COMMENT - Talk about interfering with foreign democracies and governments.
(NEWZIMBABWE) US envoy of ‘nightly’ Mujuru meets speaks
FORMER US Ambassador to Zimbabwe Charles Ray has backed former vice president Joice Mujuru to turn around the fortunes of the stricken country, urging her to work with other opposition parties.
Mujuru, who was fired by President Robert Mugabe, is the interim leader of the recently formed Zimbabwe People First (ZPF) party
“She is pragmatic enough to work with the MDC and has the intelligence and ability to find ways to work effectively with the international community,” Ambassador Ray said, responding to questions from NewZimbabwe.com.
The former envoy left Zimbabwe at the end tour in 2012. He was blocked by government from consoling the Mujuru family following the death of the ex-VP’s husband, Retired General Solomon Mujuru, in a still unexplained fire in 2011.
The former vice president, while still Mugabe’s deputy, was also alleged to have held “clandestine” meetings with Ambassador Ray at undisclosed locations outside Harare.
It was claimed that Mujuru sought guarantees of financial assistance from the Americans in the event she managed to resettle power from Mugabe.
The veteran leader fired Mujuru from government and the ruling party, claiming she plotted to assassinate him.
However, Ambassador Ray denied holding clandestine meetings with Mujuru but insisted that she “has the interest of the country at heart”.
“I read of her being fired; but find it’s hard to believe the charges against her are true,” said the envoy.
“My relationship with Dr. Mujuru - both professional and personal when she was vice president - was good,” he added.
“I found her to be pragmatic and I believe she sincerely had the best interests of the country at heart.”
Labels: CHARLES RAY, JOICE MUJURU, TREASON, ZANU-PF
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COMMENT - Lies, deception and sanctimony.
Transcript: Ambassador Ray's farewell media roundtable
31/07/2012 00:00:00
by US Embassy Public Affairs Section
Full transcript of outgoing United States Ambassador to Zimbabwe Charles Ray's farewell media roundtable hosted by the Media Centre in Harare on July 26, 2012:
Earnest Mudzengi (Media Centre): Welcome everybody. I would like to introduce Jillian Bonnardeaux of the U.S. Public Affairs Section who will in turn introduce Ambassador Ray and proceedings.
Jillian Bonnardeaux, Acting Public Affairs Officer (JB): As you know this is the last media roundtable the Ambassador is doing here in Zimbabwe before his term comes to its natural conclusion. This July marks fifty, five zero years of public service to the US government, twenty years in the military and thirty years working as a representative of the US Department of State in the diplomatic corps. And so his due retirement has come and I’m sure he will be happy to talk with you about that theme if asked. The Ambassador won’t be making long remarks, may be just one new announcement and some words and he will be taking your questions…With that I will turn it over to Ambassador Ray.
Ambassador Charles Ray (Amb Ray): Well as Jillian said, I don’t have any prepared remarks. I wanted to leave this as a forum for all of you who have questions, if people keep saying 50 years, it really hasn’t sunk in that I have been working for my government for half a century, which is longer for all than but for two of us have been alive in this room. And I’m looking forward to continue to serve my country but in a private capacity.
I do have one announcement; we have just received word, as many of you know the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief- PEPFAR- has been one of our signature programs here in Zimbabwe. We’ve actually been a lot luckier than most Embassy’s around the world in that we have never had a reduction in our PEPFAR funding, we have actually got increases, when others are being reduced. And again this year we were notified just recently that we will be the recipients of additional funding, we will be receiving an increase of up to 60% to 91, 2 million dollars, which means Zimbabwe will receive an additional 18, 6 million dollars for ARV medication which will bring 60 000 new patients onto ARV’s for a total that we are supporting of HIV positive patients here in Zimbabwe of a 140,000 patients.
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An additional fifteen million dollars has been approved for a voluntary male circumcision programme, which despite some recent press reports, has been scientifically proven to be an effective measure for HIV prevention. Not a hundred percent, by any means, but effective. An additional five million dollars has been provided to accelerate prevention of mother and child transmission, that brings the total US government contribution of HIV /AIDS prevention in Zimbabwe to ninety one point two million dollars, which comes pretty close I believe to being a record for the amount that we have had to apply to this disease here.
Before I go to questions I would like to say, my time here in Zimbabwe has been interesting or to quote a favorite science fiction of mine, fascinating. It’s never been boring. It has often added a few more grey hairs to my already grey hair; I have never regretted any day I have been here, mainly because of the most valuable resource in this country, its people. There has been a lot of news about diamonds and other stuff, but the most valuable resource that Zimbabwe has is its people and that is what makes it fascinating to be here even sometimes during less than happy times…
Q: Ambassador, you have been in Zimbabwe as Ambassador for United States of America during the times of trouble or hardships. Now that you are leaving at the time when the draft constitution is being finalised, which is a key issue towards democratisation in Zimbabwe. How do you feel about that, I understand there were efforts by the United States toward the achievement of that?
Amb Ray: I have to clarify, I actually came in 2009. While there was still some turmoil, I really hesitate to say I was here during times of hardship because that minimizes the experiences of people who were here during the really bad times. The dollarization of the economy had taken place before I arrived, as had the establishment of the coalition government, so I guess you could say I came at a time when it was just beginning to move along the path of normalcy.
And you are right, we have supported the constitution making process, and I’m happy to see it get to where it is, these things are never without difficulties and I appreciate all of the problems that are being faced as the drafters make an effort to create a document that will be acceptable to the majority of Zimbabweans and that will continue moving the country along a path to normal functioning and productivity and prosperity. And I’m happy to see that. This is a country with enormous potential that—because of a number of factors that I’m sure all of you are aware—has not be able to live up to its full potential. I think if the constitutional process proceeds credibly and it leads to a document that the majority of Zimbabweans can accept as the basic law of the land and operate in accord with, then you will be in a more rapid acceleration along a path to being able to live up to the potential that’s obvious here.
Q: Mr Ambassador, the WikiLeaks revelations did put you in an invidious position with regards to your relationship with your hosts, with President Mugabe’s party and those who are not in his party. How far do you think that damaged your relations with your hosts? And again your predecessor never bid farewell to (President) Mugabe, are you going to bid farewell to him?
Amb Ray: Yes (Laughter)
Amb. Ray: Yes, (Laughter), I mean, to answer that question, I do have a pending request for a farewell courtesy call with the President which is just normal diplomat protocol.
On WikiLeaks we have made the official statement about that in a number of times while we neither confirm nor deny the authenticity of these so called ‘sensitive or classified documents.’ We abhor the exposure of information that puts people at risk.
On the question of the impact of that on relationships with people we talk to. Anyone who talks to a diplomat and thinks that it is a private conversation is as naïve as anyone who talks to a reporter thinks that it is a private conversation (laughter), you know, and people recognize that and the unfortunate thing is it was done in such a way that it did put a lot of people at risk in a lot of places which was an absolutely unprofessional criminal thing to do, has nothing to do with freedom of information, has more to do with pandering and posturing.
But I have to tell you I’ve been in government since in 1962 and despite all of the press about WikiLeaks, it’s not the most glaring episode that I’ve ever been involved in. Most of you aren’t old enough to recognize the term Pentagon Papers. When the Pentagon Papers were leaked to the press, Washington bounced around like a pachinko ball because it impacted on our entire global strategy but particular of the things that the government was in some cases thinking of doing in Vietnam but it was presented in such a way that it completely destabilized the policy-making apparatus for a long time. These things happen, and it goes in cycles, when you work in government the one thing you develop is you buy yourself a set of iron underpants, because you are going to get teeth going at your nether regions frequently and you move on and do your job.
I don’t think that Wiki leaks had permanent impact on our relationship with officials here. What has had a greater impact is the that since I got off the plane in 2009 I have made it clear that as a representative of the US government is to deal with the government of Zimbabwe and the people who occupy those positions. I am not here to look for a soul mate, I have been married for 40 years, I don’t need a wife. I’m not here looking for drinking buddies, I am here to represent my government’s interests, to protect the interest of the Americans and to build bridges that enable us to work together on issues of mutual interest rather than obsessing over the areas that we disagree on. That’s a long answer to your question. I don’t know if I have answered it. But yes, WikiLeaks hasn’t had any permanent damage; it was more of an episodic thing.
Q: Your Excellency, so are you satisfied with the support that you received from the US government in terms of the…are there areas that you probably wanted reinforced?
Amb. Ray: That’s a question you should ask a diplomat or a bureaucrat in the field or a soldier. No one in the field is ever hundred percent satisfied with the support they get from headquarters for the simple reason is that headquarters has to support everyone. The most important thing to me is here, if I don’t get 100% of what I ask for of course I’m not satisfied. Has it been effective? Yes, as you saw in the announcement we have managed to get increases in funding for a lot of very (important?) programs in almost every year of the three years I’ve been here. I’m not claiming any credit for that because we were getting increases in these programs before I came and we will continue to get increases as required in those programs long after I’m gone. I don’t really want to answer that question because personally No! I don’t ever get enough support from headquarters, I would like 110% more than I’m getting. Do I get the support I need to be able to do my job, Yes.
Q: Are there specific areas that you feel need to be addressed for your successor to focus on?
Amb. Ray: It wouldn’t be fair for me (to say), because I would be doing that from my particular perspective. My successor is a professional diplomat with a lot of years of experience, actually more experience in Zimbabwe than I had when I came because he served here before and I’m fully confident that he will see what needs to be done and focus on the right priorities, what those priorities will be though I leave to him to decide.
Q: EU has embarked no a programme of reducing the impact or the spread of restrictions imposed against Zimbabwe in 2002. The US seems to be taking a tougher line. What do you see in the future along this kind of thing? Is there any inclination to reduce the strength of the restrictions now in place?
Amb Ray: That’s really hard to say. I think there is an inclination to adjust our policies based on progress on the ground. And certainly the recent EU announcement that the conduct of a credible constitutional referendum would impact on their policies will be not be ignored in Washington.
