Robert Mugabe yesterday rewarded the men who helped him steal Zimbabwe’s recent presidential election as talks on creating a power-sharing government appeared to lose momentum.

Shortly before starting a third day of negotiations on ways to to end Zimbabwe’s political and economic crisis, the 84-year-old despot used a ceremony honouring the country’s military to decorate or promote the key figures who prevented him being ousted by Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change.

The beneficiaries included George Chiweshe, head of the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission which ensured a second round of voting by denying Mr Tsvangirai an outright majority in the first vote in March; Happyton Bonyongwe, head of the Central Intelligence Organisation which is accused of seizing, torturing and killing many MDC activists before the second vote in June; and Paradzai Zimondi, the prison service chief who said he would never recognise a Tsvangirai victory.

Mr Mugabe also promised his military better pay and housing, and praised the “alert, vigilant and patriotic manner they have conducted their day to day duties”.

The president’s moves fuelled a growing sense of pessimism as his talks with Mr Tsvangirai resumed at the Rainbow Towers hotel with South Africa’s President Thabo Mbeki mediating. The two foes had already talked for 14 hours on Monday and four on Tuesday.

They agree that Mr Mugabe should remain president, with Mr Tsvangirai as prime minister, but MDC sources said Mr Mugabe was refusing to surrender real powers to his nemesis.

Officials from Mr Mugabe’s Zanu (PF) party said the talks were in danger of collapse, and accused Mr Tsvangirai of “moving goal posts, forcing us to negotiate issues we had already agreed on”.

Aziz Pahad, South Africa’s foreign minister, acknowledged the possibility of failure when he told reporters that Mr Mbeki was scheduled to return to South Africa last night and added: “If no agreement is reached the parties must be encouraged to continue talking until a solution is found”.

A report issued yesterday by Human Right Watch, the New-York based watchdog, said the Mugabe regime’s credibility as a negotiating partner was undermined by the fact that it was continuing to repress MDC activists even as it engaged in talks.

It claimed that hundreds of MDC activists remained in hiding, that Mugabe’s thugs swere continuing to terrorise rural areas, and that the regime had not dismantled its torture camps. In the past four months it had killed 163 people and beaten or tortured 5,000 others. Of the 163 dead 32 had been killed since June’s run-off vote, and two since Zanu (PF) and the MDC agreed a framework for talks.

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