HEADLINE:   Mbeki warns on Zimbabwe

PUBLICATION: Cape Argus

PAGE NUMBER: 5

DATE:       2000-06-12 22:00:00

Mbeki warns on Zimbabwe election

SA will not accept rigged result, says President in exclusive interview

By Rich Mkhondo, Zubeida Jaffer, Kaizer Nyatsumba, Mathatha Tsedu and John Matison

Pretoria - The South African government would not accept rigged elections in Zimbabwe, President Thabo Mbeki said here.

"We want free and fair elections in Zimbabwe. We are against stolen elections," Mr Mbeki said yesterday in an exclusive interview with Independent Newspapers.

Speaking at his home in Pretoria, Mr Mbeki said he did not know whether elections would be free and fair but that this was entirely speculative at this point.

He was reluctant to comment on the withdrawal of the UN co-ordinating team, saying that he was waiting to be fully briefed by United Nations secretary-general Kofi Annan.

In discussions with President Robert Mugabe and some of his ministers earlier, Mr Mbeki said that there had been agreement to encourage as many people to send observers as early as possible but there was no agreement about UN co-ordination of all observers.

"There has been no such discussion with us," he said.

Mr Mbeki has just returned from a trip to Germany and Denmark and faces Parliament in Cape Town today to debate the budget of the Office of the Presidency where he will give account of progress over the past year.

Addressing the National Assembly with Mr Mbeki, will be his deputy, Jacob Zuma and Minister Essop Pahad.

It is expected that one of the three will speak on the Zimbabwe situation.

With the Zimbabwe elections just around the corner, tension remains high.

As many as 16 000 foreign and local observers are expected to be involved including the European Union, the Southern African Development Community, the Commonwealth, the ANC and a multi-party parliamentary team.

Escalating political violence has claimed more than 30 lives of mostly opposition party members. More than 100 people have been seriously injured while thousands have fled their homes.

The Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), Zimbabwe's main opposition party, whose members have been mainly targeted, has ruled out the possibility of free and fair elections under the present conditions.

Political observers increasingly view the Zimbabwean situation as deteriorating rapidly into anarchy.

At the weekend, UN chief Kofi Annan announced that the UN had pulled out of the election process in Zimbabwe after Harare had rejected its offer to co-ordinate international observers.

Earlier the UN Development Programme (UNDP) pulled out of the Mbeki-sponsored deal on land redistribution.

Mr Mbeki has been pushing for international funds earmarked for land reform in Zimbabwe to be made available to the country's government in return for it stabilising the political situation.

Mr Mbeki told The Cape Argus the withdrawal of the UNDP from the offer to distribute the funds meant farmers may not get compensation.

"I do not know why they withdrew. We went to look for money and É Kofi Annan said the UNDP should distribute the money.

"The issue is compensation. The withdrawal of the UNDP means farmers will not get compensation for the land."

On lessons for South Africa in the Zimbabwean conflict, Mr Mbeki said: "It does not pay to pretend that the colonial and apartheid legacy to be addressed does not exist. You find this kind of attitude in this country where we have a legacy of racism.

"Racism cannot be left to the ANC to deal with. All parties should participate. You cannot have 350 years of colonialism and apartheid wiped out in six years."

Turning to conflicts across the African continent, Mr Mbeki said during his interaction with African leaders, he found that there was a resolve to change the continent for the better.

"There is a strong will and a strong sentiment to say let us end these wars and coups and face this matter of development.

"The pictures of war and famine in Ethiopia are true. But that is not the defining feature of the entire continent É these issues are distressing, but one has to recognise the fact that this is not all that is happening on the continent."

n A full interview with President Mbeki will be published in the Cape Argus tomorrow.