What specifically will be done, and it’s really difficult to say, I mean, first of all, with elections looming in the US it is not easy to say who will be sitting in what decision making position, so forecasting is impossible at this point.
But certainly, and I have said this on a number of occasions, that a credible electoral process free of violence and intimidation where the will of the people is respected and implementation of agreement signed by all the (political) parties here would make our current policies relevant. I mean, the ball is entirely at this end of the court. It’s a matter of doing what has been committed to be done in a credible manner and then the sanctions…sanctions were a response to a violent electoral process and other things. Once that is off the board that’s a complete game changer, then you are looking at a totally different situation.
Q: What is the position on the US government with regards to credible and peaceful elections, even after the referendum, and then President Robert Mugabe wins the elections. Is the US government prepared to accept (President) Robert Mugabe?
Amb Ray: The American government is prepared to accept whoever is selected by credible electoral process. This has been said on any number of occasions. You have to distinguish between comments made by an individual and policies of the U.S. government. Our policy is and has always been that a credible election outcome is what we seek and what we would like to see and whoever the people of Zimbabwe elect in a credible electoral process we would accept.
Q: Your Excellency, the sanctions on Zimbabwe have been in place for more than ten years, do you think they have achieved the intended results?
Well, I wasn’t working on Zimbabwe issues when this was done; I had other pressing issues at the time. I think that there were a number of objectives for those policies and I don’t think that anyone would argue that they have all been achieved. One of the objectives as I have been briefed was to encourage a change in behavior which in any case hasn’t happened and so what they primarily achieve at this point is those people who haven’t changed their behavior at least are prevented from enjoying the fruits of their bad behavior in our country… It would be nice if they achieved other aims but you pocket the small change and until there is a change in the situation, as I said a credible election where the outcome is respected. It’s hard for me to say to my government you should do away with the measures that were put in place in response to a situation when that situation has not adequately been addressed.
Q: But do you also accept that the sanctions have also negatively affected other people, probably the general population?
Amb Ray: Well, I would argue that they haven’t in a macro sense. There might be people who were affected that were not intended, let’s be real, when you do something like that there is potential of impacting people you did not intend to. I would argue though that when the UN Commissioner for Human Rights when she was here she said something in her speech at the University of Zimbabwe that people have ignored but I have a copy of her speech and I underlined it. What she said was in cases where countries impose sanctions; they assume a responsibility to take actions to mitigate the impact of those sanctions on unintended populations.
And when you look at the amount of money the US and others have spent here- food aid alone since 2000, its two billion dollars, funding for health care and other issues that we have tried to mitigate those unintended impacts on the population. Another thing she said though that I find interesting is that the State that is being sanctioned also has a responsibility to take actions to mitigate or reduce the impact of those sanctions on its population and I would argue that merely complaining about sanctions is not mitigating the impact of sanctions on your population.
Q: We have heard that sanctions have not really achieved their intended objectives We saw that the bad behavior that was supposed to be done away with by the introduction of the sanctions.... Is there any expectation that if that the bad behavior is rectified as a country we are going to have good relations with the US government? Now that there has been a creation of some allegiance of some sort, there is this introduction of the ‘Look East’ policy that on its own has created a divergence of relations with the US government and other states. Are we expecting to see a reunion with the American government, if people who are on the sanctions list repent…are we in position to expect that?
Amb. Ray: First of all merely saying I’ve repented might work in a church but there has to be actions to back up the words and as I’ve already said the conduct of peaceful and credible elections whose outcomes are respected would be a physical action that would put us in a position to change our policy. On this whole issue of relations, we have never un-united. We have had an ambassador in this country since 1980, we have never withdrawn our ambassador from Zimbabwe, we have never downgraded our relations, our relations have been a little prickly at times, and of course what we tried to do over the last three years is to make them more professional, where we could talk about issues rather than just yell at each other and throw insults back and forth.
Your comment about Look East, implicit there is that when Zimbabwe has good relations with China it can’t have relations with the US and that’s a fallacy. That’s more like saying if you are friends with her you can’t talk to him, our country develops its relations based on its perceived interest and there is no reason to think that if Zimbabwe has good, effective and productive relations with Asian countries such as China and India then it can’t also have productive relations with the US and other countries. So I don’t..there is.. Look East, Look West, Look North, Look South; you look in the direction that benefits you in that particular time.
Q: Maybe on lighter note Ambassador, what were your greatest moments and what will you miss about this country?
Amb Ray: (inaudible)… (laughter) what I will miss are the opportunities to get out in the countryside and interact with people. Some of the highlights early in my tour here I visited Matopos Hills and I went on a patrol with the rangers and we spent about three hours walking through the bush tracking a male rhino, white rhino. I’ve got this picture of a rhino from 30ft eyeing me suspiciously, one of my best photos. We only got one photo and then I left the area (laughter). A few weeks back I had the opportunity to visit Great Zimbabwe, and it is an absolute wonder when you think when that structure was built and when you look at what was done, it is absolutely amazing. The highlight of that was I actually hiked the hill to the top of it and back down without passing out because that is not a shallow walk.
The chance to visit places like Binga in the Zambezi valley, well highlights! I have had one a week. It’s been a lot of fun …I’ve been here 50 000 photos, some of them are priceless some of them are really good, I’ll miss interacting with people and seeing some great scenery, one of my favorite past times when I’m on road trips—and I don’t fly when I’m in Zimbabwe, I drive…or I ride, I don’t drive—is sticking my camera out the window and taking pictures of life along the roadside in various parts of the country, but I don’t know if you’ve ever noticed that’s a whole other society on the roadside with the vendors and things that take place, that I will miss. You wouldn’t dare do as much near a roadside in America as people do her, mainly because the traffic moves so fast, it will blow you away, I will miss that.
Q: Any exhibition of some of your photos?
Amb. Ray: Maybe, something to think about (laugher).
Q: Your Excellency, you’ve talked about your best moments, what about your worst moments?
Amb Ray: I think the worst moments are times when violence is taking place and people have been hurt. When things has been done that defy logic, you know for instance when the Minister of Tourism was in Europe, the year before last trying to promote Zimbabwe as a tourism destination….but when the minister was in Europe trying to promote Zimbabwe as a tourism destination and a group of people forcibly occupied a tourist site here and barricade people inside which created international news and put the minister in a very embarrassing position. Those are the moments that I would like to erase from my memory, because it makes no sense. Its like shooting yourself in the foot reloading and taking aim again.
Q: You have been here almost during the duration of the Unity government; do you think it has worked?
Amb. Ray: …yes, if you think about the situation before that government was formed, then you can see that the alternative to having a coalition government is something I don’t think anyone wanted. Coalition governments are like shotgun marriages, they never work perfectly but then the world doesn’t work perfectly. The idea is not to complain because it is not perfect; the idea is to identify how you can make it work better and improve it everyday. You are going to fall down a lot as you go through life. I define success as the string of failures that you survive and learn from. The idea is to, when you fall down, not to lie there and cry about it but to wake up and keep moving and I think that that’s what this government has been trying to do, not all successfully, but whoever is a 100% successful?
Q: You have been engaged in grassroots projects that includes youth development. Are there any projects that you can say are going to be sustainable enough even if you are not there?
Amb Ray: Yes, I think, we have a project…we work with rural families, and some of them are in economically depressed areas, to teach internal financing, which is basically teaching rural people in an area to use their own resources and pool their resources in a way that they can leverage…each individual in a community has a small amount but if they can pool their resources; they can develop enough money that they can then provide small loans to people for income generating projects. I visited one of the areas and after about 18 months of the project they had gone from really poor housing with thatched roofs that needed repair to new houses with new roofs and electric irrigation pumps. It was a complete transformation, it had reached that point without a penny of assistance other than training from us or from the government, with their own resources.
One group of women that I talked to said they started out contributing one dollar per woman per month and in 18 months they had gotten up to twenty dollars per member from their little savings club an I’m very proud of it because it was all their money. That’s sustainability when you can get people to a point when they are not depending on donations or contributions or external aid, but are learning to leverage their own resources, you create sustainable programmes that don’t really require you to be there, because this is their program. It’s not the US government programme or the programme of the Zimbabwean government, it is a program belonging to those people in that village.
So yeah, and I think a number of other areas where the programs will go on their own steam, that’s our objective; it’s not to make people dependant on our programs but to get people started so that people can then take ownership of and continue on their own. I don’t believe in giving people handouts. I’m always willing to give a hand up, but once I get you up I’m not turning you loose, because I don’t like charity. I grew up on a dirt poor farm in rural Texas in the 1940s and 1950s, I had never heard of welfare or government aid until I was an adult because people from the town I grew up in, when they could not do it themselves, …so I have an aversion to charity and I believe people should be helped to do it for themselves.
Q: You spoke earlier on about the conditions needed for the lifting of the sanctions and mentioned chiefly violence and also the meeting of the implementation of the agreements already made under the GPA, what is your feeling how things are going generally? How do you feel about the chance of resumption of violence, do you see signs of violence, preparation, what are your feelings about the military?
Amb Ray: That’s a lot of questions. There are disturbing signs of the potential of violence; there’ve been reports of some incidents even recently that could become problematic in an election environment. I’ve said it on a number of occasions so I don’t think it needs to be repeated too much but I spent 20 years of my life as professional soldier and I have very strong views on the role of the military in a society. The role of the military is to defend the nation and in order to do that you need to develop a degree of professionalism and while it does not mean that military people are not entitled to have political views, it means that military people, in order to remain professional and in service to the country, must delink their personal political convictions from carrying out their professional duties.
Q: You talked about sustainable projects that you have engaged in for the development of the communities and now we look at the constitution making process and devolution is one of the pressing issue and one issue that is actually stalling the effectiveness or the fast completion of the constitution making process.
