The southern African nation is still deeply divided following the disputed elections, only won by Mugabe when his chief opponent Morgan Tsvangirai withdrew as a result of death threats and intimidation.

The ruling ZANU-PF party and the two formations of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change are expected to begin talks on Thursday in Pretoria.

This is later than expected, due to last-minute ruling party internal consultations, diplomatic sources said today.

MDC activists have been exasperated at what some described as the “media circus” of handshakes and rhetoric surrounding preliminaries to the talks.

They fear that Mugabe is using this to strengthen his own standing in a country where censorship remains strong.

The note of concern was echoed by Bishop Bakare, speaking from the worldwide Lambeth Conference of Anglican bishops meeting in Kent. He spoke of the torment suffered by many in the churches under Mugabe, but also recognised the move towards talks rather than conflict as “a sign of hope”.

His predecessor was seen as a Mugabe stooge and finally moved on after repeated protests to the Archbishop of Canterbury.

South African President Thabo Mbeki, mediator for the Southern African Development Community (SADC), had pushed for the Zimbabwean talks to get going on Tuesday 22 July 2008, following the signing on Monday of a memorandum of understanding setting the framework for the talks.

But analysts and reporters say that ZANU-PF mediators Patrick Chinamasa and Nicholas Goche, respectively the ministers of justice and labour under President Robert Mugabe, stalled by consulting further with the ruling party leadership. After this they headed for Pretoria on Wednesday 23rd.

Chinamasa then confirmed to the state media that the talks will resume on Thursday 24 July.

Negotiators for Morgan Tsvangirai used the the time to reconfigure their team. Secretary General Tendai Biti and Deputy Treasurer Elton Mangoma will represent the Tsvangirai formation at the table.

MDC Women’s Assembly chairperson Theresa Makone and chair Lovemore Moyo will also be on hand as observers.

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According to Christian Aid partner the Zimbabwe Christian Alliance (ZCA) most humanitarian agencies are taking a wait and see attitude.

Robert Mugabe was sworn in as Zimbabwe’s president on Sunday June 29 after a presidential run-off in which he was the sole candidate.

“We are hoping that church and civil society leaders may meet quite soon to discuss the situation,” said Useni Sibanda of the ZCA.

The Pan-African Parliament monitors said the pre-election period could not produce ‘free, fair and credible elections’ while the observers from the Southern Africa Development Community said the election results did not reflect the will of the people.

The UN and humanitarian agencies in Zimbabwe have been unable to effectively carry out their mandate during the election period.

“We exist to serve vulnerable communities who are struggling to cope with entrenched poverty. State support services are incapable and unwilling to meet the demand,” said William Anderson, Christian Aid country manager in Harare.

“Yet in the past three months we have been prevented from serving the people and exposing the scandal of poverty. The fear factor has paralysed the nation and very few have been bold enough to experience, witness and publicly reveal the barbaric and anarchic violence that young men in the employ of ZANU-PF have meted out on their fellow citizens.”

For development to be successful in its fight against poverty there must be good governance; health and education services must also be fully functioning and available to the majority, say campaigners. None of these exist in Zimbabwe. Mr Anderson says this makes Christian Aid’s work in the country even more vital.

“We are in a unique position as we are the only international NGO with an office in the country which is outspoken on the issues of justice and oppression. Our policy, which promotes accountable governance, supports strategic partners who literally put their lives on the line to work for a democratic, peaceful and free country.”

Christian Aid also supports communal and chronically poor communal households by training and empowering them in conservation agriculture. Through increased knowledge families can easily treble their harvests by simply scratching out planting holes rather than ploughing, and placing compost or mulch on the bare soil.

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Dr Tutu, Noble Peace Prize Laureate and Anglican Archbishop Emeritus in South Africa, earlier today called on the African Union not to recognise the bogus poll, and said that people who love justice and democracy must continue to support the people of Zimbabwe.

The opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), whose leader Morgan Tsvangirai decided to stand aside to try to avert violence over a week ago, says that says some 86 of its supporters have been killed and 200,000 forced from their homes by militias loyal to the Zanu-PF.

Human rights groups say that final estimates of the death toll may be even higher, and tonight there were reports of continuing violence, with Mugabe supporters attacking non-voters (identifiable by the lack of a stark red hand-mark) and intimidating opponents.

Archbishop Tutu told the BBC that Mr Mugabe should have no role in a future government, and said that he would support the deployment of a UN force to restore peace in the country.

There has also been international outrage at events in Zimbabwe in recent weeks. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said it was time for strong international action to end the violence in Zimbabwe.

Ms Rice, meeting her Chinese counterpart in Beijing, urged members of the UN Security Council to back proposals for an arms embargo and a travel ban on Mr Mugabe’s associates.

