Zimbabwe army chief: No talks with prime minister

HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) — Zimbabwe's army commander said he would not speak to the nation's prime minister, describing him as a "sellout" and a "psychiatric patient," reported a state-controlled Sunday newspaper.

Gen. Constantine Chiwenga dismissed calls for him and other top security officials to meet with Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai to discuss demands for reforms in the armed forces ahead of crucial elections this year, reported the Sunday Mail, , which is a mouthpiece of President Robert Mugabe's party.

Chiwenga denied claims by Tsvangirai's party, which is in a shaky coalition with Mugabe, that military chiefs have welcomed approaches on reforms. He called the claims "hallucinations" and said the military chiefs will not meet with politicians who did not fight in the guerrilla war that ended colonial rule in 1980.

"We have no time to meet sellouts. Clearly Tsvangirai is a psychiatric patient who needs a competent psychiatrist . he seems to be suffering from hallucinations," said Chiwenga. "We are different. Just like oil and water, we cannot mix."

Zimbabwe's police and military are accused of state-orchestrated violence surrounding the last disputed polls in 2008.

Similar remarks against Tsvangirai were made by Mugabe's loyalist police commissioner general on April 27.

The army commander was "fired up" when speaking Saturday after the funeral of his brother outside Harare, said The Sunday Mail.

"Who the hell does Tsvangirai think he is? No-one can make us turn our back on the liberation struggle. It is unimaginable for us to spit on the struggle by meeting sellouts," Chiwenga said, the according to the paper.

Tsvangirai, 60, was a trade union leader when the independence war ended with a British-negotiated truce in 1979, leading to the first democratic elections that swept Mugabe to power.

Several service commanders have refused to salute Tsvangirai at state ceremonial events.

Tsvangirai's party insists it wants to meet with powerful pro-Mugabe generals to discuss their future role after new elections expected later this year, possibly in September. Tsvangirai's supporters have demanded that the security chiefs be fired, charging that in their loyalty to Mugabe the military heads have been partisan and unprofessional.

The two similar statements by Mugabe's two top security chiefs within a week of each other signal a hardening of their stance and point to continuing bias of the police and military against Tsvangirai's party ahead of upcoming polls, say analysts.

The coalition agreement brokered by regional leaders that made Tsvangirai the Zimbabwe prime minister in 2009 demands significant democratic and security reforms, the scrapping of sweeping media curbs and an end to hate speech dominating the state media controlled by Mugabe loyalists before new elections.

The international media freedom group Reporters Without Borders on Friday described Mugabe, 89, as "a predator of freedom of information."

Mugabe remained inflexible, refused to cooperate with the former opposition in the power-sharing government and blocked media reforms necessary for a free and fair election, said the group in a statement marking World Press Freedom Day.

Mugabe and his senior officers and officials still exercised strict control over the state media and curtailed the activities of independent media organizations through threats and surveillance, said the press watchdog.

That included an oppressive George Orwell-style "Big Brother is Watching You" law that lets Zimbabwe security authorities intercept communications without asking the courts, said Reporters Without Borders.

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Obama in Mexico for talks on economy, security

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Seeking to put a new spin on a long-standing partnership, President Barack Obama is promoting jobs and trade — not drug wars or border security — as the driving force behind the U.S.-Mexico relationship. But security concerns are shadowing his two-day visit, given Mexico's recent moves to limit American law enforcement access within its borders.

Arriving in Mexico City on Thursday on his first trip to Latin America since winning re-election, Obama was met at the steps of his plane by an honor guard and a trumpeting bugler. He greeted top Mexican officials before heading to the National Palace for meetings with President Enrique Pena Nieto, who took office in December. The two leaders were to speak at a joint news conference Thursday evening.

Obama is looking for more details from Pena Nieto about changes he is making to the robust security relationship between the neighboring countries. In a shift from his predecessor, Felipe Calderon, Pena Nieto has moved to end the widespread access U.S. security agencies have had in Mexico to help fight drug trafficking and organized crime.

The White House has stepped carefully in its public response to the changes, with the president and his advisers saying they need to hear directly from the Mexican leader before making a judgment.

"With the new Mexican administration coming into office, it certainly stands to reason that President Pena Nieto would want to take a look at the nature of our cooperation," said Ben Rhodes, Obama's deputy national security adviser. "So we're currently working with the Mexicans to evaluate the means by which we cooperate, the means by which we provide assistance."

The White House, hoping to move the discussion surrounding the president's trip beyond security, has emphasized in recent days a desire to boost economic ties to Mexico.

Already the economic relationship between the two countries is robust, with Mexico accounting for $500 billion in U.S. trade in 2011 and ranking as the second-largest export market for U.S. goods. A stronger Mexican economy would result in even more trade and job growth on both sides of the border, Obama aides say.