When we look at devolution of power and we look at marginalisation and social seclusion, we realize that in Zimbabwe Matabeleland, is on the margin of development and a secluded region, so to say. Is there any recommendation that you can give to have a reuniting of a marginalized communities like Matabeleland so that national growth becomes equitable?
Amb Ray: My general recommendation would be that efforts should be made by everyone to dismantle the artificial barriers that have been constructed across the entire country, not just one region. I sense as I look around, as I talk to people, as I listen to people talk, there are so many divisions that have been created here that impede national development because they put people in these little pockets of exclusiveness where they are unable or unwilling to deal with others.
I mean you have, what’s the term ‘born free’ versus the, you know, the liberators, you have Matabeleland versus the rest of Zimbabwe. You have women vs. men, you have all kinds of artificial labels that are applied to people and while that’s natural in every society, you know, I’m from Texas, I vote independent, I like to play golf, those are all labels but when those labels become so important that, well, if you are from Mash West I can’t talk to you, if you belong to this church we can’t be seen together, you really put hobbles on the ability of a country to move forward.
The effort needs to be made to minimize the importance of all these labels. I mean you know if you’re MDC you can’t talk to anyone from Zanu PF. I’m sorry you’re all Zimbabweans and at the end of the day, if everybody tries to row their little part of the boat in their own chosen direction, you’ve just going to spin around in circles and go nowhere. So there has to be, and I’m not saying that people should give up their identities, I’m saying that you subordinate that specific identity on occasion to the good of the greater whole of the nation of Zimbabwe and the most important label that should apply is Zimbabwean. Not political party, not which region you come from, which tribe or what family or whatever, the important label that should matter (is) the national label, ‘I am a Zimbabwean’ and I will do what will make my country move forward. Once I’ve done that I might go and fight with him because he is from the wrong side of town, but we put those differences aside when necessary to move the country forward, that’s my advice.
Q: Ambassador, what is your perception, what perception did you have of Zimbabwe, before you came, what perception do you hold now, well fine the perception you hold now is that you want unity et cetera, but when you came first time what was your perception?
Amb. Ray: I actually was rather distorted because I had been subjected to, when I was approached in the summer of 2008 and asked to defer my retirement and take the job from about July 2008 until July 2009. I was given a weekly brief , I worked in the Pentagon ,so I had all these Colonels running around giving me papers to read, and one of the papers they gave me to read weekly was a press summary in the international media that talked about Zimbabwe.
I remember from July 2008 to July 2009, there were a lot of bad things happening and there were pictures of empty supermarket shelves, you know, so I have to say my view was that I was going to get off the plane and I wasn’t going to be particularly pleased with what I saw on the drive to the Embassy. I got a few official briefings that really weren’t a lot more accurate or nuanced than the media reports because everyone focused on every negative incident. And so I had a year or more, I had about a year and a half of these negative incidents crammed into my head on a weekly basis. I almost withdrew my offer to come here at one point, my wife pressed me to withdraw my offer and go ahead and retire but I had made a promise so I said I don’t care. I’ll do it, can’t be all that bad.
And I’m walking through this, you can understand the impact, we flew into Johannesburg and we sat on a plane at the Johannesburg airport for three hours with these constant announcement over the thing, ‘we can’t take off because there has been an incident at the airport involving a warthog’ (laughter) at the airport in Harare. Imagine I’m hearing this added with all the other negative incidents and I’m thinking ‘wow, what am I getting myself into’ (laughter).
We finally after three hours take us off the plane, they put us in a hotel before dawn the next morning, take us back to the airport and we finally fly here and we land…and as I’m getting off the plane I’m like ‘oh, I’ve been in worst in places.’ And the airport was functioning like any airport in the world and my driver was waiting and we get in the car we drive in, I didn’t see anyone carrying a gun , until we passed State House, the ceremonial guards (laughter) and the traffic lights happened to be working that day. So I was, I was a bit thrown off because it wasn’t- you develop these pictures in your head and I couldn’t, the traffic was flowing normally, people were walking normally and guys were hiking. You didn’t have quite as many newspapers as you do now, but guys were selling newspapers on the streets, we passed a couple of shops and I saw people coming out with their carts with stuff, so, obviously the shelves were no longer empty.
And thus began my re-orientation. That while yes there are many bad things that have happened, there are positive things that have happened which were missing in the coverage and the briefings. Life is not one color in its many shades, while there were bad things happening there are positive things happening. You have to sort of look at all the things and get a fuller picture.
And I realise when I had been here for about two months, you could come here as a visitor and stay here in Harare for a week or two and never realize if you didn’t read the newspapers that there might be something happening three of four kilometers away- like in any place else in the world. My view is there are a lot of things that need fixing here as there are in many countries.
But there are a lot of things that are working and in order to be productive and trying to fix the things that need fixing you have to recognize, that if you go in and see the flat tyre on one side of the car and you don’t notice the rest of the car might be out of gas so you put in a new tyre and still go nowhere. You get what I’m saying, is you have to look at the whole picture and the only way you get it unfortunately in our current media environment is by coming here and seeing for yourself.
Q: What are you views on Zimbabwe’s human rights and track record and do you feel that a new constitution will address some of those issues, considering that the GPA was formed as a result of the track record of the human rights issues.
Amb. Ray: Well, I think that the human rights situation could be improved. A constitution, as I’ve said a number of times, is a piece of paper, it is the commitment of the people to live to what’s in that constitution, that impacts on human rights, legal rights and other rights. If you write a beautiful constitution but no one obeys it, you haven’t improved a thing, what is more important than the constitution itself is the commitment to abide by the constitution.
Q: I may want to bring you back to Brian’s question about perceptions. You had all these pictures, perceptions, that had been created reports that you were being given. What is your comment in regards to the media in general be it the local in terms of shaping people’s perception?
Amb. Ray: My comment to the media is something that…I used to work for newspapers in North Carolina back in the 60s and 70s and I had a crusty old editor who grew up, if you’ve ever seen the movies with the guys with pencil in their teeth and crumply hats, I mean this guy was from that school of journalism and his was: when you report a story get all the information related to that story not just one side of it. If it’s bad so be it. If it’s good, write it. If its mixture write it all let the reader make the decision, don’t try to shape your readers opinion by how you report the news. And what it means is that when you go into a place normally, particular outside media, or you got to a place because something “news worthy” has happened and you report that.
But I was always told, when you do that, spend a little more extra time and see if there is more to the story than what first hit you. As my old editor used to say; never make up a quote. If they didn’t say it never say they said it. Never leave things out because you don’t agree with it or you don’t like it. If you can’t report on the issues you don’t like, then you shouldn’t be a reporter, because when you go out there, I used to do, I worked in an area in North Carolina where they, in 1978, they still had active chapters of the Ku Klux Clan and I have to go and report on these guys and trust me, they weren’t pleasant. The story you go out and you get and if you can’t go out and get it you turn your reporter’s notebook in and go sell cars. That’s my advice (laughter).
Q: Obviously Ambassador there is so much talk about sanctions and…
Amb Ray: There is too much talk about sanctions (laughter)
Q: Yeah, do you really think sanctions are the problem where Zimbabweans should really be focusing?
Amb Ray: I think what Zimbabwe should be focusing is on building its human capital; on encouraging the small and medium businesses here to expand, grow and create jobs; to, as I said, try and minimize the impact of all these artificial divisions so that the people feel better about themselves, feel more economically secure and capitalize on the positive things rather than obsess on the negative.
You can talk a lot about the things that you can’t do. But you still can’t do them after you have talked about them so what was the point of the conversation, if on the other hand you look at the things you can’t do. You know, as I was, my last, I don’t remember who I was meeting with, some government official, and I said something, it sort of popped out and I didn’t think about it until I said it. I said, you know, when I take a job I always knew there are always things I am told you cannot do this, fine, I make that list, I look at it, I memorize it and I put it aside. I look for the things that need to be done that are not on that list that I am not told I can’t do and I do them until someone says ‘oops we need to add that on the list too!’
I also focus on things that I absolutely must do to keep things going. And, you know, when you do that, it’s funny, the things that you are told you are can’t do they become less important, because you will find in life, most of you are young enough to remember when you were kids, you always looking for the things that your parents didn’t tell you not to do told to see how much you could get away with. That’s really how you make life interesting. And you will be surprised how much you can get done when you focus on the things you haven’t been told you can’t do.
Q: Because you still have guys who say we can’t even move an inch because of the situation that we have…
Amb Ray: Well, I mean, that’s horse (words indistinct)…I am sorry (laughter) that’s…people who say that oh because you have that policy I can’t get anything done are saying I don’t wanna do anything….I mentioned working with the rural families, when I first came here and I had a meeting and I was told “well, you know, because of your sanctions you can’t do anything with the Ministry of Agriculture,” and I said “I bet you, we can.”
First thing I know we can do is we can talk and we can share information. That led to the realisation that were a lot of rural families that needed help, that needed a particular kind of help and that we were not prohibited from helping. Within months we were assisting some 120,000 rural families who have now experienced an increase in their disposable income and who have an improved quality of life. So, that you know, all it takes is one exception to the rule to completely negate the rule. To say that we can’t move an inch because of sanctions, well, we can’t move down this path but that’s not the only path in the woods.
Q: Ambassador, do you have any business or financial interests in Zimbabwe?
Amb. Ray: Me? No
Q: No (laugher)
Amb. Ray: No. I’m sort of an old fashioned sticker, I write, I’ve written more than 22 books and as long as you are an ambassador, you can’t do that. Even if it weren’t prohibited by our ethical regulations it would compromise my ability to make objective decisions if I had business interests. So no, I don’t have. I have a lot of personal contact of people that I do enjoy being with. But no, no business interests. No. Once I’ve retired and I’ve sort of had the time to decompress, I’m not saying I might not look this way, but no.
Q: And any military bases in Botswana?
Amb. Ray: Any who?
