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  Hopes for Peace in Zimbabwe: Rivals Sign Historic Power-Sharing Deal

Hopes for Peace in Zimbabwe Rivals Sign Historic Power-Sharing Deal

A power-sharing deal signed Monday by President Mugabe and opposition leaders might be the first step toward rescuing Zimbabwe from its vortex of violence and economic turmoil. But not everyone is ready to get their hopes up yet.

After years of political conflict that have seen Zimbabwe sink into bloodshed and financial ruin, a power-sharing deal signed Monday is the first sign of hope that things might finally stop their downward spiral.

Over the weekend, President Robert Mugabe agreed to a power-sharing deal negotiated over several months by South African President Thabo Mbeki. The deal was signed Monday morning at a hotel in the capital city by Mugabe, Morgan Tsvangirai, head of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), and Arthur Mutambara, the leader of a MDC splinter group.

Under the terms of the deal, Mugabe will remain president and chairman of the cabinet, and his ZANU-PF party will keep 15 of the Cabinet's 31 seats. Tsvangirai will become prime minister and head of a new Council of Ministers, which will supervise the cabinet, and the MDC will be allotted 13 cabinet seats. Mutambara will become deputy prime minister, and three cabinet seats will go to his splinter faction.

Before the signing of the deal Monday, the sides were scheduled to meet to divide up the 31 cabinet posts. While Mugabe is supposed to retain control of the army, the opposition has demanded that it be given control of the police. The results of this allotment will be announced later in the week, a government official told Reuters.

The southern Africa nation was thrown into turmoil in March after Tsvangirai defeated Mugabe in the first round of the presidential election. The vote led to widespread violence, much of which is believed to have been state-orchestrated and carried out by members of the military and police. The violence ultimately led Tsvangirai to withdraw from the runoff, and Mugabe went on to win the second vote in June under circumstances that were widely denounced as unfair.

Zimbabwe's once-thriving economy has also been a victim of the power struggle. Although the country's official inflation rate currently stands at 11 million percent, some experts put the figure closer to 40 million percent and rising.

Several leaders of the 14 nations making up the Southern African Development Community attended Monday's signing ceremony. Many of them had begun arriving in the country Sunday and were greeted at the airport in Harare by Mugabe.

Although the deal has been generally welcomed as a positive development, many are still not ready to put their hopes entirely behind it. "This is undoubtedly historic," opposition lawmaker David Coltart told the Associated Press, "but we still have a long and treacherous road to travel."

The European Union also apparently plans to take a wait-and-see approach to the most recent developments. The 27-member bloc currently enforces a wide range of sanctions on Zimbabwe, including a freeze on development aid, an arms embargo, visa bans and asset freezes on 168 officials. "The sanctions for the moment will not be changed today," EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana announced Monday. "The decision will probably be taken in October."

jtw -- with wire reports