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HARARE - The United States has withdrawn support for Zimbabwe's stalled power-sharing deal as the Opposition Movement for Democratic Change warned that it would boycott another sham election.
Jendayi Frazer, the US assistant secretary of state for African affairs, said in Pretoria that Washington had become convinced that
the embattled President, Robert Mugabe, was not interested in sharing power.
To allow him to continue as President in a unity government would leave "a man who's lost it, who's losing his mind, who's out of touch with reality" in power, she said after talks with regional leaders.
Washington - and Britain - had signalled a readiness to step in with an aid package once a unity government was in place.
"We're not prepared to do any of that now," Frazer said, citing the abductions in Zimbabwe, the deteriorating humanitarian and economic situation and the cholera epidemic.
The talks between the MDC and the ruling Zanu-PF Party have bogged down over allocation of important ministries and Mugabe has warned his party to be ready for new elections after failing to push the Opposition into a junior role in a unity government.
The MDC said it would boycott any fresh elections unless the constitution was overhauled and international observers were prominent.
The party would not take part in "another Mugabe-managed election farce", said its spokesman, Nelson Chamisa.
"We welcome and are ready and prepared for free and fair elections. We would be ready to deliver another election blow to them like we did in March."
Then, the party won more seats than Zanu-PF and the MDC's leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, beat Mugabe by six percentage points in the presidential poll.
However, Chamisa said that if a new vote was simply a rerun of "June chaos" where the second round was blighted by violence against opposition supporters, then "the participation of the MDC cannot be definite".
The ruling party conference ended at the weekend with calls for Mugabe to form a new government without the MDC, although this would be illegal under the constitution.
Frazer said that, if Mugabe's neighbours were to unite and "go to Mugabe and tell him to go, I do think he would go".
Fears are mounting for the lives of more than 40 Opposition officials and human rights activists who have been abducted as part of a renewed crackdown by the regime in Harare.
At least two more members of the MDC have disappeared in the past week, as well as a freelance investigative reporter.
"The abductions are increasing and it now seems to be happening nationwide," Chamisa said.
The operation, codenamed Chimumumu according to sources in the Army, aims to eliminate political opponents and remove human rights monitors.
The kidnappings follow a pattern familiar from the past two years of political intimidation, where key officials of middle and lower rank are "disappeared" in an attempt to terrorise or destabilise opponents of the ruling party.
Among those taken in the past month are Chris Dlamini, the head of security for the MDC, and Jestina Mukoko, the director of Zimbabwe Peace Project. The ruling party and security services have denied any part in the abductions.
Dlamini was among the first to be abducted this month. Authorities refuse to say where the abductees are being held.
- INDEPENDENT
