US embassy cable - 02HARARE1182

UNCLAS HARARE 001182 
 
SIPDIS 
 
AF/PD FOR COX AND ROBERTSON, AF/S FOR KRAFT AND 
SCHLACHTER, AF/RA FOR DIPALMA, INR/R/MR, NSC FOR 
JENDAYI FRAZER 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: ZI, PREL, PHUM 
SUBJECT: MEDIA REACTION G8 SUMMIT AND NEPAD; HARARE 
 
 
1.   Under headline "NEPAD's Zim quarantine a false 
   start" the independent weekly "Zimbabwe Independent" 
   warns the G8 countries meeting in Canada next month not 
   to ignore the crisis in Zimbabwe.  Excerpts: 
 
2.   "Remarks by the Canadian High Commissioner to 
   South Africa's Thabo Mbeki reveal a worrying trend: 
   The G8 countries are preparing to swallow the 
   deception that African leaders have the Zimbabwe 
   crisis 'in hand' and thereby qualify for the US$64 
   billion on offer for trade and investment under the 
   NEPAD plan. . .  The Canadian statement this week 
   signaled that collective self-deception about peer 
   review has become the official line.  Zimbabwe as a 
   topic will be quarantined so its contagion does not 
   infect the NEPAD process even though the Zimbabwe 
   crisis itself is demonstrably infecting the region. 
   Statements following Mbeki's visits to Oslo and 
   London this week confirm that nothing will be 
   allowed to get in the way of the NEPAD juggernaut. 
   The West wants an African success story and NEPAD, 
   they hope, is it. 
 
   "Zimbabwe's crisis meanwhile cannot be so easily 
   swept under the G8 carpet.  It is the elephant in 
   the living room.  It cannot be ignored.  The 
   humanitarian disaster that is already unfolding 
   across the land is the direct product of bad 
   governance, not drought.  And this tragedy has been 
   allowed to develop precisely because African 
   leaders indulged President Mugabe by recognizing 
   his flawed victory in the presidential poll.  If G8 
   leaders cannot see the contradiction between that 
   act of political dishonesty and NEPAD's proclaimed 
   commitment to good governance, the project is 
   doomed from the outset.  There will be no African 
   recovery, no renaissance until leaders like Mbeki 
   and Obasanjo get to grips with rogue rulers in the 
   midst.  That means speaking out on human rights 
   abuses, lawlessness and economic sabotage.  The G8 
   should make this clear.  Looking the other way in 
   Canada is no basis for future relations between the 
   developed world and Africa." 
 
SULLIVAN