impasse.

"I wouldn't describe that as a crisis. It's a normalelectoral process in Zimbabwe. We have to wait for ZEC(Zimbabwe Electoral Commission) to release (the results),"Mbeki told reporters after meeting Mugabe for an hour.

The Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) opposition won aparliamentary election on March 29 and says its leader, MorganTsvangirai, also won a presidential poll on the same day.

But no results of that election have been released, stokingtension and MDC charges that Mugabe is planning a violentcampaign to reverse the biggest setback of his 28-year rule.

The MDC has gone to court to try to force the ZEC torelease the results and a judge has promised a verdict forMonday.

ECONOMIC COLLAPSE

Many Zimbabweans had hoped the vote would begin theirrecovery from economic collapse, marked by the world's worstrate of hyper-inflation at more than 100,000 percent.

Mwanawasa said in his speech: "This summit is not intendedto put his excellency, Robert Mugabe, in the dock. In fact itwould be un-African to even make such a suggestion".

Mugabe, aged 84 and in power since independence fromBritain in 1980, said he was not snubbing the summit, whichthree government ministers will attend.

"He (Mbeki) is going to the summit, I'm not ... We're verygood friends, very good brothers. But sometimes we also haveother business that holds us back."

He dismissed comments by British Prime Minister GordonBrown that the world was losing patience.

"If Brown is the world, sure, he will lose patience. I knowBrown as a little tiny dot on this planet," said Mugabe whocalls the MDC a puppet of Britain, the former colonial power.

Mbeki met Tsvangirai on Thursday but no details of theirtalks were revealed.

Tsvangirai earlier met Jacob Zuma, who ousted Mbeki asleader of the ruling African National Congress in December andnow rivals him as South Africa's most powerful man. Zuma joinedthe chorus calling for results to be released.

Tsvangirai has been invited to Lusaka. "No decision can bemade without hearing both sides since there is a stalemate,"Pande said.

MDC secretary-general Tendai Biti said the party would tellthe summit to be tough with Mugabe, still regarded as aliberation-era hero by many Africans.

SADC has long been regarded as toothless in its response toMugabe, despite the meltdown of Zimbabwe's economy, which hasimpacted the whole region. Mbeki led an unsuccessful SADCmediation attempt last year.

An estimated one-quarter of the population has fledZimbabwe, many to South Africa and other neighbouring nations,to escape chronic shortages of food and fuel, 80 percentunemployment and a virtually worthless currency.

Former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan said onFriday that Zimbabwe "now stands on the brink".

"SADC must insist that a peaceful and just solution befound to resolve the political crisis in Zimbabwe," he said.

(Additional reporting by Shapi Shacinda in Lusaka, CrisChinaka, MacDonald Dzirutwe, Nelson Banya, Stella Mapenzauswa,Muchena Zigomo in Harare and Sue Thomas in Johannesburg;Writing by Barry Moody; Editing by Marius Bosch and RobertWoodward)