Exclusive: Secret crisis talks over Mugabe leadership?
Updated on 23 March 2007
Revealed - secret talks between the vice presidents of South Africa and Zimbabwe. Are they carving up a deal for Robert Mugabe?
Channel Four News has uncovered a secret meeting between the Zimbabwe vice president - Joyce Mujuru, a leading contender to take over from Robert Mugabe, and the South African vice president, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, in Johannesburg.
It's not known if the meeting has been sanctioned by Mr Mugabe, but it comes amid widespread speculation as to the future of his presidency.
Our Foreign Affairs Correspondent, Jonathan Miller, was at the hotel where the two women met. He has this exclusive report.
So who is Joyce Mujuru?
Joyce Mujuru and Robert Mugabe go back a long way.
She joined the Zimbabwe war of liberation in the 1970s becoming one of the first female commanders of Mugabe's forces. Infamously she is said to have downed a helicopter with a machine gun.
As a 25 year-old Mujuru was a member of Mugabe's first post-independence cabinet in 1980. But it wasn't until the age of 49, just over two years ago, that she was named vice-president of the ruling Zanu-PF party, a role she shares with Joseph Msika.
Mujuru has a powerful husband. Solomon Mujur is the former head of the army.
Someone important stayed in Room 301 - the presidential suite - at Johannesburg's Westcliff Hotel last night.
We learned that a high-level delegation of Zimbabweans was in town.
Members of this delegation, whether from Zanu PF, President Robert Mugabe's ruling party, or the South African government, proved camera-shy.
The Zimbabwean presence here, until now, has been unreported.
The delegation, we now know, led by Joyce Mujuru, Robert Mugabe's vice president. She is heir apparent and married to the former head of the army. Both have now fallen out with Mugabe.
As I went to talk to her, our camera was spotted by Zimbabwean security and jumped on by South African police.
Mrs Mujuru would not be drawn; her security told other delegates not to respond.
There's clearly a top secret mission here with the Zimbabwean vice president and senior members of the Zimbabwean cabinet, they're trying to stop us filming; but the meeting is going ahead we think they're meeting members of the South African government.
Sure enough, round the corner, the South African Deputy President Phumuzile Mlambo-Ngcuka arrived. Her government has been roundly condemned for its silence over recent events in Zimbabwe. South Africa favouring what it calls "quiet diplomacy."
We sought to talk to other delegates to find out what was on the agenda. This, looking like rather more than a shopping trip, but as is the way with quiet diplomacy, no noise being made about this one.
Crucial meeting
The South African government eventually confirming that the meeting did indeed take place but describing it as a private visit by Vice President Joyce Mujuru.
The government is also making its strongest statement so far on the crisis, perhaps prompted by Australian Prime Minister John Howard's comments that countries had been pussy-footing around Mugabe far too much.
Mugabe faces a crucial politburo meeting next Wednesday which could determine his fate.
In Harare today, he was defiant; "Nothing frightens me," he said, "not even little fellows like Bush and Blair. I've seen it all," he went on, "I don't fear any suffering or a struggle of any kind."
But having made his people suffer, he would find it a bit of a struggle if his southern neighbour pulled the plug.
Forty per cent of electricity there comes from South Africa; Zimbabwe owes it hundreds of millions of rands.
The lion's share of trade between the two countries in South Africa's favour too; then there's the soft loans, the investment and expertise. Zimbabwe could totally crumble without South Africa - it adds up to a lot of political leverage.
Today's meeting follows one between the two countries' presidents at the African Union summit two months ago.
At it, South Africa's Thabo Mbeki reportedly reading Robert Mugabe the riot act; he's said to be tough on Mugabe in private, soft in public - but it's public pressure the world now wants to see.
