SOUTH AFRICA: South African President Thabo Mbeki is one of three African leaders scheduled to arrive in Zimbabwe today, on what is believed to be a new initiative to end Zimbabwe's intensifying dispute.
The plan is to arrange an "exit agenda" for President Robert Mugabe.
The settlement proposal that President Mbeki and Presidents Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria and Bakili Muluzi of Malawi, are reportedly planning to put to Mr Mugabe and his political adversary, Mr Morgan Tsvangirai, of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), hinges on Mr Mugabe's agreement to take early retirement in return for immunity from prosecution for the repression of his political opponents.
The plan includes the installation of a transitional government of national unity under a member of Mr Mugabe's ruling Zanu (PF) party and the bringing forward of the next presidential election from the scheduled date in 2008 to 2005, so it coincides with parliamentary elections due then.
Mr Mbeki's spokesman Mr Bheki Khumalo, downplayed these reports, describing the visit as one designed to see how Mr Mbeki and his presidential peers can help Zimbabwe solve its problems which have become dangerously volatile in recent weeks.
The visit of the troika of African leaders takes place against a backdrop of two events in the past four months that give credence to the notion that Mr Mugabe (79) is, at the least, contemplating the option of early retirement.
The first occurred in January when news leaked that two high-ranking Zimbabwean officials, parliamentary speaker Mr Emmerson Mnangagwa and armed forces chief Vital Zvinavashe, had approached MDC leader Mr Tsvangirai via an intermediary with an offer to serve in a government of national unity. The reported deal was premised on the assumption that Mr Mugabe would retire into exile in return for immunity from prosecution.
The second took place last month when Mr Mugabe hinted in a television interview that retirement was a possible option now that he had "solved the land question in Zimbabwe by restoring to the indigenous black people most of the land that been 'usurped' from them by white settlers". He told television viewers in Zimbabwe: "We have settled [the land issue\] and people can retire."
Two successive national strikes in March and April, called by the MDC and its trade union ally the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions, may have concentrated Mr Mugabe's mind on the retirement option. Called in protest against the mounting economic hardship - inflation is at an alarming 228 per cent and unemployment in excess of 50 per cent while the price of petrol was hiked by more than 200 per cent at the end of April - the strikes were well supported. They signalled that opposition to the government was increasing, the use of security forces to harass opposition loyalists notwithstanding.
In a report released late last week, Amnesty International declared that "state repression of fundamental rights" was increasing in Zimbabwe. It called on the international community in general, and Southern African governments in particular, to impress upon the Zimbabwean government that arrest and torture of its political opponents was unacceptable. The call should be seen in the context of MDC criticism of Mr Mbeki's support of Zanu (PF) while presenting himself as an honest broker.
Mr Mbeki now has a chance to demonstrate that he is pro-settlement rather than pro-Zanu (PF). His opportunity to do so is underlined by the MDC's declared conviction that the resignation of Mr Mugabe would be an important first step in resolving the escalating crisis in Zimbabwe.