Zimbabwe's Opposition Laments a Broken Deal

Tsvangirai's account, though impossible to entirely verify, fits roughly with descriptions offered over the past three weeks by numerous other sources, including some within the ruling party, the opposition and the military.

Those other interviews, most of which were conducted on the condition of anonymity, made clear that Mugabe acknowledged his loss to several members of his inner circle and that a significant faction urged him to step down. The decisive resistance to that idea came from the nation's highest military and security leaders, who refused to support a government led by Tsvangirai, who had no role in the guerrilla war that led to the fall of the white supremacist government of Rhodesia.

Tsvangirai and his Movement for Democratic Change have repeatedly claimed victory in the election but have offered no plausible plan for taking power. A general strike flopped Tuesday. Unprecedented diplomatic efforts, including an emergency summit among southern African regional leaders last weekend, have failed so totally that Tsvangirai has called for South African President Thabo Mbeki, the region's traditional heavyweight, to be removed from his lead role in resolving the standoff.

Zimbabwe's meltdown is having political consequences across southern Africa. Mbeki's African National Congress (ANC) has become so frustrated with his deferential approach to Mugabe that party leaders have publicly broken from their long-standing policy of "quiet diplomacy" and are attempting to organize their own negotiations directly with Zimbabwe's two major political parties.

The ANC's treasurer general, Mathews Phosa, in an interview Friday, called Mugabe "an embarrassment." About Mbeki, Phosa was nearly as blunt, saying "Mbeki's one of our cadres," a term that refers to party foot soldiers who take orders from the ANC leadership. "He must listen to us."

The long-unified Southern African Development Community has split sharply over how to manage Mugabe's flaunting of the democratic principles the group espouses. Zambia, whose President Levy Mwanawasa heads the group, reportedly has pushed for a hard line against Mugabe, with the support of Botswana and Malawi. Mozambique, Angola and South Africa have resisted, according to accounts of an emergency meeting last weekend.

For the southern African region accustomed to showing a unified face, Tsvangirai said with a laugh, "to even disagree is progress."

Yet he spoke harshly of Mbeki's role.

"Our people are being brutalized at the moment. Not a word of condemnation," Tsvangirai said. "How does he hope that our people will feel? . . . We're facing an extraordinary situation here, and he is keeping quiet."

Tsvangirai increasingly has focused on wooing the leaders of other nations and South African officials other than Mbeki. One of Tsvangirai's first meetings in South Africa was with Jacob Zuma, the bitter rival of Mbeki who ousted him as party leader in December.

In a sign of the growing political resistance to Mugabe in South Africa, where he long was regarded among the foremost heroes of anti-colonial liberation, union workers in the port city of Durban refused this week to unload a shipment of ammunition and mortars sent to the military from a Chinese company, according to news reports.

After the interview, Tsvangirai spoke with a radio station broadcasting into Zimbabwe.

Then, he attended to one of the many mundane matters more easily resolved in South Africa than in Zimbabwe. He welcomed a salesman carrying an armload of shoes into the conference room. Tsvangirai tried on several, then picked a new black leather pair for his eventual return home.