Tsvangirai calls for AU/SADC initiative to solve crisis

By Lance Guma
25 June 2008

MDC President Morgan Tsvangirai has called for an African Union and SADC backed solution to the crisis in Zimbabwe, arguing this would be key in restoring stability and democracy in the country. Tsvangirai left the relative safety of the Dutch Embassy Wednesday to address a press conference at his home in Harare. He used the press conference to call for an end to the Zanu PF led violence and the freeing of all political prisoners including Secretary General Tendai Biti, who has spent nearly 2 weeks in custody.

Tsvangirai also said parliamentarians and senators who won the March 29 election should be sworn in and be allowed to begin their work. He called on the authorities to lift a ban on humanitarian organizations like the UN World Food Programme, who were providing emergency food relief in the country.
Tsvangirai admitted he took the decision to withdraw from the election with a heavy heart but that the country had witnessed unprecedented levels of violence, making a free and fair election impossible. He said the decision to pull out had been supported by countries in the region, on the continent and the world over and ‘was in the best interests of the people of Zimbabwe.’

Tsvangirai laid out his plan for a restoration of stability in the country, including demands that ‘war veterans, youth militia and others encamped on the edges of our cities, towns and villages need to be sent home and be reintegrated into society.’ He urged the AU and SADC to lead an expanded initiative, supported by the UN, to manage what he called a ‘transitional process’ that reflected the will of the people.

After Wednesday’s press conference Tsvangirai returned to the refuge of the Dutch Embassy.
On Tuesday Tsvangirai had called for international peacekeepers to be deployed in Zimbabwe, to help protect people. He said; ‘We do not want armed conflict, but the people of Zimbabwe need the words of indignation from global leaders to be backed by the moral rectitude of military force.’ He said the peacekeepers would help separate the people from their oppressors and, ‘cast a protective shield around the democratic process.’

Meanwhile political commentator Dr Alex Magaisa has described as preposterous arguments from some quarters that Tsvangirai is not legally entitled to withdraw from the run-off election. Writing in an opinion piece Dr Magaisa posed the question, ‘since when have citizens become prisoners of the law, unable to exercise their free will in an election?

.