Among the cadre of advisers traveling with the president is Michael Froman, a longtime White House international economic adviser who was nominated by Obama just hours before the trip to serve as the next U.S. Trade Representative.

A host of other pressing issues are vying for Obama's attention as he launches his quick trip to Mexico and then to Costa Rica. Among those issues are possible chemical weapons use in Syria, the arrest of three more people in connection with the Boston Marathon bombings, and the delicate immigration negotiations underway on Capitol Hill.

Obama will be looking for a nod of support for the immigration effort from Pena Nieto. The Mexican leader is expected to back the effort, although it's unlikely he will take a public position on specific components of any pending legislation in order to avoid the impression that Mexico is meddling in U.S. domestic politics.

Still, Pena Nieto's support — particularly for stricter border security efforts — could help Obama sell the measure to wary Republicans, many of whom have long opposed giving legal status to people in the country illegally before securing the border. A bipartisan Senate bill Obama is backing would make a pathway to citizenship for people in the U.S. illegally contingent on a secure border.

"They are critical to our ability to secure the border," Rhodes, the Obama adviser, said of Mexico. "All the immigration plans that have been contemplated put a focus on securing the border as an essential priority and starting point for immigration reform."

On Friday, Obama will speak to an audience of Mexican students before heading to Costa Rica for talks with Central American leaders. His meetings there are expected to focus on bolstering regional economic cooperation, as well as security issues.

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Follow Julie Pace at http://twitter.com/jpaceDC

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Congo's M23 rebels say peace talks in trouble

KAMPALA, Uganda (AP) — The Congolese rebel movement M23 has suspended peace talks with Congo's government, a rebel spokesman said Wednesday, increasing fears of renewed violence in the country's troubled east.

The rebels say it is meaningless to negotiate peace when the United Nations is about to deploy a brigade authorized to attack them in eastern Congo, said Rene Abandi, leader of the M23 delegation that was meeting with the Congolese government in neighboring Uganda.

"For us, as M23, there is a break from the talks," said Abandi, speaking by phone from Bunagana, an M23 stronghold in eastern Congo. "We will hope that the government (of Congo) will understand later that war can't solve the conflict in eastern Congo."

M23, the most prominent rebel group operating in eastern Congo, is made up of hundreds of soldiers who deserted the Congolese army last year, accusing the Kinshasa government of failing to honor the terms of a peace deal signed on March 23, 2009. Since December representatives of the rebels and the Congo government have been meeting in the Ugandan capital, Kampala, for on-off peace talks mediated by Uganda under the banner of a regional bloc.

The rebels, widely believed to be backed by Rwanda, last November seized the provincial capital of Goma as U.N. peacekeepers stood by. That event prompted the international community to act toward the creation of a unit of peacekeepers with an enhanced mandate. The U.N. Security Council recently renewed the mandate of MONUSCO, the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Congo, for one year but also authorized the creation of a special unit expected to be deployed before July.

Following the U.N. resolution, the Congolese government asked the rebels to dismantle their movement or risk being the target of the U.N. brigade.

M23 now says the deployment of such a force could mean a return to full-blown war.

"They are coming with an offensive mandate. That's not good," Abandi said.

Tanzania and South Africa, two African countries that will contribute to the planned new brigade, have received threats from M23, which insists its fighters will defend themselves against any attacks.

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As US talks up diplomacy, NKorea takes hard line

TOKYO (AP) — The United States and Japan opened the door Sunday to new nuclear talks if North Korea lowered tensions and honored past agreements, even as the saber-rattling government rejected South Korea's latest offer of dialogue as a "crafty trick."

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry told reporters in Tokyo that North Korea would find "ready partners" in the United States if it began abandoning its nuclear program.

Japan's foreign minister, Fumio Kishida, also demanded a resolution to a dispute concerning Japanese citizens abducted decades ago by North Korean officials.

The diplomats seemed to point the way for a possible revival of the six-nation talks that have been suspended for four years.

China long pushed has for the process to resume without conditions. But the U.S. and allies South Korea and Japan fear rewarding North Korea for its belligerence and endless repetition of a cycle of tensions and failed talks that have prolonged the crisis.

Kerry's message of openness to diplomacy was clear, however unlikely the chances appeared that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's government would meet the American's conditions.

"I'm not going to be so stuck in the mud that an opportunity to actually get something done is flagrantly wasted because of a kind of predetermined stubbornness," he told U.S.-based journalists.

"You have to keep your mind open. But fundamentally, the concept is they're going to have to show some kind of good faith here so we're not going to around and around in the same-old, same-old," he said.

Tensions have run high on the Korean Peninsula for months, with North Korea testing a nuclear device and its intercontinental ballistic missile technology.

The reclusive communist state hasn't stopped there. It has issued almost daily threats that have included possible nuclear strikes against the United States. Analysts and foreign officials say that is still beyond the North Koreans' capability.