British Prime Minister also pledged money and assistance when Mr Mugabe, who claimed over 84 per cent of a 42 per cent turnout finally left office.

131,481 ballot papers were spoiled and a quarter of a million people voted for the MDC, even though their candidate was not standing. Zanu-PF activists and troops tried to cajole people into participating in the poll, which independent African parliamentary observers immediately condemned.

But in spite of their tactics, 58 per cent of those eligible to vote declined to do so. This, combined with Mr Mugabe’s defeat by Mr Tsvangirai in the first round of the poll and well-documented abuses means that few will regard the result as a legitimate and free expression of the will of the Zimbabwean people – still facing starvation, human rights violations and economic collapse.

Me Tsvangirai said today that he was willing to hold talks with the President. Many of his advisers believe that this is the only hope of stopping or reducing the ongoing violence.

Eyes are now turning towards South Africa and Zimbabwe’s other neighbours to see how they will respond.

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John Simpson, who came to the attention of a world-wide audience, during the 2003 Iraq war, has been on assignement undercover in Harare and in other parts of the troubled country, where economic collapse, poverty, food shortages and disturbance are putting the southern African nation on the edge of collapse.

Church and human rights leaders are among those who have been speaking out against Mugabe, who Simpson says fears that if his regime collapses he may face charges of crimes against humanity at the International Court in the Hague.

But the BBC roving reporter says that although there is a virtual stalemate between opposition and government, which has recently launched another military-style crackdown on its critics, the fact that the former finance minister in Mr Mugabe’s ruling Zanu-PF Party is now planning to stand against him, accusing him of being “authoritarian”, may spell the beginning of the end for the internationally-condemned president.

Critics of the BBC may accuse it of undue bias in its reporting on the issue, but the Corporation is likely to respond that it has a duty to reveal what is really going on inside Zimbabwe in the face of a reporting ban.

The BBC ran Mr Simpson’s report on life and politics inside the country as a lead story last night when it came up against a revived ITV ‘News At Ten’ programme again for the first time in a number of years. The two programmes now go ‘hed to head’ each weekday night.

ITV responded with a dramatic story from one of the Greenpeace ships involved in challenging Japanese trawlers hunting whales.

Media analysts say that although the competition may make each news service work harder, there is a danger that ‘tabloid values’ and sensatonalism may increasingly creep in to news braodcasting.

Some are drawing parallels with the successful 1990s Chris Morris TV news spoof ‘The Day Today’, which cruelly and entertainingly satirised the excesses of rolling news, and is still used as a warning and training device for jouranlists working in TV to this day.

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The refusal by Kunonga and his supporters to accept the decision of the church has resulted in a fierce conflict involving riot police as different sides have tried to get into churches in Harare and other towns.

“Dr Kunonga, having severed his allegiance and cast aside his canonical obedience to be bound by the laws of the province, which includes the diocese of Harare, has ceased to be a member of the diocese, and is no longer the bishop of the diocese,” said a statement signed by 14 bishops in the Anglican province. “His licence as a clergyman in the Anglican Communion is automatically revoked.”

The bishops released their statement following a special synod they held on 20 December in Zambia to deliberate on Kunonga’s decision to pull out the diocese. They said that all priests aligned to Kunonga were also to have their licences revoked for supporting his actions.

Tensions came to the boil after followers of Kunonga, who is a strong supporter of President Robert Mugabe, insisted on holding services in Harare churches on Sunday even after the ruling of the Anglican leaders in the area that he is no longer a cleric in the church.

Kunonga decided in September 2007 to pull the diocese out of the Central Africa province, which groups churches in Zimbabwe, Zambia, Botswana and Malawi, after he accused it of failing to censure some bishops sympathetic to homosexual clergy. He has been attempting since September to place the diocese under jurisdiction of the Anglican church in Kenya.

The Central African bishops said they want all priests in Harare diocese to confirm their allegiance to Bishop Sebastan Bakare, who has been appointed to replace Kunonga on a temporary basis.

“The faction of priests known to support Dr Kunonga in his action, in whichever diocese they may be, has chosen to step outside the province and the diocese. Their licences have been revoked as they are no longer members of the diocese and the province,” said the statement.

[With acknowledgements to ENI. Ecumenical News International is jointly sponsored by the World Council of Churches, the Lutheran World Federation, the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, and the Conference of European Churches.]

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Dr Sentamu suffered personally under the notorious dictatorial regime of Idi Amin in Uganda, and has been increasingly outspoken about gross human rights abuses in Zimbabwe in recent months.

He made the symbolic protest live on BBC1’s Sunday Politics Show with Andrew Marr. The Archbishop commented that Mr Mugabe had “taken people’s identity” and “cut it to pieces”, denying them their full human dignity and rights.

