SADC Troika to hold summit on Zimbabwe

Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Pretoria - The Southern African Development Community (SADC) Troika committee on politics, security and defence will on Thursday meet to discuss the crisis in Zimbabwe's national unity government.

The Heads of State summit, which will take place in Mozambique, will be chaired by Mozambican President Armando Guebuza and attended by Zambian leader Rupiah Banda and Swaziland's King Mswati II.

Zimbabwe's nine-month-old unity government is rocked by disputes between Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and President Robert Mugabe on how to share executive power.

The country was further plunged into crisis after Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party boycotted Cabinet, a decision that had hastened the SADC action.

Tsvangirai had travelled around the region two weeks ago, meeting leaders to explain his party's decision to boycott Cabinet, citing Mugabe's ZANU PF as an unreliable coalition partner.

Word of the troika meeting emerged as SADC Chairman Joseph Kabila, also president of the Democratic Republic of Congo, met with Mugabe and principals in Harare's unity government to follow up an assessment last week by troika foreign ministers.

Tsvangirai suspended cooperation with Mugabe's party more than two weeks ago, threatening the fragile pact that had been hailed as an end to last year's deadly electoral violence.