US embassy cable - 05HARARE183

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 HARARE 000183 
 
SIPDIS 
 
AF/S FOR BNEULING 
NSC FOR SENIOR AFRICA DIRECTOR C. COURVILLE 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/08/2009 
TAGS: PGOV, PREL, PHUM, SOCI, ZI, Other Political Parties 
SUBJECT: WOMEN'S GROUP PLANS FURTHER DEMOCRATIC ACTIVISM 
 
 
Classified By: Ambassador Christopher W. Dell under Section 1.4 b/d 
 
 
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Summary 
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1. (C) Jenny Williams, National Coordinator of the Women of 
Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA), told the Ambassador February 1 that 
her organization had succeeded in creating political space 
for itself and its agenda of democratic change in Zimbabwe. 
WOZA,s challenge now was to maintain that space while 
dramatically increasing the number of women participating in 
their marches and demonstrations.  She noted that WOZA,s 
relations with other parts of the democratic opposition in 
Zimbabwe were strained by sexism and elitism on their part. 
Separately, the Ambassador visited a U.S.-backed Amani Trust 
Center for Victims of Torture facility, where he met a number 
of WOZA activists who had recently been beaten and repeated 
his assurance to Williams of continued U.S. financial and 
moral support.  End Summary. 
 
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&Come Forward8 
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4. (C) Williams said the goal of WOZA, which means &come 
forward8 in Shona, was to force President Mugabe to 
relinquish power.  She was not a politician and WOZA was not 
a political party with any interest in power, nor did the 
organization back a specific political party.  Rather, WOZA 
was composed of concerned Zimbabwean women, most of them poor 
and older, who felt that without democratic change the 
country would no longer be a fit place to raise families. 
The organization,s slogan for its upcoming Valentine,s Day 
protest was &the power of love would overcome the love of 
power.8  It was a message that she felt would resonate with 
most Zimbabweans, who were deeply unhappy with political 
corruption. 
 
5. (C) Williams noted she had been personally arrested 16 
times but had only one court case pending, and that was for 
participating in a demonstration against the Public Order and 
Security Act (POSA) last July that had been organized by the 
Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), the main opposition 
political party.  In her view, this was evidence of 
increasing official tolerance, itself the result of the 
political space that WOZA had won through its willingness to 
take its cause to the streets and by its firm commitment to 
non-violence.  In many instances, local police now defended 
WOZA activists from more aggressive security forces, often 
telling her and her colleagues privately that they approved 
of WOZA,s actions.  She noted that WOZA had done much of its 
best work while in jail, talking directly to police officers 
about the need for political change in the country. 
 
6. (C) Williams said most Zimbabwean police were reluctant to 
beat a woman, especially an older woman.  The organization 
had used that to its advantage.  However, there were 
exceptions, such as a recent demonstration in suburban Harare 
that had resulted in numerous arrests, with many of those 
arrested having been subsequently beaten while in custody 
(see para ten below).  WOZA,s biggest challenge remained 
overcoming many Zimbabwean women,s fear of the police, which 
was especially pronounced among the more passive ethnic 
Shona.  This was the main obstacle to WOZA rallies moving 
from hundreds of participants to thousands.  WOZA attempted 
to overcome this obstacle by confronting head-on the tendency 
toward conformity and by encouraging Zimbabwe,s women to 
speak out and get involved. 
 
7. (C) Williams said that aiding WOZA,s efforts to encourage 
activism was the increasing degree of desperation on the part 
of average Zimbabweans.  People were in despair over the 
dramatic fall in living standards, over the failing health 
system, over the lack of jobs, and over the decline in 
educational standards.  Women were motivated to activism by 
bread and butter issues not by the mainstream opposition,s 
calls for human and constitutional rights.  The Ambassador 
said we increasingly believed this was the right focus for 
the opposition in Zimbabwe and promised continued support, 
financial and moral. 
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Relations with MDC; Other Organizations 
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8. (C) Williams said WOZA and the MDC had a complicated and 
not always constructive relationship.  To an extent they 
shared the same goal and she wished them well.  However, the 
MDC saw everything through the prism of its drive to gain 
power and felt that WOZA should take fall into line behind 
them and follow directions from the MDC.  On many occasions, 
the MDC had actually worked to undermine WOZA demonstrations. 
 An added problem was widespread male chauvinism in Zimbabwe, 
including within the MDC, which made it difficult for them to 
work with a woman,s organization as an equal.  In that vein, 
Williams noted the importance of the Secretary as a symbol to 
women throughout the world, and especially in Africa, that 
sexism had no place in a democratic society. 
 
9. (C) Williams said that in addition to sexism, the other 
factor that inhibited her organization,s cooperation with 
other elements of the democratic opposition was class. 
WOZA,s members were by-and-large drawn from the ranks of the 
poor, while civil society groups such as the National 
Constitutional Assembly (NCA) were primarily composed of 
educated urban elites whose ideas of mass-action were to hand 
out leaflets.  She noted the church had a similar problem. 
WOZA had hoped to spark action within the church hierarchy by 
creating pressure from below, but church leaders saw 
themselves as part of the elite and dismissed calls for 
action from below. 
 
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Victims of Torture Visit 
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10. (C) Later the same day, the Ambassador paid a 
long-scheduled visit with Amani Trust (an NGO which, with 
U.S. victims of torture funds, works with Zimbabwean victims) 
to a group of local women who had suffered abuse at the hands 
of security forces.  As it turned out, this was the group of 
WOZA activists Williams had described, who had been beaten 
while in custody following the January demonstration in 
suburban Harare. 
 
11. (C) The women were all motivated, as Williams had 
asserted, by bread and butter issues such as school fees for 
their children.  They told their tales in simple, firm, and 
moving terms.  All had been beaten while in custody and 
several were still lame as a result.  If the aim of the 
security forces had been to cow the women into giving up 
their activism with WOZA, they failed.  The oldest of the 
group said quite simply, &They,ve taken everything from me 
over 25 years.  They can beat my woman,s body if they want. 
I don,t care anymore.  I won,t back down.8  At the same 
time, these simple, poor women displayed a solid 
understanding of both the politics and the economics of the 
regime,s land reform policies.  Asked about access to land, 
one outspoken woman said &what would I do with a commercial 
farm when I can,t even afford seed or fertilizer for my 
garden plot.8 
 
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Comment 
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12. (C) In a February 2 conversation with Morgan Tsvangirai, 
he referred to Jenny Williams as a &rabble-rouser8 
(septel).  She,s certainly that, but she is also a deeply 
courageous person, as are her colleagues, and she has clearly 
found a message and a method that is successfully motivating 
grass roots support.  As outsiders, it seems to us that WOZA 
is more in touch with the political sentiments of ordinary 
Zimbabweans than much of the political and civic leadership. 
In the current political climate in Zimbabwe, this is more 
likely than esoteric appeals for human and constitutional 
rights to get Zimbabweans into the streets in opposition to 
the Mugabe regime.  When the Ambassador recounted the 
President,s inaugural message to the group of abused women, 
they unanimously replied that it was very encouraging to them 
to know that someone was listening to them and supporting 
their cause even if we could not provide them all the 
material support they needed in their struggle. 
 
DELL