He then chose to cut up his ‘dog collar’ (as clerical collars are popularly called) as a symbol of his own priestly identity. Many Christian leaders in the country have been outspoken in opposition to Mugabe, though one well-known Anglican bishop has courted widespread disapproval by backing him.

This week’s summit of European and African leaders in Portugal has been dominated by controversy over Mr Mugabe’s presence. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, boycotted the meeting in protest. Others have used the opportunity to speak out. German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Mr Mugabe’s policies had “damaged Africa”.

A number of African leaders demanded that the organisers of the event should invite the Zimbabwean ruler to attend, although he is formally banned from travelling in the European Union.

The Africa-EU summit is seeking to agree joint policy aims in areas such as security, development and good governance.

Dr Sentamu told the BBC that the international community, especially South Africa, had to act to help Zimbabwe because people were starving. He said African states had to stop blaming someone else for their problems.

Mr Mugabe and some African heads of state have tried to blame the chaos of Zimbabwe on its colonial past. But opposition groups say that although no-one doubts the crimes committed in previous eras, Mugabe’s attempt to shift the blame away from his own cruel policies is factually indefensible.

The Zimbabwean leader himself has remained defiantly unrepentant in the face of international criticism, which he dubs “racist and imperialist”.

Meanwhile, the Archbishop of York, cutting up his clerical collar on national TV, declared: “As an Anglican this is what I wear to identify myself, that I’m a clergyman. Do you know what Mugabe has done? He’s taken people’s identity and literally, if you don’t mind, cut it to pieces. This is what he’s actually done to a lot of – and in the end there’s nothing. So, as far as I’m concerned, from now on I’m not going to wear a dog collar until Mugabe is gone.”

Analysts say Zimbabwe’s economy has been in freefall for months now, with inflation running at more than 3,700% – the highest in the world. With 80 per cent unemployment, nly one in five of Zimbabwe’s adult population has a job and basic items such as bread, sugar, petrol are unavailable in most shops.

South Africa’s Anglican Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu, a Nobel Peace Laureate, has also protested about the Zimbabwe crisis.

He urged European Union leaders to confront Mr Mugabe over his human rights abuses during their Lisbon summit, saying that silence could be seen as collusion by those who were suffering directly as a result of them.

“I would expect that the EU leaders would criticise any regime that violates human rights because if you don’t, you are condoning those violations. The violators will think you are on their side,” Archbishop Tutu told Portugese Renascenca Radio.

Dr Tutu said he was deeply saddened and upset by the situation in Zimbabwe. He has called Mr Mugabe “a caricature of an African leader.”

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The development agency says the European Union should not have lifted – however temporarily – the travel ban on President Mugabe.

“There are only two ways of reading this decision: either the EU believes the human rights situations has greatly improved in Zimbabwe, which is patently not true, or the EU member states are no longer concerned that Zimbabweans continued to be marginalised and that their fundamental rights and freedoms continue to be violated,” said Babatunde Olugboji, head of Christian Aid’s Africa Policy.

European officials say they hope the summit will not be distracted by the presence of the Zimbabwean president. They want to cultivate closer ties with Africa on a range of issues from trade and investment to climate change and illegal migration.

Christian Aid believes the EU has a role to play in encouraging human rights and accountable governance across Africa. It says the EU should support civil society in Zimbabwe and other countries in their struggle to establish the rule of law and guarantees for citizen participation.

“Ideally this summit should produce measures to provide technical support to the judiciary as well as institutions guaranteeing freedom of press and agencies to monitor human rights and anti-corruption efforts. These are concrete steps which would make a real difference,” said Mr Olugboji.

Christian Aid warns that action must be taken on both sides; several EU member countries still have not ratified the OECD convention on combating bribery and Belgium, Cyprus, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy and Luxembourg are yet to ratify the UN Convention against Corruption (UNCAC) which many African countries have ratified.

In addition, in order to engage meaningfully with African leaders on accountability, European leaders must tackle the growing gulf between European institutions and citizens. The EU should lead by example by ensuring EU programmes include transparency and anti-corruption measures.

In 2002 the EU imposed a travel ban on 130 of Zimbabwe’s top government and ruling party officials, a ban on weapon sales and froze banned people’s assets to pressure the government to improve its human rights record and observance of the rule of law and to hold free and fair elections.

Judith Melby, Christian Aid’s African specialist who recently visited country, said: “Rather than lifting the ban the EU should extend the travel ban to the families of senior ZANU-PF officials who are already banned. Parents in Zimbabwe find it particularly galling that children of the ruling clique can study abroad while their own children have little chance of an education.”

Efforts to hold the EU-AU summit, which was first held in 2000 in Cairo, failed in the past because southern African leaders have threatened to boycott any summit if Zimbabwe’s leader was excluded.

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