Q: Military bases in Botswana?
Amb. Ray: Well there are Botswana military bases in Botswana.
Q: US bases?
Amb. Ray: No and no plans for any. No plans for any. We work with the Botswana military and there is joint training…Do you realize how incredibly complicated it is to build a US military base anywhere outside the US. Let me explain to you what happens when the US decides to build a military base and it might give you an idea why it ain’t gonna happen here. First thing they do is they have to have housing for not only the soldiers but all their families and the guys that run the motor pool, the guys that run the chapel and the guys that run… the dining room, the post exchange and the store and the commissary and the theater and the bowling alley and the tennis courts (laughter).
So an American unit for a thousand people turns into a base of about nine thousand people, because they got to have a school for the kids, a church for the people that go to church, a commissary to buy food a PX to buy their CDs and their cigarettes and stuff and, it’s a very expensive, labor intensive vast undertaking and I don’t think most of… probably the only country in this region that would the infrastructure that could actually absorb the US military base is South Africa but we all know that ain’t gonna happen.
Q: In your engagement and interaction with Zimbabweans, what do you think about our work ethic, ah, in terms of relating with foreigners like you?
I think Zimbabweans have a very good work ethic. You’ve got to go to Johannesburg and talk to people there about who their preferred workers are. I think what, and as far as interacting with foreigners, actually in some cases I have noticed that, because of these artificial divisions, Zimbabweans interact better with foreigners than Zimbabweans carrying the wrong label (laughter).
On of the things and I have to tell you, this is not only here, I have interacted with the Diaspora in England and in the US. I was shocked when I went to a meeting of about 40 Zimbabweans living in the Washington last year. And of the 40 people sitting in the room only three had ever spoken to each other before. They were all strangers. Yet they live, I mean, Washington DC is not a big area, its relatively small the population of the Washington metropolitan area, is just slightly over 1 million, yet you had 40 Zimbabweans who’d been living in the Washington area, in some cases for ten years or more, who had never met each other. Which is, is a bit disturbing when you think, I mean they have all common interests and they are hardworking and successful people but they didn’t interact with each other very well. They interacted with other people in their community.
I met a young Zimbabwean in Atlanta for five years and said she didn’t realize that there was a church predominantly Zimbabwean until a week before she decided to come back here. That’s an issue that needs to be addressed.
Q: You spoke earlier about the Ku Klux Klan, and I just wondered when you came to Africa did you have any sense of homecoming as an African-American experience for coming to Africa?
That’s a very tough question to answer because, I was never part of that establishment, you know take and take, take on the special name back then African movement, for the simple reasons I’ve been a student of history and one thing I recognize decades ago that many of my African American brothers in the US don’t recognise or fail to recognise is that Americans have an African descent for the most part, now that changes now with the immigrations from the continent, have no idea in most cases what part of Africa, what of the thousands of tribes and languages they might have come from, so for me to come here and say I’ve come home is a bit of a joke in all likelihood, I mean wow I like Zimbabwe it’s a beautiful place in all likelihood my African ancestors came from somewhere in West Africa, in one of the hundreds of tribes there, for me to go there and say I’m home,(laughter) where the hell is home, I mean you know, and I’m not saying that in a negative sense, I try to relate to Africa in all of its complexity , beauty and nuance not a place that I can call home because I have no idea where to start looking for home.
There are, in, you know, the Sea Islands of Georgia and South Carolina are one of the few places where the traditional African Americans whose ancestors were slaves can actually trace their ancestry back because they lived in isolation for 150 years and they retained a lot of their language, a lot of their language and their customs because they didn’t travel much, their genetic pool didn’t change, so the Sea Islands, what we call the Gullah people of the Sea Islands of South Carolina Georgia were able to trace their ancestry to specific villages in Sierra Leone. They are the only African Americans from that group who can do that, I mean my African ancestors were probably landed in South Carolina, moved up in Mississippi, wound up Texas were they ended up married Scots, native Americans, who the hell knows who else?
My only ancestors who I can trace specifically are the native American ancestors who’ve lived for thousands of years in one little area in upper East Texas. The rest my European ancestors, I don’t know, my African ancestors are from somewhere there, so my coming was, it was another part of the world. When I left home in 1962 I was determined to see as much of the world as I possibly could- that’s every continent. The only continent I’m missing is Antarctica (laughter) and I’m working on that. That’s me personally, that’s how I view it, is coming to Africa was not coming home but to a new adventure, to learn some new things to meet new people to experience new cultures.
Home for me, I don’t even want to go back there, there is a little place of red dirt, pine trees and snakes in East Texas and the most beautiful site of that was the rear view mirror of the bus as I was leaving (laughter).
Q: Any chance of a career after you retire in standup comedy?
Amb. Ray: If I could sit down and do it. No I try to inject a little humor in my writing; I couldn’t make a living as standup comedian, could I?
Q: You could (Laughter)
Q: Ambassador, you are retiring, why is it so difficult for African leaders to retire, some of the African leaders?
Amb Ray: This is not exclusive to Africa. There is a saying that “power corrupts”, I think when people get a taste of power it is hard to let go. And when you don’t have a lot of other options it’s harder. A lot of people in politics, we have it in the U.S., we have had people who got a taste of that office and just didn’t wanna let go. I think really the main thing is that what people do to get to power and they don’t have alternatives to their positions of power cause them to be reluctant to let go.
When you are in sort of ‘winner take all or loser gets the trash’ type of environment you are not really creating a situation where people in power are gonna willingly walk away from it. What you need is an environment where if you lose political office you can go do something else that is productive while you stage a comeback (laughter). In most developing countries what is the fallback position for the guy in power if he is out of power? So I think that, again, like I said, it is not just typical of Africa, you look at a lot of countries in other parts of the world, especially people who have had to use violence to get into power in the first place
JB: Interesting conclusion, thank you Ambassador, thank you everybody who came…thanks to the Media Centre as always for having us. I think we now have a gap until the new Ambassador arrives we look forward to having him here as I am sure most of you are looking forward to.
Amb Ray: Good luck to all of you.
Issued by the U.S. Embassy Public Affairs Section. Queries and comments should he submitted to Jillian Bonnardeaux, hararepas@state.gov, Url: http://harare.usembassy.gov
Labels: AMBASSADOR, CHARLES RAY, EU, SANCTIONS
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Ray criticises US govt
Saturday, 28 July 2012 22:16
Kuda Bwititi
Outgoing United States Ambassador Mr Charles Ray has criticised his government for “not doing much” to improve relations with Zimbabwe while conceding that the American sanctions against the Southern African state are hurting ordinary citizens.
Ambassador Ray told The Sunday Mail during his last official Press conference in Harare last week that Washington seemed indifferent towards leveraging on his prime mandate of normalising relations with Harare. Asked about the kind of support he expected from the US government, he said his successor, Mr Bruce Wharton, would work towards improving key areas.
“It’s a tough question . . . I can never say I received 100 percent support from my government. They could have done more to improve relations with Zimbabwe,” he said.
“Although I cannot speak on the specific areas that I can point out, I think my successor, who has a history of having spent some time in Zimbabwe, will be able to work on those areas that need to be improved.”
Mr Ray also said US state officials have a distorted perception of Zimbabwe. He said he, at some point, seriously considered turning down his appointment owing to the negative briefing he received.
“Before I came to the country, I thought I would be greeted by guns at the airport.
“This is the picture I got during the weekly briefings I received just before I came. The official briefings were inaccurate because people focused on negative issues and negative images were planted in my head.
“Because of this, I thought of not coming to Zimbabwe, at one time. It was only when I arrived here that I realised life can never be one colour.”
The outgoing envoy said the economic sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe under the Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act (Zidera) were affecting the general populace.
He told journalists last week that the embargo went beyond companies and individuals. Previously the West and the MDC gave the false impression that the sanctions are targeted.
Ambassador Ray said his country hoped to ease the impact of the debilitating measures by increasing aid to Zimbabwe.
“Obviously, when such measures are imposed, it would be difficult for ordinary people and people that were not intended to be affected (to, in fact, be affected).
“We are aware there are innocent people who have been affected and this is unfortunate.
“When United Nations Human Rights chief Navi Pillay was in the country, she alluded to the fact that where sanctions are imposed, the imposer of the embargo has an obligation to have measures to mitigate the impact of such sanctions.
“We have done our best to mitigate the sanctions by providing a total of US$2 billion in aid.
“I also feel the state, which is suffering from the sanctions, should also take measures to reduce the effect of these measures instead of just complaining,” Ambassador Ray said.
[Or you can stop shifting your feet, admit blame and end the sanctions, rather than call on the Zimbabwean government to stop complaining and put measures in place to mitigate against the effect of YOUR sanctions.
What a weasel. - MrK]
Labels: AMBASSADOR, CHARLES RAY
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COMMENT - More nonsense from the puppet ambassador. He is complaining about 'violent elections' when his government handed weapons to the 'opposition' (including Al-Qaeda) in Libya and Syria. They are also openly supporting the MDC, which has political violence problems of it's own. And of course economic sanctions of ZDERA are not 'against Mugabe and his inner circle', but "The Government Of Zimbabwe" a term mentioned
twice in ZDERA Section 4 C, subsections (1) and (2).
End political violence, US envoy
24/07/2012 00:00:00
by AFP
THE United States' outgoing ambassador to Zimbabwe said Tuesday that Washington would only lift sanctions
against President Robert Mugabe and his inner circle if polls are held peacefully.
"There are disturbing signs of potential violence," Charles Ray said in a farewell address to journalists on completing his tour of duty in Harare.
"There have been disturbing reports recently that could be problematic in an election environment."
The ambassador's remarks came a day after the European Union agreed to lift most sanctions imposed on Mugabe's inner circle if the country holds a "credible" vote on a new constitution.
Ray said the United States would only lift its own sanctions on Mugabe and his close associates after Washington is satisfied with the electoral conditions in Zimbabwe.
