Speaking to reporters, Tsvangirai listed key requirements before he would start to negotiate about participating in elections or governing, with an end to state-sponsored violence high on his agenda.
"The violence must stop," he said. "All structures and infrastructures of violence must be withdrawn and disbanded . . . towards this objective, amongst other things war veterans, youth militia and others encamped on the edges of our cities, in towns and villages need to be sent home and be reintegrated into out society. Unofficial roadblocks along the roads and highways must be disbanded. These camps and roadblocks are the checkpoints of violence."
He also warned there could be no talks while the party’s number two, Tendai Biti and some "2,000" political prisoners remain behind bars. President Robert Mugabe continues to insist the presidential runoff poll will be held Friday, June 27, as planned, although Tsvangirai has withdrawn from the race.
CHURCHES CONCERNED
Tsvangirai appeared shortly after the Zimbabwean-born general secretary of the 68-million-strong Lutheran World Federation (LWF), Reverend Ishmael Noko, said those who have criticised churches for lagging behind secular society in taking leadership over troubled Zimbabwe are justified in their point, news agency Ecumenical News International (ENI) reported Wednesday, June 25.
He said churches have "made a mistake in assessing the country’s president, Robert Mugabe," ENI reported. Noko was speaking at a press conference the day before the opening of the 25-30 June gathering of the LWF’s main governing body, its council, which is meeting in Arusha in northern Tanzania. Earlier Christian organizations and church groups urged international action on Zimbabwe, where thousands of Christian families are reportedly in need of food and medicines.
"It is essential that the international community reaffirm the integrity of democratic elections as the means by which Zimbabwean citizens choose their leaders," the World Council of Churches (WCC) and the World Student Christian Federation (WSCF) said in a joint letter to the United Nations, the South African Development Community and the African Union.
The WCC and WSCF leaders said that national governments had the "primary and sovereign responsibility" to provide for the safety and well being of their people, ENI reported. However, "When the State can no longer provide protection to its own people, the principle of non-intervention yields to the responsibility of the international community to protect them." (BosNewsLife NEWS WATCH is a regular look at key news developments impacting the Church and/or compassionate profesionals).
