Monday, May 08, 2000 9:39 PM
Subject: Rally at Trafalgar Square - Sun 7
May
Dear Friends,
The rally on Sunday was a jolly affair with many young
Zimbabweans sporting cricket supporters shirts and caps. There was also a good
display of MDC T shirts. Music was provided by a Zimbabwe band.Several good
speakers. Good amplifiers so easy to hear. A fair amount of money collected. I
met some interesting people, and an old secretary all enjoying the sunshine and
Zimbabwe goodwill.
The was a subsequent meeting later at the Royal Festival Hall
which I could not attend.
There is a lot of coverage in the media on Zimbabwe and of
course we are all very worried for our many friends there. Our thoughts are with
you.
I am sending this to various friends in Europe, who have
visited or have spent some time in Zimbabwe, to keep them informed.
The most scandalous news (which has not been denied) is that
Kofi Annan's son is a director in the company building the Harare airport, and
consequently a partner of Leo Mugabe. Hence the wall of silence and inactivity
from the UN.
Best regards
Dodobird
Subject: Desperation
We are in a desperate situation
Allan Dunn - savagely beaten on Sunday - has
died
6 MDC youth arrested because of a scuffle started
by ZANU PF youth in Cheredzi
Hundreds of Police and tens of vehicles in
Masvingo
No vehicles or police deployed to arrest invaders
guilty of MURDER on farms
Hunzvi is inciting violence - yet goes
free
Mugabe is betraying the people
Because the head of state is preventing law and order HE
must be charged under International Law for gross HUMAN RIGHTS
VIOLATIONS
Who do the majority of the 13 million Zimbabweans
turn to for justice if the President stopping that basic human
right.
Every singly Zimbabwean MUST take their head out from
under the sand and get off the fence before it it too late
If the so-called pillars of industry cannot come
forward then how do we expect the voting masses to have the courage
required.
There is more to life than money
from the desk of xxxxxxxxxxx
E's son received death threats and had to go to UK
yesterday
I feel so miserable
I WANNA cry
I asked who made
the threats.......
CIO maybe
the situation here is really
dangerous
It is UNBELIEVABLE
on farms near Harare the invaders are in the
garden using the pool as a
urinal and crapping in the bushes
I think you must pray for all of us - black and white - and for Zimbabwe - these are evil days
Date: Sunday 07 May 2000 07:02
Subject: Doors locked and mouths
shut
Dear family and friends
Farm
invasions have, contrary to deals made by the farmers union and war
vets, continued this last week and there are now more than
1200 properties affected - this is almost 50% of the country and
the consequences to the economy in the coming months - at least -
are going to be dire. Many big properties which grow wheat through
winter are either unable or unwilling to plant a crop now when they
don't know if they'll even be on the farm to reap in five months
time. The squatters have continued to stop farmers from
ploughing, planting and irrigating and it's now a forseeable event
that we won't have any bread by October. This will put the
country in the position where it will have to import flour and
how we do that without any foreign currency remains to be seen.
Our
acting Minister of Agriculture (our permanent man is up on
corruption charges) has accused the white farmers of deliberately
sabotaging the economy and has made some particularly inflammatory
and racist comments this week. She says that white farmers are
deliberately holding back their tobacco crops from the floors waiting
for the dollar to devalue. When asked why the gvt didn't devalue -
as it promised some weeks ago - she said, "if we devalue now, the
prices of everything will sky rocket and then who will vote for us."
Absolutely she hit the nail on the head.
Our neighbour who grows
tobacco says he needs to get US$1.80 a kg to break even and so
far the auction floors haven't seen more than $1.30 a kg. So it's a
chicken and egg situation but devastating to the economy and very
worrying for the immediate and long term future of Zim.
As winter creeps in, squatters all over the country are
starting to get cold and bored and the demands on farmers are
becoming more and more outrageous. In the last few days, they are
demanding proper houses, clothing, blankets, vehicles to go to
rallies with etc. All are accompanied with the threat of : "if
you don't give us ...we'll burn your house down." One farmer
tried to resist a demand this week so the squatters lit a fire on
his back verandah and smoked the people out of the house.
Campfire Tales
Luckily our bunch of squatters continue to be an
un-organized lot of louts who seem to get more pleasure from
insulting and harassing me in our little trading store and stay
away from the house. They have dismantled their tent and
liberated the butchery over the road, as I said last week.