"Sanctions were a response to a violent electoral process," he said. "A credible electoral process free of violence and intimidation would make our current policies irrelevant. The ball is entirely in this court.
"It's hard to say to my government they should do away with a policy that we put in place as a response to certain issues when those issues have not been adequately addressed."
Sporadic cases of violence have been reported across Zimbabwe in recent months including the murder of a district official from Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai's party by Mugabe supporters.
Mugabe and Tsvangirai were forced into a coalition government three years ago to avoid a tip into fully-fledged conflict following a bloody presidential run-off election.
The ambassador, who is retiring after 50 years in the military and diplomatic service, also urged security chiefs to keep out of politics.
"The role of the military is to defend the nation," Ray said.
"In order to do that they must develop a degree of professionalism. It means that military people, in order to remain professional and of service to the country, must delink their personal political convictions from the carrying out of their professional duties."
Some security chiefs have been quoted in the media making partisan political statements including suggestions that they would only recognise a leader with credentials from the country's 1970s liberation war.
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US ambassador Charles Ray regrets hard-line stance on Zimbabwe
Thursday, 05 July 2012 17:10
Bulawayo Bureau
THE United States regrets its hard-line stance against Zimbabwe and is keen on mending the relations, out-going US Ambassador Mr Charles Ray has said.
Speaking at a farewell Press briefing in Bulawayo on Tuesday, Mr Ray, who is left with 19 days in the country, said he has enjoyed his three-year stay in Zimbabwe.
In a rare change of attitude, Mr Ray showered praises on Zimbabweans, saying the country had a lot of potential for economic growth despite the challenges it was going through. He
condemned negative international media reports on Zimbabwe saying such reports were responsible for repelling international investors.
“Reflecting on my nearly three years in Zimbabwe, I remain cautiously optimistic,” Mr Ray said.
“The long-term future of this country is bright, due in large part to the overwhelmingly energetic, dedicated and intelligent young people, who make up the majority of Zimbabwean population.”
Zimbabweans, said Mr Ray, have the sovereign right to determine their destiny and the choice to choose the leaders they want in a voting process without any outside interference. He admitted that his country erred in adopting a radical stance against Zimbabwe adding concerted efforts were needed to try and build bridges between Harare and Washington for mutual benefit.
“When I arrived in Zimbabwe I sought to change the nature of conversation between the US and Zimbabwe. For 10 years, we were just yelling and hurling insults at each other and we never really had a substantive conversation about anything. We were complaining about some behaviour and they were calling us regime change neo-imperialists,” said Mr Ray.
[That's not namecalling, that is simply observing and relaying the facts as they are. -MrK]
The US Ambassador urged Zimbabweans to bury their differences and have a unity of purpose in order to achieve meaningful development. He said he had learnt a lot from the inclusive Government.
“Despite political differences the unity Government emphasises the need for leaders to make decisions that will benefit their people and the importance of creating a sense of oneness for the sake of building the country.
“We should bridge the artificial divisions that have been created between and among people, the born frees and the born befores, the Matabeleland residents and the Harareans. These divisions keep people apart and have built a form of intolerance that makes it difficult for people to reach to people they do not know and to trust them,” said Mr Ray.
The US envoy said his country’s model of democracy was not applicable to all countries adding there was no need for his country to seek to enforce its political principles on other countries. He said Zimbabweans alone should choose a way of reconciling the past mistakes. Asked about the attitude of US companies towards investing in Zimbabwe, Mr Ray — whose country’s sanctions law penalises US companies that invest in Zimbabwe — said most companies do not have adequate information about the country’s economic potential.
Labels: AMBASSADOR, CHARLES RAY, NEOCOLONIALISM
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US, Zim divisions remain: Ray
21/05/2012 00:00:00
by Staff Reporter
OUTGOING US Ambassador, Charles Rays has said although Harare and Washington do not “see eye to eye” on various key issues, the two countries could still do business together.
“The Government of Zimbabwe and my government don’t see eye to eye on some real important issues,” Ray told the 37th Annual Africa Travel Association Congress in Victoria Falls at the weekend.
“But I still believe that despite these differences Zimbabwe can still (spruce up) its image. Our ordinary people can do business.’’
Washington maintains sanctions against Zimbabwe will not be lifted until progress is made in implementing political reforms agreed as part of the deal leading to the formation of the coalition government.
"The US continues to maintain sanctions on Zimbabwe and will do so until we believe that substantial and irreversible progress has been made in the implementation of [reforms agreed under the Global Political Agreement]," Assistant Secretary for African Affairs, Johnnie Carson said recently.
The US imposed the sanctions more than a decade ago in protest at controversial elections and alleged human rights abuses by President Robert Mugabe's government.
Mugabe denies the allegations and claims the sanctions are aimed at punishing him for his Zanu PF party’s land reforms and other economic empowerment programmes.
Meanwhile Ambassador Ray said although Zimbabwe was not yet out of the woods the situation was not as dire as claimed by the global media.
“What you see on CNN is not true. Journalists package what they think sells. I am sorry to say this in front of the media, but I have been in the media before myself,” he said.
“People have a mistaken notion with reality. It is important that journalists try and report correctly and accurately.
“I have encouraged people not to listen to the international media but (they should) come and see for themselves.”
“I must testify that when I alighted from the plane at Harare International Airport the very first time I came here, I was surprised to see the opposite of what I had known. I met very good people, very happy people and Zimbabwe is very beautiful and attractive.”
Ray urged US investors to give the country a chance insisting the country was firmly on the path to economic recovery and growth while political tensions have also eased...
“The country is coming from political challenges that made leaders fail to implement certain projects but let us give them a chance because reconciliation takes quite some time," he said.
“To understand Zimbabwe, I urge you to listen, see and learn. We must build a better understanding between our people and everyone including the journalists (who) must come to Zimbabwe and see for themselves.”
Ray – who has often been accused by Zanu PF of pushing a regime change agenda in the country - leaves Zimbabwe in July after a three-year tour of duty.
He will be replaced by David Bruce Wharton who was the head of the US Public Affairs Department at the Harare embassy some ten years ago.
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‘Ray Charles, I presume’
Tuesday, 24 January 2012 00:00
"Why should they ask me to put on a uniform and go 10 000 miles from home and drop bombs and bullets on Brown people in Vietnam while so-called Negro people in Louisville are treated like dogs and denied simple human rights? No I'm not going 10 000 miles from home to help murder and burn another poor nation simply to continue the domination of white slave masters of the darker people the world over.
"This is the day when such evils must come to an end. I have been warned that to take such a stand would cost me millions of dollars. But I have said it once and I will say it again. The real enemy of my people is here. I will not disgrace my religion, my people or myself by becoming a tool to enslave those who are fighting for their own justice, freedom and equality.
"If I thought the war was going to bring freedom and equality to 22 million of my people they wouldn't have to draft me, I'd join tomorrow. I have nothing to lose by standing up for my beliefs. So I'll go to jail, so what? We've been in jail for 400 years.''
This was fiery Muhammad Ali, arguably the greatest boxer who ever lived, as he refused conscription to fight in the Vietnam War in late 1966, even as Uncle Sam threatened him with imprisonment.
At his scheduled induction in Houston on April 28, 1967, Ali refused three times to step forward when his name was called. The draft officer warned him that he was committing a felony punishable by five years imprisonment and a fine of US$10 000 but Ali would not budge when his name was called.
"I ain't got no quarrel with them Viet Cong," he said, adding, "No Viet Cong ever called me nigger."
He was promptly arrested, and the New York State Athletic Commission suspended his boxing licence and stripped him of his title.
Other boxing commissions followed suit.
Condemned as unpatriotic and cowardly, Ali was tried, found guilty and sentenced to five years in prison. Released on appeal, he waited three years for the US Supreme Court to overturn the verdict. The verdict was overturned on June 28, 1971, and Ali - who was now known as the peoples' champion - returned to the ring to reclaim his titles.
Suffice to say during his banishment, anti-war sentiment grew along with support for Ali, the anti-war advocate. He thus triumphantly returned to the ring not only a peoples' champion, but their hero as well.
Born Cassius Marcellus Clay on January 17, 1942 in Louisville, Kentucky, the legendary Ali turned 70 last Wednesday. Its poignant to note that he dumped the name Cassius Clay condemning it as a slave name, he adopted the name Muhammad Ali saying; ‘‘Cassius Clay is a slave name. I didn't choose it and I don't want it. I am Muhammad Ali, a free name - it means beloved of God - and I insist people use it when people speak to me and of me.''
As I read the tributes to Ali last week, along with Martin Luther King Jnr who would have been 83 on January 15, I wondered what people like Charles Ray, the US ambassador here, feel when the exploits of men like Ali and Martin Luther King Jnr are recounted?
For Charles Ray - who today wants to lecture us on human rights and democracy - is just three years younger than Ali, and answered the Vietnam call twice, a whole year after Ali's story grabbed the headlines.
Charles Ray joined the United States Army in 1962, and served in Vietnam between 1968-1969 and 1972-1973 and was awarded two Bronze Star medals for ‘‘meritorious and heroic service'' in that criminal war that progressives like Ali and Dr King spurned and scorned.
Its said the bronze medal is the fourth-highest combat award of the US Armed Forces and the ninth highest military award in US military decorations. This means Charles Ray accounted for quite a number of innocent Vietnamese to qualify for that "honour".
Ironically today, the loquacious Charles Ray - purports to lecture us on human rights and democracy - proudly donning the bloody medals from that genocidal campaign in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.
Contrast that with what Muhammad Ali did after he was denied service in a "whites only" restaurant in Louisville, his hometown even after doing Uncle Sam proud at the Olympics.
Ali threw the Light Heavyweight gold medal he had won in the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome into the Ohio River in protest over institutionalised racism. This is a medal that he had won at an international sporting event, a dream for any sportsman, which can not be said for the medals Ray flaunts to this day.
