NKOSAZANA DLAMINI-ZUMA SAYS MUGABE REMOVALS 'INTERNAL ISSUE'

Jonathan Katzenellenbogen

FOREIGN Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma said last night that southern African countries viewed Zimbabwe’s mass demolition campaign as “an internal matter”.

This could indicate SA backed Zimbabwe’s efforts not to have its forced removals policy debated by the United Nations (UN) Security Council,=20 which met on the issue last night.

“Rightly so they are treating this as their internal thing that is managed by every city,” Dlamini-Zuma said after chairing a meeting of a key Southern African Development Community (SADC) ministerial committee in Sandton yesterday.

There were signs that Zimbabwe was trying to mobilise support=from the region yesterday as it faces a possible visit from UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan to discuss the highly critical report released last week on Operation Murabatvina (Restore Order), written by special UN envoy Anna Tibaijuka.

Indications are that SADC may be biding its time and will leave a statement on the UN report on Zimbabwe until its summit in Gaborone early next month.

While Zimbabwe was not on the agenda of yesterday’s meeting of SADC’s organ on politics, defence, and security co-operation, Zimbabwe’s delegation briefed the gathering on its clean-up, which according to the UN 20 report has left 700000 people homeless.

Dlamini-Zuma said the UN report was not discussed as it had not been presented to the ministers.

However, she said: “We are going to look at the report. We are part of the UN ourselves.”