That lasted two days, then they bought it back, took it down and
bought it back again. They can't seem to make up their minds what
to do because it is getting really cold now so they seem to be
sleeping over at the butchery and making cursory checks of their
investment over on our land. Their superiors came down from Harare
one evening this week, a very long and loud shouting match ensued
and resulted in a pick up truck loaded with asbestos roof sheets
being trundled across our fields. A few big gum trees were cut down
and used for timbers and the asbestos sheets laid on top of a long
abandoned house down the farm. So there seems to be a clear
disagreement between the men from Harare and the squatters, the
latter are clearly fed up with sleeping rough.
There was a very
worrying development yesterday afternoon. Our local war vet
emerged from an E.T. (public taxi) with his head swathed > in
bandages, limping and clearly with something wrong with his back. It
turns out that he's spent the last two nights in Marondera
hospital.
Local villagers got very annoyed that he wasn't
guarding their plots anymore and demanded their money back. When
he told them he didn't have their money, they lured him down to the
nearby beerhall where he was set upon and beaten badly. So Edward
came back yesterday with reinforcements. A white peugeot arrived
outside our store and four big men got out, one armed with, as my
store keeper described it, a very long gun, and they set off into the
nearby village to find the people that had assaulted Edward. We
haven't heard any more yet but word travels very fast so we can only
hope that everyone keeps their doors' locked and mouths shut.
It is
getting really scary though and I imagine that there are more
stories than will ever be told when and if this thing ever comes to
an end.
XXX spent Monday and Tuesday loading a third of
our prime breeding cows and our two pedigree Brahman bulls on to
slaugher trucks. We didn't get paid anything near what they were
worth but at least now we can keep going for a few more months.
Our workers look at us every day with increasing worry and
distress on their faces, we have to keep reassuring them that we're
not going anywhere, just trying to find ways to survive. I'm not
sure if they believe us as in the last three weeks they've watched
all X's tools and woodwork equipment shipped out to safety in
ZZZ, almost all our house packed in boxes and moved to ZZZZ
town and now a third of the cattle gone.
We are all desperate now
for an election so that we can get back to normal. Living
permanently on the edge is getting very harrowing and even if we
lose everything, it will be better than this permanent fear.
I've
been trying all week to put pressure on people in high places to get
the outside world to send monitors to Zim NOW. If anyone reading
this letter has influence in high places, we urge you to do the
same.
Best wishes, xxxxxxxxx
Is Mugabe Mocking Mbeki?
After receiving a pasting from his own media for the public stance taken at
the Victoria Falls conference with Mugabe, Thabo Mbeki eventually came out with
some of the detail of what was agreed at the talks. He said that Mugabe had
agreed to four principles which if fulfilled would restore peace, take the
land issue back to the position adopted in 1998 at the national conference on
land in Harare and create the essential conditions for an election. Since then
he has made several statements, each of which has been slightly tougher than its
predecessor and this culminated yesterday in Bulawayo where he said that the
land question should be settled by black and white Zimbabweans in a peaceful and
co-operative manner.
In all these instances he has tried very hard to give Mugabe a way out by
stating that he supports a resolution of the land question but that this
should be on a legal and agreed basis. No mention of the occupation of farms,
the flaunting of the rule of law or the issue of violence against the political
opposition. He has called his approach "soft" and has said he does not want to
beat an empty drum just to make a noise.
He forgets our recent history. When the world decided that enough was enough
as far as the Rhodesian rebellion was concerned, they knew that the main
obstacle in the way of a resolution of the problem was Ian Smith. Assigned to
the task, Henry Kissenger went about the exercise with skill and determination.
He knew he had to use his very considerable power to achieve his objective.
After consulting key Heads of State in Africa, he ended up in Pretoria where he
made it very clear that Pretoria had no choice in the matter but to help resolve
the problem. He also persuaded the South Africans that it was in their interest
to do so. The consequence was a clean surgical operation. Smith was called down
to Pretoria, had a meeting with the President of South Africa and Henry
Kissenger and on the 23rd of September 1976, he accepted majority
rule. From there onwards events took over and in four years Zimbabwe came into
existence through a legal, democratic process. This exercise, conducted out of
sight and in secret, saved this country from conflagration. It strengthened the
democratic process in Africa, opened the way for a subsequent peaceful
resolution of the South African question and laid the foundations for peace in
Mozambique. It was a deciding moment for the whole of Africa.