I am not being hard on the activist ambassador, I am just questioning his claim to be a champion of democracy and human rights here given his history elsewhere in the developing world.
Charles Ray is clearly not fit to tie Ali's shoes or the shoes of anyone who has fought on the side of justice. When men like Ali say they are human rights advocates, I believe them, because their lives testify to that. Which is more than can be said for Charles Ray, who has once again travelled over 10 000 miles ‘‘to help murder and burn another poor nation simply to continue the domination of white slave masters of the darker people,'' as Ali put it then.
Ray's mission here, is no different from his sojourn to Vietnam. He is here to, in his own words, ‘‘do a job, and I like to get things done. I am here to advance US interests, and I strongly believe that US interests and Zimbabwean interests largely overlap.''
And we know what US interests are the world over. They have never dovetailed with the interests of the poor and downtrodden of the developing world.
The same way the US was found on the side of Rhodesia, even after the UN put the Smith regime under sanctions; the same way the US was found on the side of Apartheid South Africa's National Party government, again after the UN imposed sanctions on that murderous regime.
This is why I reach for a shovel of salt whenever Uncle Sam or his minions claim to be fighting for human rights and democracy here.
Charles Ray should stand guided, actions speak louder than words.
Our country, under the stewardship of President Mugabe and Zanu-PF, stands accused of posing, ‘‘a continuing unusual and extraordinary threat to the foreign policy of the United States.''
A foreign policy of plunder and subjugation to which, given our history of stolid resistance to all forms of domination, we can never capitulate.
Chinese revolutionary, General Mao Tse Tung captured it well where he said, ‘‘when the time is right, even cowards become heroes.'' We see it today, when some people who had no guts to fight for their country when it needed them most preferring Rhodesian wages, claim they are willing to die for it today, suffice to say they will be saying it for the benefit of western cameras.
We can not be fooled by such rainbow heroes who come only when the storm is over neither can we be hoodwinked by latter day human rights activists like Ray, and their blood medals.
It is not too late for the activist envoy to redeem himself. He must walk his talk of building bridges. He needs to tell his bosses back home that Zimbabwe is fighting for justice. Surely Ali would never have agreed to be deployed to mastermind the low-intensity warfare Uncle Sam is waging here.
A proud, focused Ali, who made the enduring statement quoted above when he was just 24. Charles Ray is 67, surely age can not be coming alone.
Ray Charles was blind, Charles Ray can surely see.
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Open letter to Ambassador Charles Ray
By Psychology MaziwisaPolitics Last updated on: January 28, 2012
Dear Ambassador Charles Ray,
I read with interest your speech on the state of Zimbabwe-US relations and have decided to share my opinion on the matter, if only in brief.
You have achieved many wonderful things during your term in Harare as American Ambassador, including helping in the battle against HIV/AIDS and bolstering agricultural production. That’s very commendable work indeed and I can only wish you equal success in your future efforts.
But, for all your admirable accomplishments, Charles, one fundamental issue has remained woefully unresolved.
The willingness or otherwise of the American government to recognise Zimbabwe as a truly independent nation, capable of charting its own future without external interference, will determine whether Zimbabwe-US relations will succeed or, just as likely, fail.
No reasonable person can ever question the significance to any nation of cultivating good relations with the international community, especially with a country of such huge economic importance as the United States.
But here is the thing: The current tensions between Harare and Washington are neither unreasonable nor unexpected, they cannot be wished away. They are a direct result of America’s intention and desire, over a very long period, to topple the government of President Robert Mugabe and to replace it with a regime more amenable to its predatory economic interests.
The facts speak for themselves. In 2001, and acting purely on uncorroborated evidence, the United States government imposed financial sanctions on Harare on the bogus grounds that President Mugabe’s government was violating the civil liberties of its people. Of course that was nonsense.
The political situation in Zimbabwe at the time was anything but deplorable, it did not warrant the imposition of sanctions. The opposition MDC won the majority of the seats in the House of Assembly around the same period. Those on the bench interpreted the law impartially and judiciously, without fear or favour.
But let’s suppose for a minute, Charles, that America’s concerns about Harare are genuine. Washington’s own track record on human rights is very poor. President Obama, an otherwise great statesman who has my best wishes in his re-election bid, has since reneged on his undertaking to shut down Guantanamo Prison where some of the most sickening and barbaric acts of torture since World War II are taking place on a daily basis, and have been for the past ten years.
Furthermore, the Obama administration, of which you are an integral component, has broadened its definition of war powers ostensibly in order to silence critics around the world and, presumably, to take any such critics to secret locations like Guantanamo where they cannot see an attorney or invoke any of the constitutional rights ordinarily available to detained persons.
Charles, most people would regard a nation that acts in this repressive way, not as a champion of human rights or democracy or any of that self-serving rubbish but, ipso facto, a dictatorship.
Accordingly, your government is in no position, moral or otherwise, to talk of rights abuses anywhere in the world let alone in a peaceful and God-fearing country like Zimbabwe.
President Mugabe’s only crime, and I hope you know this in your heart of hearts, is that he has decided to stand for what is right: the economic independence of his people. In doing so, he has rattled many including the US government whose preference has long been to perpetuate white-skin privilege in Zimbabwe.
For this reason and this reason alone, they now want him gone and the imposition of sanctions is part of their means of achieving just that. Regrettably, ordinary Zimbabweans are the ones who have been caught up in the meat grinder. But does your country give a damn? I didn’t think so.
I’m sorry Charles, but if you cannot see what a rogue state America has become, then you are not thinking straight.
Instead of helping ameliorate the plight of our people by removing these sanctions, the US is looking to increase pressure on the government of President Mugabe by imposing even more.
I am personally aware that your government is secretly pressuring Russia and China, as members of the United Nations Security Council, to agree to further sanctions on Zimbabwe in addition to those already enforced by the European Union and the United States.
Fortunately, Russia and China will not be duped into committing heinous crimes against humanity. As far as they are concerned, there exists no reason to warrant the imposition of sanctions on Zimbabwe. God bless the people of Russia and China.
Yet the evil of your government knows no bounds. With or without Russia or China, Washington is intent on imposing increased sanctions on Zimbabwe in further attempts to send Harare’s economy to the gutter and to overthrow the regime of President Mugabe.
In that regard, and as you are well aware, they have since placed Mbada Diamonds and Marange Resources on their new sanctions list despite an earlier decision by the Kimberly Process to allow the sale of Zimbabwe’s diamonds without further encumbrance. Charles, this speaks of a very sinister agenda and demonstrates quite clearly that America is concerned merely about its own interests and not much else.
With these bolstered sanctions in place, and hopefully with the support of South Africa and other SADC countries with which your government has lately held numerous meetings on Zimbabwe, Washington hopes to extend Zimbabwe’s isolation.
It expects, too, that it will continue to render financial and tactical support to the Movement for Democratic Change project, MDC aligned civil society organizations and the so-called independent media, in the misguided hope that this time the government of President Mugabe will fall.
But you see Charles, Zimbabwe’s problems, no matter how outrageous, are for the people of Zimbabwe to fix. Certainly it is not for a western country with the blood of millions of innocent Iraqis and Libyans on its hands – and soon of Syrians and Iranians, to direct us as to how to go about solving our challenges especially if that help has not been solicited.
I am prepared to assume that, personally, you mean well and that part of your New Year’s Resolution is indeed to help improve Zimbabwe-US relations. That is very good, Charles, except for one small problem: the same could not be said of the United States of America.
In the circumstances, your call for our two countries to look more at areas of mutual agreement is great, but, I’m afraid, because it ignores some underlying truths, it will remain just an idea.
The only practical way by which to measure your country’s sincerity is if she stops all attempts, covert and overt, to impose a government on the people of Zimbabwe and to forthwith abort any relationship whatsoever with any Zimbabwean political party outside of accepted government protocol.
If America can commit to this civilized way of doing things, I have no doubt in my mind that that would go a long way in our efforts to mend a damaged relationship that now faces the ever increasing possibility of breaking down permanently and irretrievably.
You have my best wishes for the remainder of your tenure here.
Yours sincerely,
Psychology Maziwisa
Labels: CHARLES RAY, SANCTIONS
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COMMENT - More lies and deception from the US ambassador, as we've become accustomed to. If the US wants a new relationship with Zimbabwe, it needs to: 1) Declare that it wants to see every cent of the Zimbabwe people's resources to the people of Zimbabwe, and not one cent to transnational corporations; 2) Apologize for impugning the reputation of the people of Zimbabwe, and admit that the Zimbabwe Dollar was not destroyed by land reform, indigenisation, or any undefined 'Mismanagement By Mugabe' (TM), but by the credit freeze put on the Zimbabwean government in ZDERA Sec.4C from Jan. 1st 2002 onwards; 3) Make reparations for the damage done to the Zimbabwean economy, the thousands of lives that were lost because of economic sanctions, lost savings through the destruction of the national currency, and emotional distress.
Zim-US relations: A new beginning
Friday, 20 January 2012 00:00
The year 2011 was a vibrant and dynamic year for US- Zimbabwe relations and I hope to keep up our positive momentum for the remainder of my time in Harare. For a long time people perceived US-Zimbabwe relations as being about our disagreements - challenging elections, political violence, sanctions, and human rights concerns. Over 2011, my Embassy team and I sought to focus intensively on shifting our - and the public's - emphasis from those issues that divide us to instead highlight our common interests.
While we've done a lot and tried hard, our success in shifting the public's perception would have been impossible without the support of the media. So thank you!
In 2011, my team and I tried to highlight those common objectives that the US and Zimbabwe share. through making progress to advance those goals and through better communication with your government and the Zimbabwean people, we have sought to set bilateral relations on a more nuanced and balanced track. Both in America and here, all agree that we need to create more jobs. Jobs give people more opportunities. The money they spend in pursuing their dreams helps drive economic growth and create even more jobs.
