SADC SUMMIT ON ZIMBABWE

Little real agreement at bloc party by Fiona Forde (The Star)

More than 12 hours of intense and often bitter debatein Lusaka this weekend appear to have divided theSouthern African Development Community on the Zimbabwecrisis, rather than bringing it closer to a solutionto the weeks-long electoral impasse. And it is adivide that has cast a sharp light on the cracks inthe 28-year-old community that separates a newprogressive front from the old guard. Rather thanaddress the issue of how best to deal with a man whorefuses to relinquish three decades of power, theconservative front of the 14-member bloc - Thabo Mbekiamong them - appears to have got lost instead in itsfears of Morgan Tsvangirai, the head of thetrade-union-backed MDC, who, like it or not, has mademassive inroads into Zimbabwean politics. The SADCleaders closed the doors of their emergency meetingshortly before 5pm on Saturday afternoon. And it wasat 5.10am the next morning when they emerged with aresolution in their hands that merely called onZimbabwe to hasten the verification and release of theMarch 29 presidential election results and appealed toall parties to accept the verdict of their state-runelectoral authority. In the event of a recount, theSADC has offered to send its Election Observer Missionto monitor the process. Yet there was no mention ofthe fact that the Zimbabwean Electoral Commission wasmoved to a private location more than a week ago -hence there is no knowing what became of the originalvotes, or indeed whatever became of the 3-millionextra ballot papers that were printed in the run-up tothe controversial election. (...)