Then Mbeki forgets the Congo. Mugabe, faced with the prospect of an imminent
defeat of his old friend Kabila by local Congolese supported by the Tutsi armies
of the Great Lakes region, used his position as Chairman of the SADC Security
instrument and asked the region to deploy an armed force to prop up the Kabila
government. Mandela objected to the proposed the operation and a conflict ensued
between Mandela and Mugabe. At the root of this conflict was a desire by Mugabe
to be seen as a regional power broker and to strike back at Mandela for the loss
of the mantle of regional leadership that had passed to Mandela when South
Africa came in from the cold. Mandela underestimated Mugabe and after a brief
public skirmish retired from the scene with a loss of some dignity and a "SADC
Task Force" led by Zimbabwe in the Congo where they remain until today.
Mbeki has got to understand that Mugabe (like Smith) does not understand
reasoned argument. In the end you have to use power to get what you want. Mbeki
also has to understand that just as in September 1976, when Pretoria held all
the keys, there is no one else in the world that has the requisite power to get
Mugabe to behave. Mugabe is mocking Mbeki by totally ignoring the undertakings
wrested from him at the Falls. He has continued the illegal occupation of
farmland, in fact the program has actually expanded in the past week, he has
continued to murder and intimidate the political opposition. It addition the
police continue to have restrictions imposed on their activities. He is defying
the international community by insisting on taking commercial farmland from its
legal owners under duress and without compensation purely to give the
impression inside Zimbabwe that he is correcting an historical injustice.
This is a clever and obdurate individual and if Mbeki is not careful, he will
find himself in the same position as Mandela in 1998 forced to retire from the
ring following a technical knockout. Mugabe must be told in no uncertain terms
(behind closed doors if necessary) that he must: - 1. Take the land program back
to the process agreed in 1998; 2. Restore the rule of law in all its respects;
and 3. Create the conditions for an election where the people of this country
can decide, in peace, and without coercion, who they want to run their affairs
in the next five years. Then he must be told that he must accept the outcome of
the election and be prepared to deal with a change of the guard if that should
come out of the electoral process. If he does not comply then these demands,
then they should be made known in public and South Africa should cut economic
and political ties. Mugabe has no choice (like Smith) but to accept such a
position, even though he knows (like Smith) that this means the end of the road
for him and his cronies.
And what is at stake? If Mugabe is allowed to get away with his present
political maneuvering and wins the election by these means we then face the
following situation: -
- The land issue will be "resolved" on the basis of an illegal process, which
will destroy the Zimbabwean agricultural industry, undermine tenure rights in
the rest of the economy and reinforce the global view that Africa is an unstable
and risky destination for investment of any kind. For South Africa the lessons
are immediate and obvious, an even greater influx of economic refugees from
collapsing neighbours, encouragement for the more irresponsible elements in
South Africa itself, reduced export opportunities in the region except for basic
foodstuffs and a massive loss of prestige as the regional super power. It will
also further undermine the Rand and result in more capital flight from South
Africa.
- The economy of Zimbabwe, already close to melt down, will collapse, unable
to pay its creditors and to maintain employment in any sector, the country will
become unstable politically and Mugabe will have to reinforce his position by
even more draconian powers and military force.
- The economy of the whole region will be set back and southern Africa will
take years to get back to where it was last year. This will have severe
consequences for the South African industrial economy.
- The military intervention in the Congo will continue, the UN will not deploy
its peacekeepers and Zimbabwe, unable to support the effort economically, will
turn to plundering the resources of the Congo on an even greater scale to
survive. Eventually this process will make any resolution of the Congolese
problem and the situation in the Great Lakes region even more difficult to
resolve.
The alternative is for South Africa to use its muscle once again to save
Zimbabwe from itself. To do this the tactics used by Kissenger in 1976 should be
used. Mbeki should hold a regional meeting of all Heads of State (except Mugabe)
and ask for their considered advice on what they should do. He should then
ensure that he has the rest of Africa on sides by consulting the OAU and
Nigeria. Once a stance is agreed, then secret talks with Mugabe should be held
and he should be told his fate. This would be an African solution, it would
enhance Mbeki's position in Africa and the world, and it would give the lie to
the claim that Africa cannot solve its problems itself. It would also lay the
foundations for a demand that the developed countries provide the resources to
deal with the historical imbalances like the land issue in Zimbabwe on a
legal and proper basis, one which tackles the problems of poverty
holistically.