As both of our economies struggle to come out of slumps, we have a great opportunity to help one another. Our renewed economic growth is a wonderful opportunity to establish and expand trade and investment relations, and my team has focused intensively on building these linkages over the past year, to very good effect. Not only can trade serve as an engine of growth and employment creation, but it creates much more opportunity for our people to interact with one another and establish our own, new perceptions of each other rather than rely on tired old views that may no longer be valid.
In 2011, my team and I have leveraged this focus on our common interests to help rebuild confidence between our two governments. Over the years, we let our relationship erode and began talking more to ourselves than each other. That really hasn't gotten us very far, instead it led us to replace the sharing of information with assumptions that were not necessarily true.
Our outreach over the past year has been one of the highlights of my time here. I have over 5 000 Facebook friends who I maintain on-going conversations with everyday. Don't get me wrong, they do not all agree with me, but as long as the disagreements are mutually respectful, they can be some of the most fruitful exchanges because they force me to re-assess my own views and add a new frame of reference that makes my perspective more diverse and rich.
Having electronic chats with e-friends is relatively easy. Establishing new, in-person relationships with people you haven't talked to before is often harder. I understand that over the past decade there has developed a fair bit of stigma about the US and perceptions about our intentions in Zimbabwe.
because of that very stigma, I applaud those here who have taken the risk of engaging the big, bad US ambassador or American officials. I understand that some see talking to the US as being disloyal to Zimbabwe. And, trust me, there are still some in Washington who are also cynical about talking to Zimbabwean officials.
At the end of the day, though, I am here to do a job, and I like to get things done. I am here to advance US interests, and I strongly believe that US interests and Zimbabwean interests largely overlap. To advance those common interests, we need to talk. We need to brainstorm. We need to share ideas, explain what elements of them can work and what cannot. We need to be willing to take the risk of being honest with ourselves and each other if we are going to do something together jointly to benefit both of our people.
And we have had achievements. Together, we are expanding educational opportunities to kids, bolstering the food security of rural communities, combating HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria, bolstering agricultural production and market linkages, expanding trade ties, the list goes on. In 2012, I want to keep up that work, and use it to build greater confidence between our two governments.
I hope to leverage the coming year to make further advances in even more areas where we share common interests - countering human trafficking, demining the minefields along the Mozambican border, improve protection of intellectual property rights, support progress along the so called "Sadc roadmap," counter transhipment of narcotics, the list can go on and on.
2012 will also be a notable year for other reasons. I know that there is a fair bit of angst in Zimbabwe that the US just assumed the chair of the Kimberley Process. In that capacity, we intend to play a strong role of facilitation and have no intention or desire to impose decisions on anyone. The KP has an effective arrangement in place regarding Marange and it is clear to us that there is a strong commitment from Zimbabwe, the monitoring team, the US and other KP members to allow that process to continue.
Working together with South Africa - the vice chair - we will aim to elicit the input of the membership to reform the KP as appropriate to ensure that the KP addresses the new and emergent dynamics in the global diamond trade. 2012 will see elections in the United States and a referendum in Zimbabwe.
Both of these events will require the same fundamental dynamics: strong national institutions, transparency, dynamic and broad-based media coverage to inform the electorate, a non-partisan police and security sector, and the commitment of all to respect the will of the people and do their best to make our countries better, stronger, more peaceful, and more prosperous.
With that, let me close and shift from my talking to us having a conversation. I want to hear your thoughts. At the end of the day, though, I am here to do a job, and I like to get things done. I am here to advance US interests, and I strongly believe that US interests and Zimbabwean interests largely overlap. To advance those common interests, we need to talk. We need to brainstorm. We need to share ideas, explain what elements of them can work and what cannot. We need to be willing to take the risk of being honest with ourselves and each other if we are going to do something together jointly to benefit both of our people.
* Charles Ray is US ambassador to Zimbabwe. This was his address at the dialogue he had with the Editors Forum at the Media Centre in Harare.
Labels: AMBASSADOR, CHARLES RAY, NEOCOLONIALISM, SANCTIONS, ZDERA
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Sexed Tsvangirai: Manheru’s Parting Shot
Friday, 09 December 2011 22:49
What has the American ambassador to do with a Zimbabwean Prime Minister who gets deserved societal flak for promiscuous misbehavior? Which part of the Geneva Convention, or of our bilateral agreement with the US government, empowers this messenger of white America to intervene in what in effect is a parochial, internal or in-house debate by a people weighing the social misconduct of one of their own, misconduct of a man who would be a king?
What impact is this intrusion supposed to have on us, on our society as it measures its own moral standards against ever-changing mores? Is the envoy hoping to bully and browbeat us all out of that that debate? Is he out to remind and even warn us that the man we mistook for a Zimbabwean, for one of our own and with an ambitious drive for national leadership, is in fact America's ward, indeed immunised against scrutiny by the American Embassy and the American Ambassador?
That Ray's interpretation of his own diplomatic assignment here covers and protects one Morgan Tsvangirai? Or is Ray's point greater, heavier, namely that our moral values are out of place in the scheme of national governance and leadership selection?
That we are moral prigs who can't even assess leadership on our own, by our own yardstick, that our moral sensibilities are a drawback on development, which is why America has to intervene? Or much worse, is that the depth of US intrusion in our affairs? That it has deepened beyond sanctions right through to our bedrooms? Ray's entry is very fraught.
When a bedding matter goes so bad
The other day I had a heart-to-heart conversation with one MDC-T official on this whole matter. While he agreed with me that the Prime Minister and his Office had indeed mishandled this whole matter which should have been left to the Prime Minister's family, he was adamant that the Prime Minister's sexual misadventures would not cost the Prime Minister a dime politically.
Zimbabweans knew what issues mattered when it came to choosing a leader, added this minister-official, swearing by his dear mother that both the Prime Minister and his party would ride the storm, all to emerge unscathed, brand and all. I hope the said official has been following this one matter which has grabbed national and, if Charles Ray is anything to go by, international attention.
I hope he today recognises especially, that it is the Prime Minister and his officials - both in Government and in his Party - who have turned what otherwise would have been a bedding matter into a shrilling political bad. They read security and bureaucratic intrusion in the whole affair, in the process lifting a matter of mere broken undergarments, of madarikanhumbi, into a matter politically important enough to break the ballot.
The bad, the bawdy
Next, the Prime Minister and his staff charged Zanu-PF of conspiracy, something Zanu-PF relished and seized upon to take and transport the whole matter into Parliament, thereby giving us excellent political laughter, all at the expense of the bashful Prime Minister of course. I am told it extended to Cabinet even.
And we all know the role of corrosive humour in Zimbabwean politics. Today MDC-T is known as the party of knickers, with its punchline, "chinja maitiro, maitiro chinja" being vulgarised through a fatal insertion of an "s" on the "t" on "maitiro". The result is bawdy, and bawdiness is what drives political humour.
With astute packaging, Zanu-PF could go far, very far making that slogan vulgar and unserviceable.
Caesar's fawning holiness
To all that add the backdrop of the church, itself an important plank to MDC-T's overall branding strategy. Here is one party which does not hesitate to wrap itself up in thick layers of the Holy Bible, tucking itself somewhere in the holiest middle, well ensconced between the book of Genesis in the beginning, and the book of Zvakazarurwa (Revelations) in the end. It is a party so keen to drape itself in holiness, a found gushing holiness at every pore, even founding an ecclesiastical wing called Christian Alliance, all to complement its main, youth and women wings. Yes, prayer peppers all its proceedings, all to studiously cultivate an image of an impeccable political foil to the "ungodly" Zanu-PF.
That way the pulpit has been turned into a pulling pit of unrighteous politics, so powerfully beguiling by its pretensions to, and superabundant symbols and rituals of holiness. Now by his conduct, the Prime Minister has invited an acid test to that claim and pretension and, regrettably the MDC-T's religious credentials have been exposed to be merely political: a bald way of reaching and mobilising the church in its mad pursuit for secular power.
It has been exposed as a Caesar fawning holiness, indeed a Caesar rendering unto God what are Caesar's. And since the MDC-T placed righteousness onto the plank of electability to political office, it surely cannot be a CIO plot to invoke the same criterion to measure an ambitious politician's daily conduct. How fare thee Mister Prime Minister? How fare thee the MDC-T brand? The measure is yours, Sir!
[WOZA cannot demonstrate; its women will not arise! ]
WOZA cannot demonstrate; its women will not arise!
The day WOZA could not arise!
Then there is the whole vocal lobby for Women and Aids. It preaches against sexual abuse, exploitation and victimisation. It preaches abstinence as the first line, condomising as the second line for men and women of frailties, of fallen heritage.
Against the Prime Minister's conduct, both crimes appear to have been infringed, and as one hoped, to spurts of sharp anger from both lobbies.
Highly politicised, very well funded and always sharp tongued, the whole industry born out of gender violence movement and the aids scourge, today cannot utter a single word, however short or inadequate.
Its tongue is firmly tied, docking and mooring its usually restless mind/mouth into quiescent silence.
The indefatigable WOZA's feet are sore, numb and heavy. WOZA cannot demonstrate; its women will not arise! Musasa is quiet, like the eerie night of the graveyard. WAG, so wont to wagging its tail and tongue, today stirs no more, decidedly lifeless.
The whole discourse on sexuality as a domain for gender dominance, gender exploitation and gender violence today goes to the deep sleep and snore of the drunken.
Not because its agitating proponents have slid into some coma, but simply because a right sin attaches to a wrong sinner, attaches to the preacher-man responsible for redeeming souls!
Mubvuwi akazara, akasimira bhande! Njuga yabata mugwandi, as Amai Mujuru fondly says. Translated loosely, the lots have convicted the caster! How now to push the women and aids agenda to benefit the causeless MDC-T, how now to push against a sin which must damn Zanu-PF, but which is now owned by the MDC-T leader, a sin for which the Prime Minister's conduct is the prime symbol, that is the tongue-tying question.
