Mugabe rejects outside help over 'domestic' dispute with Tsvangirai

Published on Saturday 31 October 2009 18:47

ZIMBABWEAN President Robert Mugabe yesterday said he was working to resolve a dispute threatening his power-sharing deal with Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai.

Speaking at the burial of a senior member of his Zanu-PF party, Mugabe condemned Tsvangirai's partial boycott of the government as "baffling and illogical", but said they could sort out their problems without foreign intervention.

Speaking in a mixture of English and his native Shona, Mugabe said: "We are glad that we are talking about it. We are treating it as a domestic political problem, and our attitude is that ultimately it is up to us as Zimbabweans to sort out our problems."

The veteran leader made no reference to the mediation efforts of the 15-nation Southern African Development Community, which had a ministerial team in Harare, the Zimbabwean capital, on Friday.

Mugabe and Tsvangirai, long-term foes, have been at loggerheads for weeks. Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) said a fortnight ago it was "disengaging" from cabinet until Mugabe agreed to fully implement the power-sharing deal, including swearing in several MDC officials.

Tsvangirai and his officials did not attend the funeral at the Harare Heroes' Acre, a national shrine where the Zanu-PF movement has buried its most venerated members since it won power at independence in 1980.

Mugabe accused Western powers of "endlessly and shamelessly" interfering in Zimbabwe's domestic affairs and said the national economy had suffered under sanctions intended to oust his party.

"They are trying to direct the way our politics should go. They are not ashamed. They want us to go down on our knees."

Mugabe, speaking a day after regional officials announced that Southern African states would soon hold a summit on the Zimbabwe crisis, said even in cases where Zimbabweans seek outside help, they have the ultimate responsibility to resolve domestic disputes.

The 85-year-old president sounded slightly conciliatory to the MDC, saying he only wondered about his rivals' political strategy of "one leg in and one leg out of the power-sharing government".

The MDC accuses Zanu-PF of persecuting its officials and delaying media and constitutional reforms key to holding free and fair elections in about two years.

Mugabe says he has met obligations under the power-sharing deal and maintains the MDC needs to campaign for the lifting of Western sanctions against his Zanu-PF.