US embassy cable - 05HARARE1007

S E C R E T SECTION 01 OF 02 HARARE 001007 
 
SIPDIS 
 
NOFORN 
 
AF FOR DAS T. WOODS 
AF/S FOR B. NEULING 
NSC FOR SENIOR AFRICA DIRECTOR C. COURVILLE 
DS FOR IP/AF AND IP/ITA 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 12/31/2010 
TAGS: PGOV, PREL, PHUM, ASEC, ZI, Restore Order/Murambatsvina 
SUBJECT: ARMED RESISTANCE GROUP SEEKS US ASSISTANCE 
 
Classified By: Charge d,Affaires, a.i., Eric T. Schultz under Section 1 
.4 b/d 
 
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Summary 
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1. (S/NF) The Embassy has received several requests from 
various groups for meetings with the Ambassador/CDA in the 
past few weeks to discuss overthrowing the Mugabe regime.  We 
have rejected all of these meetings, out of concern that they 
could have been attempts by the GOZ to implicate the USG in 
such an agenda.  However, the Australian Embassy did meet 
with one of these groups and provided us with a readout.  The 
same group then obtained a meeting with an Embassy political 
officer under false pretenses.  The readouts of these 
meetings indicate that there may be growing interest in armed 
resistance on the part of some regime opponents.  The MDC was 
not implicated in the group,s plans.  End summary. 
 
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Australian Readout 
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2. (S/NF) On July 13, the Australian DCM, Mark Lynch, called 
on CDA to provide a readout of a meeting he had had the 
previous day with Learnmore Muzvidzwa.  Lynch said Muzvidzwa 
had introduced himself as the Managing Director of Dreiford 
Trading, a firm that specialized in hunting safaris.  (N.B. 
At CDA,s request, RMAS ran a background check on this 
individual, which came up negative.)  Lynch said Muzvidza had 
said Zimbabweans were at the end of their patience with the 
Mugabe regime.  He had said he was part of a group with 
contacts in the CIO, the military, and the police that 
planned to overthrow the government.  The group did not 
include the MDC.  He had claimed to have 500 men under arms 
in the Chihota region southeast of Harare.  The group,s 
operations plan, which he had requested the Australians vet, 
called for the coup to occur when Mugabe was out of the 
country. 
 
3. (S/NF) Lynch said he had declined to have the plan vetted 
and had also rejected requests for financial and material 
assistance, noting that the Australian Government did not 
support the violent overthrow of the Mugabe regime.  That 
said, Lynch said Muzvidzwa had struck him as a credible 
figure.  He added that Muzvidzwa had said he was requesting 
meetings with the American and British Embassies as well. 
The CDA responded that he had already declined the meeting, 
out of concern that it could be part of a CIO effort to 
distract attention from international outrage over Operation 
Restore Order by implicating the West in an effort to 
overthrow the GOZ. 
 
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Embassy Meeting 
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4. (S/NF) On July 20, poloff met with Muzvidzwa, ostensibly 
to discuss the plight of Zimbabweans as a result of Operation 
Restore Order.  Muzvidza repeated his claim to represent a 
group that had 500 men under arms in the Chihota district. 
He wanted advice and support from the Embassy.  He said he 
had approached the Australian and UK embassies with the same 
&plan.8  Poloff told him the U.S. did not and would not 
provide support for violent overthrow of Zimbabwe,s 
government and closed the meeting. 
 
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COMMENT 
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5. (S/NF) It is probably inevitable that given the GOZ,s 
turn to more repressive tactics to maintain its hold on 
power, the idea of armed resistance may begin to appeal to 
some Zimbabweans.  Certainly there are plenty of weapons in 
the country and plenty of experience using them.  That said, 
our judgment is that the military and the police remain 
largely loyal to the regime and would be able to handle a 
coup attempt or an armed uprising with little difficulty.  We 
will continue to monitor this situation but will also 
continue to attempt to avoid direct meetings with groups such 
as Muzvidzwa,s.  The GOZ is quite capable of running such an 
operation at us and of using the very fact of a meeting to 
distract attention from the GOZ,s current travails. 
SCHULTZ