SOUTHERN African leaders were “unhappy” with the slow pace of negotiations aimed at ending the political crisis in Zimbabwe, a regional defence and security committee official said on Friday.

 The Southern African Development Community’s (Sadc’s) leaders met in Maputo, Mozambique, last week to discuss problems in Zimbabwe, Democratic Republic of Congo, Lesotho and Madagascar.

 The meeting also endorsed the nomination of Malawian President Bingu was Mutharika as successor to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi as the head of the African Union.

 The 15-nation Southern African Development Community brokered an accord in February 2008 that resulted in Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai forming an unsteady power sharing government. Since then, Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change has accused Mugabe of violating terms of the agreement.

 Tsvangirai temporarily withdrew his party from the coalition on October 16. He reversed his decision on November 6 following talks mediated by Sadc to resolve outstanding issues, including the appointment of central bank governor Gideon Gono and attorney general Gen Johannes Tomana.

 “With regards to the pace of negotiations and the pace of events, nobody is happy,” Oldemiro Baloi, chairman of Sadc’s politics, defence and security committee, said in an interview yesterday in Maputo.

 “We want the talks to conclude as soon as possible.”

 Separately, Global Witness, a British-based group that monitors the exploitation of natural resources, welcomed on Friday Zimbabwe’s decision to halt a diamond auction on Thursday, saying that the sale would have violated international rules meant to stem the trade in “blood diamonds”.

 Elly Harrowell, a campaigner on conflict diamonds, said that Global Witness did not believe statements by Zimbabwe’s Mines Minister Obert Mpofu who said that soldiers and police had withdrawn from the fields in November

By SAPA