Harare, September 8 — South Africa’s delegation from the country’s governing Africa National Congress (ANC) dispatched by the country’s President Cyril Ramaphosa to meet Zimbabwe’s governing party and opposition parties have been barred from neither meeting the latter nor the civil society organizations.
The delegation from Zimbabwe’s Southern neighbor was expected to arrive in the country on Tuesday evening.
Although Ramaphosa, South Africa’s President had deployed his governing ANC officials to meet all concerned parties in Zimbabwe over the deteriorating political and economic situation here, this country’s ruling Zimbabwe African National Union Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) party has been adamant that the meeting would only take place between itself and the ANC delegation.
“Following inquiries from various quarters and our friends from the media in particular on the purpose of this meeting, ZANU-PF wishes to make it categorically clear that this is a meeting between ZANU-PF and the ANC delegation only,” a statement from Zanu-PF reads.
Last month, South Africa’s government delegation was in Zimbabwe, but only managed to meet the ZANU-PF government before it left without meeting the opposition parties here as was widely anticipated.
The South African government’s visit to Zimbabwe came at a time when journalist Hopewell Chin’ono and opposition Transform Zimbabwe leader Jacob Ngarivhume had been arrested and jailed on charges of inciting public violence after the two’s pro-July 31 anti-government statements widely circulated on Twitter.
Meanwhile, Obert Mpofu, ZANU-PF’s secretary for administration told journalists in Harare that ANC’s delegation led by the party’s secretary-general Ace Magashule, would be welcomed in Zimbabwe.
“They are the ones with issues, so we will hear from them,” said Mpofu to reporters.
Zimbabwe has featured in the international media of late following reports of rife human rights violations by the State here amid abductions, brutalization, and jailing of government critics.
On July 30, a day before the country’s scheduled anti-government protests, Tawanda Muchehiwa, Zimbabwe’s Midlands State University journalism student and nephew to the country’s top scribe Mduduzi Mathuthu, was abducted from his home in Bulawayo, the country’s second-largest city.
However, following a high court ruling demanding his immediate release, two days after his abduction, Muchehiwa was found dumped two kilometers from his family home in Bulawayo, heavily ridden with injuries.
With ANC blocked from meeting Zimbabwe’s opposition amid a crisis that the country’s ZANU-PF-led government has vehemently denied, in South Africa, former DA opposition leader Mmusi Maimane took to Twitter, displeased apparently by the developments.
“The ANC delegation must meet all the key stakeholders in Zimbabwe, otherwise we are wasting time. They must meet the MDC Alliance, they must meet the key civil society groups, they must meet journalists who have been victimized by Zanu-PF,” said Maimane.