If Zanu PF wins the election after the implementation of such a solution,
then well and good the MDC would accept that and take up the role of a
responsible and energetic opposition. If they lose then we would expect there to
be an orderly, constitutional change of Government with Zanu PF taking up the
role of the main opposition. Either way Africa and in particular, Zimbabwe and
South Africa wins. If we fail to act in this way and to use the power that only
we have, then the consequences are "too dreadful to contemplate".
Eddie Cross
6th May 2000
Thursday, May 11, 2000 10:18 AM
Subject: National Day of Prayer for peace,
democracy, law and order
All people who support and desire peace, democracy,
law and order, should support a National Day of Prayer for these
ideals.
Sports stadiums, and other large places for public
gatherings should be used as non-denominational places of worship. People from
all walks of life, regardless of political ideals and affiliations, should
support a call to pray for our leaders to respect the constitution, to uphold
and enforce law and order.
The National Day of Prayer must be on a nation wide
basis.
Our religious leaders need to lead the way. Let our
religious leaders show solidarity with a call for peace, and law and order, in
our land
Gods Plan (R,)
A man found a cocoon of a butterfly. One day he saw a
small
opening in the cocoon. He sat and watched the
butterfly for
several hours as it struggled to force its body
through that
little hole. Then it seemed to stop making any
progress. It
appeared as if it had gotten as far as it could and
could go
no further...
So, the man decided to help the butterfly. He took a
pair of
scissors and snipped off the remaining bit of the
cocoon.
The butterfly then emerged easily.
But, it had a swollen body, and small shriveled
wings. He
continued to watch the butterfly, because he expected
that,
at any moment, the wings would enlarge and expand to
support
the body, which would contract in time.
Neither happened! In fact, the butterfly spent the
rest of
its life crawling around with a swollen body and
shriveled
wings. It was never able to fly.
What he had done in his well intentioned kindness and
haste,
he did not understand was that the restricting cocoon
and
the struggle required to get through the tiny opening
were
God's way of forcing fluid from the body of the
butterfly
into it's wings so that it would be ready for flight
ONCE
it achieved its freedom from the cocoon.
Sometimes, struggles are exactly what we need in our
life.
If God allowed us to go through our life without any
obstacles,
it would cripple us. We would not be as strong as we
could have
been...... And we could never fly.......
Have a great day, a great life, and struggle a
little...
Remember... GOD WANT'S YOU TO FLY!
Success is a matter of attitude.
What a compassionate man
What a compassionate man. Morgan Tsvangirai's concern for the people of this
country, does him great credit. Unlike the President and his cronies, who have,
over the years, heaped more and more misery on our heads, Morgan Tsvangirai
cares for me and my safety.
Unlike the President, Morgan Tsvangirai wants to promote peace, democracy,
law and order.
There are two choices, and both are frightening. For him and his brave
supporters to press on and ultimately to restore our wonderful country to its
true potential. But at what dreadful cost, in the face of an implacably evil
few.
It is not acceptable, only to allow the dreadful few to win an uncontested
election, by boycotting it.
Check out this new website
www.charterzim.com
support the struggle for democracy and good governance
ARTICLE FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES
by
TONY LEON MP
LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION in South Africa
In modest rooms, set amidst the period splendour and finery of the British Foreign Office in London, sits both a son and friend of Africa – Peter Hain. Yet the former anti-Springbok protestor now confronts a problem that threatens to undo his relentless promotion of our continent as an area which the world must re-engage.
If left unaddressed and unresolved, the crisis in Zimbabwe will become a catastrophe for our country and our region, shattering our best hopes for the revival of Africa.
But before you can resolve a problem, you have to acknowledge it exists. Our President, Mr Thabo Mbeki, gave an extraordinary performance on TV on Thursday night. He blamed the current Zimbabwe meltdown almost entirely on what he euphemistically called “the Zimbabwe land question”. In so doing, he wilfully ignored the fact that the most important issue in Zimbabwe is not land, but democracy itself.
While President Mbeki was speaking in Pretoria, I listened to views of the European Union, the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group and those abroad who follow and track events in our region. I have also listened to a swathe of opinion in Zimbabwe itself.
