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mediation - 1. a negotiation to resolve differences that is conducted by some impartial party 2. the act of intervening for the purpose of bringing about a settlement (WordWeb)
Zimbabwe is in crisis and South African President, Jacob Zuma, has failed in his remit to mediate the cross-party negotiations between Mugabe's ZANU PF and the two formations of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) - and this is hardly surprising, since Zuma, and his predecessor, Thabo Mbeki, are good friends with Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe.
Why then, has SADC failed to take any remedial action to spur the negotiations on?
And now the African Union has added to the Zimbabwean crisis, by naming Mugabe as a mediator in the Ivory Coast crisis...
"Tyrant Robert Mugabe is among African leaders chosen to mediate in the Ivory Coast crisis, it has emerged.
The African Union decided to appoint Mugabe and a panel of leaders to join Prime Minister Raila Odinga in the Ivory Coast crisis.
The panel includes Presidents Jacob Zuma (South Africa), Jonathan Goodluck (Nigeria), Robert Mugabe (Zimbabwe) and the President of Mauritania among others and Ping said the mediation already undertaken by Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga was part of the building stones towards achieving a realizable goal of peace in Ivory Coast.
African Union Commission chairperson Jean Ping told a news conference Friday night that the over six hours of deliberations by various African heads of state meeting in the peace and security council of the AU decided that the Ivory Coast crisis could not be mediated by one person but by a battery of leaders who will give various perspectives towards ending the Ivorian Crisis."
What is wrong with the African Union?
How can they send a bully to stop the confrontation in the Ivory Coast? Are they not aware that Mugabe is in the middle of the Zimbabwean crisis, largely caused by his totalitarian rule?
All he is going to do is add to the problems there!
"The AU chairman said it was not in anybody's interest that Ivorians should continue to be dragged into an unending crisis that is on the brink of a full blown civil strife in Africa's key cocoa producer.
Earlier Friday, Raila Odinga had asked the African Union to explore other ways of dealing with the Ivorian crisis other than the mediation talks that seem not to be working.
Raila who spoke on the sidelines of a meeting of heads of state at the African Union headquarters in Addis Ababa Ethiopia said in a statement read to the press that the mission of the African Union was not about imposing democracy or free and fair elections but "they are about avoiding a much greater disaster."
Many heads were shaken and eyebrows were raised when Thabo Mbeki was appointed by SADC to mediate in the Zimbabwean crisis - and I would think that even more heads are being shaken and more eyebrows are raised with the appointment of Mugabe to the mediation panel.
Robb WJ Ellis
The Bearded Man