While many threats have been dismissed as bluster, U.S. and South Korean say they believe the North in the coming days may test a mid-range missile designed to reach as far as Guam, the U.S. territory in the Pacific where the Pentagon is deploying a land-based missile-defense system.

Japan is the last stop on a 10-day trip overseas for Kerry, who visited Seoul and Beijing as well in recent days.

In South Korea, he strongly warned North Korea not to launch a missile and he reaffirmed U.S. defense of its allies in the region. In China, he secured a public pledge from Beijing, the lone government with significant influence over North Korea, to rid the North of nuclear weapons.

Before returning to the United States, Kerry planned a speech Monday in Japan on the Obama administration's Asia policy.

So far, Republican lawmakers in the U.S. have largely backed the administration's efforts on North Korea.

U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., told CBS' "Face the Nation" that he was encouraged by Kerry's China visit and that he hoped "we can get the Chinese to care more about this issue.

U.S. Sen. John McCain of Arizona suggested on CNN's "State of the Union" that the U.S. make a counter-threat by using missile interceptors to hit any North Korean missile that is test-fired.

At each stop on his trip, Kerry stressed that the United States wanted a peaceful resolution of the North Korea situation six decades after a cease-fire ended the Korean War.

But North Korea on Sunday served a reminder of the difficult task ahead. Its Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea said the government had no intention of talking with Seoul unless the South abandons its confrontational posture, as the North called it.

Seoul had pressed North Korea to discuss restarting operations at a joint factory park on the border and President Park Geun-hye has stressed peace opportunities after taking power from her more hard-line predecessor, Lee Myung-bak. The presidency expressed regret with North Korea's rebuttal Sunday.

At a news conference in Tokyo, Kerry stressed that gaining China's commitment to a denuclearized North Korea was no small matter given its historically strong military and economic ties to North Korea.

But he refused to say what the Chinese were offering to do concretely to pressure the North into abiding by some of the conditions it agreed to in a 2005 deal that required it to abandon its nuclear program.

"They have to take some actions," Kerry said of North Korea. "How many or how much? I'd have to talk to folks back in Washington about that. But if the Chinese came to us and said, 'Look, here's what we have cooking,' I'm not going to tell you I'm shutting the door today to something that's logical and might have a chance of success."

In remarks to U.S. journalists, Kerry said that under the right circumstances, he even would consider making a grand overture to North Korea's leader, such as an offer of direct talks with the U.S.

"We're prepared to reach out," he said. Diplomacy, he added, required risk-taking and secrecy such as when President Richard Nixon engaged China in the 1970s or U.S. back-channel talks were able to end the Cuban missile crisis a decade earlier.

Given their proximity and decades of hostility and distrust, Japan and South Korea have the most to fear from the North's unpredictable actions.

Kerry clarified a statement he made Saturday in Beijing, when he told reporters the U.S. could scale back its missile-defense posture in the region if North Korea goes nuclear-free.

It appeared to be a sweetener to coax tougher action from a Chinese government which has eyed the increased U.S. military presence in its backyard warily, but which has done little over the years to snuff out funding and support for North Korea's weapons of mass destruction program.

Kerry said America's basic force posture wasn't up to debate. "There is no discussion that I know of to change that," he said.

But he said it was logical that additional missile-defense elements, deployed specifically in response to the Korean threat, could be reversed if that threat no longer existed.

"I was simply making an observation about the rationale for that particular deployment, which is to protect the United States' interests that are directly threatened by North Korea," he said.

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Guinea's opposition pulls out of talks

CONAKRY, Guinea (AP) — Aboubacar Sylla, a spokesman for Guinea's coalition of opposition parties, announced that the country's opposition is pulling out of talks with the ruling party, negotiations initiated by President Alpha Conde last month in an attempt to resolve the political feud that has consumed the West African nation since the 2010 presidential election.

Sylla called the dialogue with the ruling party "pure folklore" and said that Conde's party has failed to make good on a series of promises, including releasing political prisoners.

For weeks, Guinea's capital has repeatedly been immobilized by violent protests. At issue are the upcoming legislative elections, which have been postponed for years. Conde was elected in a deeply divisive 2010 presidential election. Though deemed the country's first democratic election, the vote devolved into ethnic riots.

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Colombia's ex-pres faces blowback over peace talks

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — Alvaro Uribe did more as president than any Colombian leader to weaken the South American nation's main leftist rebel group and he has been among the most vocal opponents of peace talks with the insurgents. Now, he's finding that his strident opposition to the negotiations is bringing him some unsought attention.

Uribe's high-profile role in what has become a fierce battle for this Andean nation's future has drawn new scrutiny to his ties to provincial politicians, military officers and landowners accused of backing illegal right-wing death squads that killed thousands of noncombatants in Colombia's decades-old dirty war.

