Talks resume with Zimbabwe rulers and MDC
HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwe's ruling ZANU-PF party and theopposition MDC on Thursday began their first talks since widelycondemned and violent elections last month that returnedPresident Robert Mugabe to power.
Both sides have been under heavy African and world pressureto enter negotiations since Mugabe's re-election in a June 27poll scarred by campaign violence.
Diplomatic sources in Pretoria said the talks had begun inSouth Africa without specifying the location.
The Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) opposition, whichboycotted the election because of violence that it said killed103 of its supporters, had until now refused to enter talks.
It said negotiations could not resume until the violenceended and Mugabe accepted the result of the first round of theelection in March, won by MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai.
An MDC source in Harare said the talks were preliminary andwould discuss ending the violence.
"Our team is in South Africa, where they will havepreliminary talks with ZANU-PF, starting today. It meanssomething is happening. So these are not the actual talks, butpreliminary discussions on what the talks will focus on," thesource said.
"This is where we are going to talk about issues ofviolence and it is from these discussions that the MDC willdecide whether to engage in full negotiations if our conditionsfor an end to political violence are met. We will also have toagree on the agenda for the talks."
The new talks are being mediated by South Africa,designated as lead negotiator by the Southern AfricanDevelopment Community (SADC). The diplomatic sources said abreakaway faction of the MDC, led by Arthur Mutambara, was alsotaking part.
Zimbabwe's High Court on Wednesday relaxed bail conditionson MDC Secretary-General Tendai Biti and gave him back hispassport, responding to a petition by his lawyers who said heshould be allowed to travel for talks in South Africa.
Biti faces charges of treason.
CRISIS
The June 27 election and its condemned outcome haveworsened the crisis in Zimbabwe, whose economy has collapsed,sending millions of refugees into neighbouring states includingSouth Africa and increasing pressure for a solution.
The once prosperous nation is crippled by the world's worstinflation rate, estimated to be at least 2 million percent.
Mugabe, 84, has been in power since independence fromBritain in 1980.
The African Union, at a summit last month, called for talksleading to a national unity government.
Many AU members oppose sanctions but Liberian PresidentEllen Johnson-Sirleaf on Thursday came out in favour.
She told reporters in Johannesburg that the sanctions movewas intended to send a message to African leaders that theyshould do something about Zimbabwe.
"Sanctions don't always work, as you know. But I think thefact that it does send a strong message about the disagreementagainst those things that are really causing a country and itspeople to suffer makes it appropriate for those actions."
Anglophone West African countries like Sierra Leone,Liberia and the continent's most populous nation, Nigeria, havebeen among Mugabe's strongest critics, together with hisneighbours in Botswana and Zambia.
Tsvangirai defeated Mugabe in a March 29 first roundpresidential poll but fell short of the absolute majorityrequired to avoid a run-off.
Mugabe blames the opposition for the bloodshed.
Western nations led by former colonial ruler Britain andthe United States are pushing the U.N. Security Council thisweek to impose sanctions on Mugabe's inner circle, as well asan arms embargo on Zimbabwe.
A G8 summit in Japan this week supported sanctions.
South Africa, backed in the past by veto wielding councilmembers Russia and China, opposes sanctions.
Word of the new talks in South Africa may weaken supportfor the Western-sponsored resolution.
South African President Thabo Mbeki has mediatedunsuccessfully in the Zimbabwean crisis for more than a year,drawing increasing criticism. The MDC say he favours Mugabe andhas called for expanded mediation from the AU and the UnitedNations.
Johnson-Sirleaf also called for another mediator andsuggested a high-profile figure.
Some African leaders support a power-sharing solution inZimbabwe like the one mediated by former U.N. Secretary-GeneralKofi Annan to end Kenya's bloody post-election crisis thisyear.
(Additional reporting by Paul Simao in Pretoria, GordonBell and Muchena Zigomo in Johannesburg; Writing by BarryMoody, editing by Keith Weir)