The fact is that practically no one except our President really believes land is the real reason for violence and mayhem in Zimbabwe. Rather, it has become the excuse for it. Landlessness and its redistribution became a burning current issue only after Robert Mugabe deliberately and cynically, and in total disregard for his own laws, decided it was the route on which to march back to power.
What is clearly happening in our neighbouring state is a tyranny of terror being unleashed against the overwhelmingly black opponents of the Mugabe Government. What is less clear is why our Government is prevaricating and posturing in public in wilful defiance of the screamingly obvious.
President Mbeki suggested that those of us who judge Zimbabwe by a universal, colour-blind and consistent standard of human rights and democracy are variously “counter-productive”, “holier-than-thou” and – naturally – “racist”.
Actually, the most racist aspect of the South African attitude to Zimbabwe is our closing ranks around, and grasping the hand of, Comrade Mugabe on the basis of African solidarity. Archbishop Tutu describes him as “a caricature”, President Mbeki opens his trade shows.
There is, of course, another racist element, in the reaction to Zimbabwe. From the Daily Telegraph in London to the debates in the Parliament of Europe, acres of space and hours of discussion are devoted to it. It confirms the worst expectations of the Afro-pessimists, but that is precisely because, until recently, Zimbabwe was one of the few sustained success stories of post-independence Africa.
And when the tabloids devote vivid prose and gory pictures of farmers being assaulted by land invaders, those same newspapers are read by those in the City of London, or Bourses of Europe, who trigger the investment – or particularly – disinvestment decisions. Well, that’s how the world is configured. We can rail against it – or denounce it – but if we’re smart, we should get real and see the world as it exists.
President Mbeki also suggests that his opponents are making “the noise of empty drums” on Zimbabwe. Whether his stealth diplomacy of hidden hand and shuffled foot has achieved any solution at all in the inflammatory and deteriorating environment in Harare is far more questionable.
Many of our friends in Brussels, for example, expected South Africa to give a strong lead on the issue and have been baffled by our silence. And in effect now they also see as strange our depiction of events next door as essentially a hangover of “colonialism”, rather than a power grab by a superannuated authoritarian who should accept the game is up and be dealt with accordingly.
But what fairly may be asked of those of us who demand a raised South African profile on the issue is what actions, or combination of measures, are likely to have any influence at all. I believe a calibrated, sensible and appropriate series of inter-related steps are needed.
First, Zimbabwe should be put on strict terms. It has violated practically every single international undertaking it has ever signed – from the Lomé Convention to last month’s Cairo Declaration relating to democracy, good governance and human rights. The world community – but especially SADC Nations – needs to get Zimbabwe to honour its own commitments.
Second the world needs to remain engaged in the area. But it must be a critical and highly conditional engagement. It’s simply illogical and insensible to suggest – as another opposition party does – to throw Zimbabwe out of the Commonwealth then to demand that international observers be let in for the election.
A last decisive effort should be made to position international observers in Zimbabwe more or less immediately to adjudicate whether anything approaching minimum conditions for a free and fair election is possible. But this means articulating in plain and direct terms, not through clouds of euphemistic double-speak, that South Africa and the world are on the side of genuine democratic outcomes, not simply in favour of bogus, help-yourself land reform.
Third, the Zimbabwe Government needs then to understand that should it persist in poisoning democracy, destabilising our region and beggaring our future that it will then it will be triggering the punitive measures contained in the very international measures it has undertaken and will cease to be treated as a regional partner or international nation which is engaged by the democratic world.
What we need is a critical engagement with Zimbabwe that nails South Africa’s flag firmly to the mast of internationally accepted democratic practice. Walking by on the other side of the road – or buying the bogus prospectus of Zimbabwe’s pitiless President, as our own President seems willing to do, is the wrong place to be for South Africa.
Mandela calls on Zimbabweans to resist Mugabe with
weapons
By Gus
Constantine
THE
WASHINGTON TIMES - 12 May 2000
http://www.washtimes.com/world/default-20005122294.htm
Former South African President Nelson Mandela has brought a quiet feud
with Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe into the open, urging Zimbabwe's people to take up
arms against the "tyrants" who rule.
Ordinary people, Mr. Mandela said,
should depose leaders who enrich themselves at the expense of their countrymen
by "picking up rifles and fighting for liberation."
