US embassy cable - 02HARARE1998

UNCLAS HARARE 001998 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPT FOR AF/PD, AF/S, AF/RA 
NSC FOR JENDAYI FRAZER 
LONDON FOR GURNEY 
PARIS FOR NEARY 
NAIROBI FOR PFLAUMER 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PREL, KPAO, KMDR, ZI 
SUBJECT: MEDIA REPORT WSSD; HARARE 
 
  1.   Under headline "West's concern on Zim baffling" 
      the government-controlled daily "The Herald" dedicated 
      its August 30 editorial to encouraging the West to 
      seek a face-to-face audience with the government of 
      Zimbabwe to discuss issues of concern.  Excerpts: 
 
  2.   "The so-called world leaders seem to have a lot 
      of concern for Zimbabwe to the extent that they want 
      to discuss the country at the on-going Earth Summit in 
      South Africa.  While this concern seems commendable, 
      what is baffling most right thinking Zimbabweans is 
      that none of these international leaders want to 
      engage the country's leaders about what they perceive 
      to have gone wrong in Zimbabwe. . .?  Ever since the 
      land issue became more pronounced, the Tony Blair 
      government has avoided Zimbabwe like the plague.  The 
      American government has followed suit and made 
      pronouncements on Zimbabwe based on biased British 
      propaganda churned out by its paid local private 
      media.  This is why a whole Assistant Secretary of 
      State of the U.S. can publicly lie that the food 
      shortages in Zimbabwe were by the ZANU PF government's 
      land reform exercise despite the fact that this was 
      caused by a severe drought that affected not only the 
      country, but the sub-region as a whole. . .  The 
      Canadians have also fallen into the stupid trap. . . 
      The Australians will of course not be outdone and have 
      already fashioned charges of ethnic cleansing against 
      the Zimbabwean government. 
 
      "Even the Secretary-General of the UN, Mr. Kofi 
      Anan who we have always regarded as a reasonable 
      man, had to add his voice on Zimbabwe's 
      condemnation. . .  He too was scared to be seen 
      in Zimbabwe lest the ZANU PF government would 
      open his eyes to the truth, which he would have 
      difficulty in dealing with to the satisfaction 
      of the super power nations.  What is now evident 
      is that all these super power nations are so 
      afraid of little Zimbabwe that they would dare 
      not come and confront the ZANU PF government. 
      The government would certainly be too glad to 
      not only host them but discuss the alleged 
      abuses of human rights, the unfair dispossession 
      of whites of their land, the suppression of 
      Press freedom, the clampdown on the opposition, 
      among other allegations that take their fancy." 
 
SULLIVAN