South African leaders hold emergency meeting on Zimbabwe

Regional leaders from Southern Africa have gathered in last minute talks to try to salvage a power-sharing agreement in Zimbabwe. The heads of South Africa, Mozambique and Botswana are sitting down with Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe to try to get him to follow through with an agreement to split Zimbabwe's government ministries with opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai.

Months ago the two men agreed, in principle, to a power-sharing agreement that divided Zimbabwe's government ministries between their two parties. But Mugabe violated the spirit of the agreement by gobbling up all of the important posts for his ZANU-PF party. Tsvangirai has refused to join the government unless his MDC faction gets control of the Home Affairs Ministry - the department that controls Zimbabwe's national security forces. Without control of Home Affairs, Tsvangirai and the MDC will effectively be powerless.

But don't expect Mugabe to agree, he has refused all other attempts at negotiations these past several months and plans to unilaterally form a government “if” these latest talks fail - so obviously he has no reason to see that they succeed. Meanwhile a group of South Africa's religious leaders are blasting their own government for its role in the Zimbabwe crisis.

Catholic bishops from the region are saying that the South African government is conducting a “passive genocide” by not pressuring Mugabe into accepting a power-sharing deal. Zimbabwe relies on South Africa for access to ports for the shipment of imports/exports from abroad, as well as much of their electricity, so the feeling is that South Africa could put enormous pressure on the Mugabe regime with a boycott. But so far South Africa hasn't, leading critics to say that the government is favoring the Mugabe regime and allowing his disastrous policies to take their toll on Zimbabwe's people - the country's economy has largely collapsed, hunger is now a chronic problem, and a cholera outbreak has so far killed several thousand people.

The bishops said that South Africa “must stop supporting and giving credibility to the illegitimate Mugabe regime,” but so far there is no indication that the government is willing to take more aggressive steps to bring about change in Zimbabwe. Meanwhile, South African police broke up a protest by 1,500 people outside the house in Pretoria, South Africa, where the emergency meeting was being held. The European Union also announced a new round of targeted sanctions against Zimbabwe on Monday.