Morgan Tsvangirai, the leader of Zimbabwe's major opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), has in his political career survived three assassination attempts, several stints in jail and watched helplessly in the last year as hundreds of his supporters and party members have been murdered in political violence. He has seen two elections stolen from under his nose by President-it-seems-forever Robert Mugabe.
There is no doubt that Mr. Mugabe and his ZANU-PF party are responsible for all that, but Mr. Mugabe remains president today, honoured by many of his fellow African leaders, tolerated by many governments in the international community -- he has been able to visit Europe with his wife twice in the last year despite personal sanctions and a travel ban against him -- and openly supported by China and Russia at the United Nations when the question of economic sanctions against his country comes up.
Nevertheless, in one of the few hopeful moments in the recent history of Zimbabwe, Mr. Tsvangirai and Mr. Mugabe agreed this week to talks about how best to deal with the future of their nation. The negotiations, brokered by South African President Thabo Mbeki in a rare display of African initiative, began secretly on Tuesday and it is hoped that they will yield results within two weeks.
At least Mr. Tsvangirai and, presumably, Mr. Mbeki -- whose reputation as the successor of Nelson Mandela, really relies on this deal -- hope that they will. Mr. Mugabe almost certainly hopes that they will not result in anything of substance so that he can claim that at least he tried but his enemies, the colonialists and their Zimbabwean servants such as Mr. Tsvangirai, once again subverted him.
Nothing in Mr. Mugabe's history indicates any other course of action. That is not to say, however, that the negotiations serve no purpose. If the Movement for Democratic Change can demonstrate to Africa and the world that it has -- in what is a truly extraordinary act of faith -- entered into these talks with the thugs of ZANU-PF, whose hands are still dripping with MDC blood, then it will be almost impossible for African leaders to continue to ignore the black hole that Zimbabwe has become on their continent under the despotism of Mr. Mugabe.
Mr. Mbeki is now invested in a solution and the South African president is black Africa's most influential leader. His long-awaited involvement in the crisis in Zimbabwe may be long overdue, but it now offers a real hope for an eventual answer to the problem that Robert Mugabe poses not just for Zimbabwe, but for all of Africa.
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