Formal talks to end the half-century-old conflict with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, began in November in Cuba, and a seventh round has just begun.

Uribe has been relentlessly attacking his successor, Juan Manuel Santos, the instigator and champion of the negotiations. Uribe insists Santos, who is up for re-election in May 2014 but has not declared his candidacy, is leading the country to ruin.

Any peace pact reached at the Havana talks with the FARC, Latin America's oldest and most potent rebel army, would only rekindle instability in the conflict-scarred nation Uribe led from 2002-2010, the former president maintains. Uribe vehemently opposes Santos' plan to pardon and grant amnesty to FARC commanders so they can participate in political life. To him, the rebels are nothing more than criminals.

"He's not the president of peace," Uribe told reporters Monday in his latest attack on Santos. "He's the president who asks the courts for impunity for terrorists, the president who got elected in the name of security and who is leading the country on the road to the re-establishment of violence."

Uribe has been both speaking and tweeting relentlessly against the talks.

"What democracy sits down to negotiate with terrorists who continue to murder its police and soldiers?" he tweeted last month after publishing a photograph of the corpses of three slain police on a roadside.

This week, he pointed out that rebels killed two police officers as they accompanied government workers on a land-restitution mission. Santos has refused to negotiate under a cease-fire, instead preferring to keep the FARC under constant military pressure.

Santos' initial response to Uribe's withering verbal attacks was to hold his tongue. But lately he has been returning the rhetorical fire, calling Uribe a "street ruffian" who "hides a knife" beneath the rustic poncho he fancies.

And now Colombian prosecutors have reopened a criminal investigation into accusations that Uribe formed a paramilitary death squad nearly two decades ago while he was a law-and-order state governor.

The men's feud reflects deep, longstanding divisions between the conservative provincial landowners whom Uribe represents and a more progressive urban class. The latter believes that Santos' efforts to compensate the conflict's victims and return millions of acres of stolen land to displaced peasants can address the FARC's main grievances and produce a lasting peace.

Uribe's opponents accuse him of continuing to stoke death squads that have killed thousands since they were first formed in the 1980s to protect ranchers and cocaine traffickers from rebel kidnapping and extortion. Among their victims: peasants agitating to reclaim stolen land. From January through September 2012, the United Nations says, at least 37 human rights and land-recovery activists were killed in rural Colombia.

"Uribe has a lot of unsettled scores," as do the "ranchers and businessmen who enriched themselves off land theft and drug trafficking," said Ivan Cepeda, a leftist congressman who wants Uribe in jail.

Uribe denies any association with such illegal groups.

But detractors say he successfully weakened the FARC in an alliance with shadowy groups that backed the far-right militias. More than 60 lawmakers allied with Uribe have been convicted of colluding with or benefiting from ties with far-right militias since 2006.

The case that prosecutors reopened against Uribe in January alleges that he and his brother Santiago formed a far-right militia on the family ranch, Guacharacas, in the Antioquia state town of San Roque in 1995, when Uribe was governor. Citing testimony from two imprisoned witnesses, prosecutors contend the ranch was used as a base of operations for the group, whose members allegedly committed "multiple crimes including massacres and selective killings."

Uribe did not respond to a question about the case during an interview with The Associated Press last month, but his lawyers have repeatedly denied the charges.

Uribe attorney Jaime Granados called the case "insane," and said he would prove "the whole thing is a farce."

While it is difficult to say whether Uribe's criticisms of the peace process have affected it in any way, the slow progress of the talks has only hurt Santos politically. He hasn't said he will run for re-election but has repeatedly stressed he will pull the plug on the talks unless significant progress is made.

Uribe is constitutionally barred from running again but has formed a political party that is expected to field a candidate. One potential nominee: the president's cousin, Francisco Santos, who was Uribe's vice president and now calls the current government "the most intolerant Colombia has had in many years."

That has led some to believe that President Santos wants Uribe out of commission, and that reopening the criminal case against him is just the way to do it.

Recent polls show Uribe with a higher approval rating than Santos: 65 percent compared to 44 percent, according to a mid-February survey conducted by Gallup. The same poll found 62 percent of Colombians said they didn't think a settlement will be reached in the peace talks. The poll surveyed 1,200 people and had a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Both sides have reported advances in the peace talks, particularly on agrarian reform, but have offered no specifics. Colombia is a country where 7 percent of the population owns 80 percent of the land, the National Office of Notaries and Registrars says, and more than 3 million people have been forcibly displaced by illegal armed groups, principally by far-right militias.

Changing the balance of ownership has been a chief demand of the rebels and just as fiercely opposed by wealthy ranchers.

The ranchers' chief spokesman, Jose Felix Lafaurie, has said the group opposes the peace process for the same reason as Uribe: No one should negotiate with "bandits."

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Associated Press writers Vivian Sequera and Frank Bajak contributed to this report.

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