US embassy cable - 03HARARE958

UNCLAS HARARE 000958 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPT FOR AF/PDPA FOR DALTON, MITCHELL AND SIMS 
NSC FOR JENDAYI FOR JENDAYI FRAZER 
LONDON FOR GURNEY 
PARIS FOR NEARY 
NAIROBI FOR PFLAUMER 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PREL, PHUM, KPAO, KMDR, ZI 
SUBJECT: INDEPENDENT PAPER REACTS TO MELDRUM EXPULSION 
 
  1.   Under headline "Iron fist will fail" the 
      independent daily "The Daily News" dedicated its May 
      19 editorial to the expulsion of Andrew Meldrum, a 
      United States national and correspondent for the 
      British newspaper "The Guardian." The editorial said 
      Meldrum's ejection was "ill-advised and unlawful" and 
      that "the government's crude actions will not silence 
      Meldrum or other journalists."  Excerpts follow: 
 
  2.   "The government of Zimbabwe has yet again 
      contrived to make an international spectacle of itself 
      with its ill-advised and unlawful deportation of 
      Guardian journalist Andrew Meldrum. . .  It is tragic 
      for the nation that the government fails to realize, 
      or simply does not care, that its iron-fisted response 
      to its citizen's attempts to express basic rights that 
      they are guaranteed by the Constitution is fuelling 
      the tension it prefers, ostrich-like, not to see. . . 
      Through its deportation of Meldrum, President Robert 
      Mugabe's regime has merely added to the list of 
      journalists who are determined to tell the true story 
      of Zimbabwe, even if they have to do it from beyond 
      the country's borders.  The government's crude actions 
      will not silence Meldrum or other journalists. . . ." 
 
WHITEHEAD