Mbeki Meets Mugabe Ahead of Emergency SADC Summit on Zimbabwe

South African President Thabo Mbeki met Zimbabwean leader Robert Mugabe in Harare on Saturday in a hastily organized meeting ahead of a regional extraordinary summit to discuss Zimbabwe’s deepening political crisis.

Sources said the encounter was a last-ditch effort by the South African leader to persuade Mugabe to attend a special session of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) taking place on Saturday in Lusaka, the Zambian capital.

Mugabe has refused to attend the SADC extraordinary summit, with his government saying the meeting was “unnecessary”. It is instead represented at the summit by junior ministers.

Mbeki was en route to Zambia for the SADC summit called by Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa who currently holds the rotating chairmanship of the regional body.

The regional summit comes in the wake of an unfolding political crisis spawned by the refusal by Zimbabwe’s electoral body to release results of last month’s presidential poll in which Mugabe is believed to have lost to main opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai.

Source African Press Agency

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