South African President Thabo Mbeki, attempting to mediate a solution to the ZimbabweÂ’s crisis on behalf of the Southern African Development Community, was due in Harare this week for talks with President Robert Mugabe and rival opposition leaders Morgan Tsvangirai and Arthur Mutambara, political sources said.SADC Executive Secretary Thomaz Salomao, given the task of surveying the country's economic morass, was expected in Harare late Wednesday, sources said. SADC spokeswoman Leefa Martin confirmed the impending visits.
A senior Foreign Affairs Ministry official told VOA Salomao is expected to take stock of the economic situation and propose measures to assist recovery.
The country has been in recession since the beginning of the decade and inflation was last measured at 1,730%. Agriculture has collapsed in the wake of Mr. Mugabe's radical land reform program and the once-robust industrial sector is on its knees.
Martin said Mr. Mbeki and Salomao would meet with senior government officials and officials of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change among other concerned parties. But Mr. MbekiÂ’s spokesman, Mukoni Ratshitanga, said from Pretoria that the South African president was not traveling to Harare.
However, sources said Mr Mbeki prefers to keep his interventions under wraps, adding that he told Mr. Mugabe, Tsvangirai and Mutambara in a letter this week that one of the key principles in his negotiating process is secrecy.
Both opposition factions confirmed receiving the letter but refused to discuss its contents. But sources in Pretoria and Harare told VOA that Mr. Mbeki said in the letter that he wants the principals in the discussions to reach agreement before a round of elections set for March 2008.
The MDC has been divided into two factions since late 2005 - but the recent wave of official and semi-official violence against members of the political and civil opposition has served to drive the two factions together, though short of reunification.