Speaking in
Johannesburg at the inception of a new UNICEF initiative for impoverished
children on Saturday, Mr. Mandela departed from his prepared text to level the
unusual broadside.
In the process, he has placed himself at odds with
his successor, President Thabo Mbeki, who has publicly embraced Mr. Mugabe in an
effort to end a wave of violence in advance of elections for Zimbabwe's
parliament.
Mr. Mandela said South Africa was committed to diplomatic
efforts to resolve the crisis, in which supporters of Mr. Mugabe have beaten and
killed opposition-party supporters and seized all or part of more than 1,000
white-owned farms.
But he also said ordinary people were not bound by
the diplomacy of South Africa and other nations.
"That is the lesson of
history. The tyrants of today can be destroyed by you, and I am confident that
you have the capacity to do so," Mr. Mandela said.
Asked whether the
remarks were directed at Mr. Mugabe, he replied: "Everybody knows who I am
talking about."
About 4,000 white farmers have held one-third of
Zimbabwe's most fertile lands since before British colonial rule ended in
1965.
In the so-called Lancaster House accords of 1980, Britain and the
nation's black independence leaders agreed that after 20 years, the farms could
be redistributed to landless blacks, with the consent of whites and adequate
compensation to be paid by London.
The redistribution has long been
under way but, instead of going to landless blacks, much of it wound up in the
hands of well-to-do, well-connected blacks.
So Britain balked on paying
compensation.
Mr. Mandela and Mr. Mbeki also differ on Britain's
response to Mr. Mugabe's land grab, namely to suspend all new export licenses
for arms and military equipment to Zimbabwe and to halt the supply of 450 Land
Rovers to Mr. Mugabe.
The British say Mr. Mandela supports their policy.
Mr. Mbeki is critical, but the British believe his public remarks mask his real
feelings.
Mr. Mandela's call for Mr. Mugabe's ouster was rejected by Mr.
Mbeki, who has urged a softer approach to the crisis and solidarity among
Zimbabwe's neighbors in southern Africa.
Immediately after Mr. Mandela's
remarks, Parks Mankhahlana, Mr. Mbeki's spokesman, said: "That is Mr. Mandela's
view. Mr. Mbeki has explained his position."
Herman Nickel, a former
U.S. ambassador to South Africa, said in a telephone interview: "Mr. Mandela's
call for the overthrow of tyrants is clearly in contrast with the pronouncements
and show of friendship toward the Zimbabwean leader by Mr. Mbeki.
"When
Mr. Mandela went to London, [Prime Minister Tony] Blair issued a statement
noting that the former South African president supported the British position on
Zimbabwe."
Britain has pledged to contribute to compensation to the
white farmers provided the illegal farm occupations stop.
Asked how he
viewed Mr. Mandela's remarks, Mr. Nickel said, "Mr. Mandela has always been his
own man and at times a bit of a loose cannon."
Reports of a feud between
Mr. Mandela and Mr. Mugabe — two of the continent's best-known leaders of
liberation movements against white domination — have long been whispered.
However, Mr. Mandela's latest remarks are believed to be the first time either
has so openly criticized the other.
For Mr. Mandela, Mr. Mugabe
represents a type of African independence leader who fought successfully for
independence, then drifted toward tyranny by clinging to power, said Joseph
Sala, a former State Department official who served in the region.
Mr.
Mandela did the opposite, assuming the leadership of his nation and then
stepping down after one term in office.
"There are leaders in Africa . .
. who have made enormous wealth, leaders who once commanded liberation armies.
But rubbing shoulders with the rich, the powerful, the wealthy has made some
leaders despise the very people who put them in power, and they think it is
their privilege to be there for eternity," Mr. Mandela said in Saturday's
speech.
Mr. Mbeki, meanwhile, is preparing for a two-day summit next
week in London with Mr. Blair.
Mr. Mankhahlana, the South African
president's spokesman, said it was critical for the British to hear the voices
of the southern African leaders.
After the recent meeting between Mr.
Blair and Mr. Mandela, a senior British official suggested that Mr. Mandela was
speaking with Mr. Mbeki's blessing.
"He is free to say what everybody
feels. Do not underestimate how tough Mbeki is in private talks with Mugabe,"
the official told a British newspaper.
Mr. Mbeki is also reported to
have offered Mr. Mugabe a deal: Public backing by southern African leaders for a
land-resettlement deal in exchange for the calling off the confrontation.