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(NEWZIMBABWE) 'PM behaved like grateful slave'

'PM behaved like grateful slave'
SNUB: Obama speaks to reporters after meeting with Tsvangirai at Oval Office
by Lebo Nkatazo
18/06/2009 00:00:00

MORGAN Tsvangirai was monstered by an MP last night over his performance on a world tour for failing to stand up for his government in front of western leaders.

“Where we expected dialogue among equals, he has not shown that he is an equal, he continues to behave like he is there as a faction political leader, or unfortunately a slave,” said Tsholotsho North MP Jonathan Moyo (Indep).

The astonishing attack came as the Prime Minister continued to meet sceptical western leaders who are refusing to commit direct financial aid to the government, or lift sanctions which the government says are hindering efforts to turn around the economy.

The Prime Minister met US President Barack Obama at the White House last Friday and was arriving in Britain on Friday for a meeting with Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

Obama said the US would not be restoring direct support to the Zimbabwe government until certain benchmarks were met. He committed US$73 million in humanitarian aid.

“It will not be going to the government directly because we continue to be concerned about consolidating democracy, human rights, and rule of law. It will be going to the people of Zimbabwe,” Obama said after his meeting with Tsvangirai at the Oval Office.

The aid would be disbursed by American NGOs and the World Bank, Obama said.

Moyo blasted: “Obama treated him as if he were an envoy of American NGOs in Zimbabwe, and gave the impression American NGOs are in a better position to assist the people of Zimbabwe, more than the government of Zimbabwe of which Tsvangirai is Prime Minister.

“It was a personal disaster for Tsvangirai, and at the national level a complete waste of time. He cut a pathetic figure of a grateful slave.”

Moyo charged that most of the US$73 million “would remain in American pockets, paying Americans working in the governance and democracy field. A tiny bit of it will end in a Zimbabwean stomach, but the bulk of it has nothing to do with Zimbabweans.”

He added: “Time has come for us to be honourable enough to tell the truth, it is nothing, a mere trinket for a country which needs US$8,3 billion. Tsvangirai left this country knowing we need that money.”

Moyo, a former government minister, said “Tsvangirai should have understood he was being insulted personally, and that the people of Zimbabwe through him were also being insulted.”

“If an American President behaved the way the Prime Minister behaved overseas, he would be impeached,” he said in an interview with New Zimbabwe.com.

Tsvangirai, who formed a unity government with President Robert Mugabe and Arthur Mutambara in February, says the country needs US$8,3 million to get out of the economic woods after a decade-long crisis.

Only Denmark has said it will provide direct financial support to the government, but it committed only US$18 million – not enough to pay the government’s civil service wage bill for a month.

Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands and Germany have all said they will support the government through “humanitarian aid” to be channelled through western NGOs and financial institutions.

But it was the snub by the United States which Moyo says doomed the Prime Minister’s mission. And he says far from being the reformer he projected during his election campaign, Obama is using an old template in US-Africa relations.

He said: “Zimbabweans here were hoping Tsvangirai would make their case, he was there at the Oval Office on behalf of the government of Zimbabwe and failed to acquit himself as such.

“His host told him he would rather deal with people of Zimbabwe as if Tsvangirai was not aware he was there on behalf of the people of Zimbabwe. Why did he forget he presided over a planning process which has concluded US$8,3 billion is urgently and desperately needed to get this country working again?

“There is a simple issue these guys are forgetting. The only interest that Obama can have is whether or not Zimbabwe has a legitimate government, and of course we have a government. As to what policy that government implements is none of Obama’s business, Gordon Brown’s business, it’s our business.

“We are entitled to elect nincompoops and suffer them for the duration of their tenure, but cannot allow presidents and prime ministers of other countries to say ‘these are the policies we want you to implement’. That’s absolutely preposterous.”

Moyo said Tsvangirai should have pressed Obama to realise there is a gap between idealism and the practicalities of exercising political power – as his short reign as US President has demonstrated.

He added: “Obama ran a campaign promising to close Guantanamo, investigate and prosecute CIA agents who used water boarding. He is reneging on those promises, has anyone put benchmarks on that?

“Obama has changed his promise on practicalities on the ground as president, why should he expect that others like Tsvangirai, now in government, will not encounter practicalities which dictate a change?

“Why shove a reform agenda written by donors?”

The Prime Minister “should understand Europeans and their allies put the country on fire through sanctions, they must not be congratulated for that, they must be condemned”, said the former university lecturer and political scientist.

Moyo was also scathing over Tsvangirai’s failure to stand up for Tourism Minister Walter Muzembi who was barred from the Obama meeting – because he is from President Mugabe’s Zanu PF party.

Moyo said: “It was disgraceful for Tsvangirai to allow Americans to divide his delegation. How can you lead a delegation, and be told some members of your delegation are not allowed? It is yet another glaring example of the behaviour of a grateful slave.

“While is clear that Zimbabwe has problems, and we need to solve them, this was the worst show of leadership by Tsvangirai. His conduct during his trip so far has been less than satisfactory, but his conduct in the Oval Office was scandalous.

“The White House was built by slaves, he should have felt proud in that place -- a product of the forced labour of his ancestors, but he became worse than the people who built it.”

Moyo said a “shameful dimension” of the PM’s trip played out in Harare this week when the United States Development Agency (USAID) distributed a glossy free newsletter with “embarrassing pictures of Tsvangirai posing separately with Hillary Clinton and Obama to whom he deferred”.

He claimed the USAID pamphlet was presented as a newsletter from the Prime Minister’s Office “when it is clearly an American propaganda sheet”.

He added: “What is shameful is that while civil servants are going without salaries, while the UZ remains closed, while farmers struggle to plant wheat, and while peasants have been reduced to the life of hunter gatherers, Americans are showering Tsvangirai’s Office with previous US dollars to print and distribute neo-colonial propaganda on glossy paper in the streets of Harare and Bulawayo.”

The Prime Minister’s Office said the newsletter was printed in response to a state media blackout and misrepresentations of the PM’s overseas visit.

Labels: JONATHAN MOYO, MORGAN TSVANGIRAI, NEOCOLONIALISM

posted by MrK @ 2:29 PM