Mbeki Says That Zimbabweans Can Solve Their Own Problems

Zimbabweans can solve their own problems and the rest of the world should just assist, said President Thabo Mbeki at the end of a visit to the country. “The solutions to the problems of Zimbabwe rest in the hands of Zimbabweans,” said Mbeki in a transcript of an interview he gave with Al-Jazeera in Doha, Qatar on Saturday.

“It’s not South Africa that is going to solve the problems of Zimbabwe or indeed anybody else,” he said.

He said he had sought over many years to say to the people and leaders of Zimbabwe “please get together and identify the problems and say what needs to be done to solve the problems.

Mbeki said the task should not be shifted to defining what Zimbabwe should look like to foreigners. South Africans had negotiated their own resolution to end their problems - of apartheid - and Zimbabweans should do the same.

“[In South Africa] we knew if somebody else came in and imposed their solution on us, it wouldn’t last because it wouldn’t be our solution. And the Zimbabwe question, the people who must find the solution, they are the people of Zimbabwe, the leaders of Zimbabwe. “The rest of us must assist.”

Mbeki also said Southern African Development Community facilitation’s with Zimbabwe’s ruling party and opposition had deliberately been kept private.

“We have avoided discussing those processes publicly because we do not believe that it is correct to conduct negotiations through the media,” he concluded.

Source African Press Agency

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