Mbeki slammed for not confronting Mugabe

HARARE, Zimbabwe, Oct. 29 (UPI) -- The latest attempt by former South African President Thabo Mbeki to broker a Zimbabwe deal has failed because he won't confront Robert Mugabe, sources say.

Mugabe, 84, Zimbabwe's longtime president and chief of the ruling ZANU-PF Party, is engaged in power-sharing talks with the opposition Movement for Democratic Change party and its Prime Minister-Designate Morgan Tsvangirai. But after reaching a tentative accord, the deal now seems on the verge of collapse despite Mbeki's close involvement in the negotiations.

Mbeki has been trying to forge a compromise on Tsvangirai's demand that the MDC be given control of Zimbabwe's Home Ministry, which controls the country's police apparatus, but Mugabe won't budge. Unnamed sources told the British newspaper the Daily Telegraph that Mbeki is distracted by his own political problems in South Africa, where he was forced by the African National Congress to resign the country's presidency.

"Mbeki will not stand up to Mugabe," a source described as very close to the negotiations told the Telegraph. "If you can't force Mugabe to give Morgan Tsvangirai, who is the prime minister designate, a passport, then you can't force him to do anything."