How about an HIV test, Mister?
And the good professor, Jonathan Moyo, has rubbed it in: why not get the PM to publicly undergo an HIV test, both as a show of leadership in the national fight against Aids, and as an assurance to the Nation that the blood that courses through the veins of the man who would be king is not overloaded virally. This opens up a whole new front against Aids, and against a man who would be king.
After all, if health status is itself a basis for impeaching and dropping a sitting President, then surely that implies a health criterion to Presidency itself, does it not? A disqualifier is surely an implied qualifier! And hey, let us not forget the MDC-T has been pushing hard on this matter, hoping the issue of health can be pushed into a disabling eligibility criterion for a specific President.
They have visualised it as a disabling eligibility criterion for Presidency. We should help them broaden it to mean that, for better, for worse, for all situations.
That puts a new layer to the already existing straitjacket of liberation, does it not! Like Macbeth, the man now says, "Thane of Health (Cawdor)? This is a hurdle I must overleap, or else stumble!" Let us wait and see. But before then, Mister Prime Minister, we are going into the festive season, itself the season of bloody, road-related injuries requiring transfusions.
We need blood of all classes, including your own. How about an afternoon at the Blood Transfusion Service, all for a small donation of clean blood? Or have you done so already?
In court with Chief Negomo
Then in comes Chief Negomo, zvikonzi and his summons enacting a sub-plot steeped in politically fraught legal parody. The good chief wants the Prime Minister to appear before his court to answer charges of infringing a sensitive traditional custom, to answer charges of defiling the land. To a modern man, all this sounds frivolous and even comical, as do all sub-plots. Yet woe betide all those who miss the mordant relationship between a sub-plot and its main plot.
Skilful playwrights always invest deeper meaning in sub-plots, all of it skillfully disguised as seemingly playful ribaldry.
The Prime Minister has been toppled from the lofty national pedestal down to humble structures and processes of rustic or village governance, presided over by a youthful chief. I will deal with the full implication of that both to the sub-plot and to the main plot of national politics. But first, the village.
The silent power of the village
The world of the village presents a peculiar milieu, all with its full rules and conventions, sensitivities and abominations, fears and hopes. Unscientific, customary but powerful and obediently fulfilled, these unwritten rules and sensibilities, do govern, silently when all is well, vicious and by way of public spectacle once traduced and infringed upon.
Trembling upon them is analogous to flinging a chunk of stout beacon in a mosque, on a Friday. This appears to be the Prime Minister's crime, which is why all the elders of the village, not the CIO Mister Prime Minister, are up in arms.
The start of a bad omen
Let's recreate the ecology of this unexpected intervention seemingly from below in the whole saga. We are in December, the months of flashes of blinding lightning, roaring and clapping thunder and pouring rains. It is the month of blossoming tender shoots whence emerges food that feeds the land.
December, the month of pouring, green and verdurous hope. But more than a week into December, the rains remain trapped in the celestial dome, home to gods and guardians of this land.
They have failed, or appear to be failing. Every morning, one looks for signs of a sky anguishing for beginnings of a downpour, one finds none. Both heavens and earth seem dry, drier than the bone of the vlei.
So many communal questions
And Chief Negomo's land, traditionally well-watered, by December usually priding itself for fat, round pumpkins, dark green, lusty stalks promising stout cobs, big and erectile, Negomo's land famed for groundnuts bigger than eyes of a mangoose in full dilation, groundnuts whose plants by now should have been in full yellow by way of blooming magungwe, that land is still dry, bare and arid.
The chorus, communal question is why this blistering sun? Is the Earth offended? Are its Guardians angry? Is the Land defiled? Have thegods turned their backs on Negomo's children? After all offerings were made, in time too. On that starry night of mid-October, the night of offerings to the rain gods, the drums pounded and throbbed the night; happy, cracked feet of all sizes and ages, stomped the ground sore. Voices unleashed hoarse melodies of drunken pleas to gods of mercy and rain. The whole village performed until hweva, the star heralding dawn, was up. Before dawn, when the whole ceremony hit its crescendo, the spirits came from on high. They joined the mukwerera dance ceremony. And through their homwe or pockets - mouthpieces in modern parlance - they spoke loud, very clearly, promising Negomo's children yet another fat season.
And the gods took beery sips
And at dawn, the whole village gave its back on the shady cluster of giant michakata trees, itself the setting for the ceremony. Beneath this holy cluster, frothing pots of the traditional rukweza brew, were left, bubbles forming around dirty necks of these pots, in due course bursting to gentle, intoxicating whispers. The whole place carried the scent of the beery offerings. Through these beery whispers, the chain of gods, presumably arranged by totem and age, are said to petition one another hierarchically, all the time committing to higher tiers the rich offerings from the children wanting and wishing for good rains. Since that ceremony, elder confirmed the elderly women of the village, all of them no longer able to "meet" men because of age, went back to collect the pots, finding all of them empty-dry.
The gods had accepted the offerings, had stealthily descended from the lofty skies for confirmatory sips, in the process complimenting the village's harridans, mbonga in Shona, for a good brew, sumptuous enough to soften and open the hearts of even the most hard-hearted, the most offended from their league. Had the gods been unhappy, the old women of the village would have brought back pots still full of their beer. Happily the gods had partaken of the beer, in large, long draughts too!
And down came the small rains...
Before long, in the same month of October, nyenze, the cicadas, sang glorious, sang in full throttle, against a fierce, crackling sun. Winding wisps of blue smoke soon showed up against the azure horizon. Mavivi. Negomo's villages were preparing for a good season, all hopeful. Indeed, before the close of October, followed by the entry of the forbidding months of the goats, the month of November, small rains fell, telling the village to step up preparations, indeed to seed the expectant, fecund earth, emitting the peculiar smell of a Land in full heat, ready to mate. All promised and looked well.
The great abomination
Today Negomo's land has been shunned by the rains, stunted by inexplicable drought. It is dry and bare, with tender shoots threatened by the searing heat. Unusually, November has been dry, very dry. So, too, has December, now entering its second week without the gods dropping their usual tears. The bottoms of granaries are beginning to show, only holding barely enough up to the next harvest. The community is anxious. The community is whispering, asking many questions for which answers are hardly forthcoming. And some of its whispers are gossipy, incriminating? Has the chief not heard?
His zvikonzi must clean his eardrums. He shall land us in hunger, this young Chief. Since when has Negomo chieftaincy fallen on such a little boy, a boy whose nose bridge exudes the milk of youthfulness? And where are elders of his clan? It's the Karimatsenga Tembo family, did you not hear what they did? They accepted roora in the month of goats. Such a month? Ahh, that is an abomination! Don't they know the ways of the land. This earth speaks. It refuses. See now how the skies look! Not a single cloud! Now, how will we feed the children? Did you hear? The husband is that---. Ah, ah, ah, mother of children, that's not spoken. Don't court trouble. A-ah what trouble when we are faced with a curse, when we face hunger created by people who know the ways of the land? NdiTsvangirai! Kwake hazviko? KuBohera kwaanobva handiti ndiko kwakaroorwa Meredina, daughter of my other brother from my father's second wife. I took her to Buhera, to offer her to her new family. I know Buhera. Besides, this Tsvangirai comes from the line of the Nerutanga chieftaincy, hushe hwevaDanga. Is not his totem Fish? Manje?
"Legally foolish"
This is the thorny cosmos into which the Prime Minister has wedded, barefoot and seemingly armed with the recklessness of a bull in a china shop. He has been summoned by a chief to account his abominable actions. His response has been to dismiss the summoning as "awkward" and "legally foolish". Yarns of conspiracies have again been knitted by his officials. "The incompetent handlers have failed to advise the chiefs as to the extent of his jurisdiction. They failed to advise him who his subjects are and who his superiors are in this country." They go further: "Through his wanton and ill-advised behavior, Chief Negomo has fallen foul of the clear provisions of the Global Political Agreement which provides that that the traditional leaders must be apolitical...."
Chiefs versus the GPA
Who drafts such responses for the Prime Minister? How does a sane person read the chief's actions, actions from an institution generations old, against some three-year political agreement whose present status in the country is clearly contemptible and execrated? An agreement that dangles loose, tattered and torn, in the process exposing Zimbabwe's warty hinds? You want to use that to challenge actions from an age-old institution of chiefs? Secondly, you cannot miss the contempt which the Prime Minister is made to show against the institution of chiefs. It is an institution which he has provoked through his sexual misbehavior, aggravated by a culturally insensitive conduct against which we still cannot paste a name, a description.
The issue of jurisdiction
Much worse, in the eyes of the Prime Minister, the chief has overreached. He cannot summon his superiors to his village court! That gives new meaning to jurisdiction, does it not? That jurisdiction is a matter of a respondent's status, not of the nature of the offence committed and place of its commission? Is the Prime Minister making a narrow point against a specific chief, or is he evolving a philosophy that guides his exercise of power always and at any level? Just now, the Prime Minister merely wields fumes of power, never real power itself. Yet that is enough to intoxicate him. He has repudiated customary law and all its institutions of justice as laid out in our laws. But it's a repudiation which is calculated to chill the whole legal framework, is it not? Which judicial office or rung would not see the Office of the Prime Minister or of the President as its superiors? Is this a repudiation of the philosophy of separation of powers? I hope we all begin to see how the sub-plot by way of this legal parody feeds into the main act. Clearly the Prime Minister has been provoked into revealing his sub-conscious. And it's frightful.
When belief is a material force
Culturally, the man has renounced the institution of chieftaincy and all it stands for. He has delinked himself from the guardians of the land, something which builds on his party's anti-land reform stance and agenda. Much worse, it bolsters his party's hostility to agriculture in general, which is why up to the time of writing this piece, no produce has been paid for to capacitate farmers, indeed no wheat price has been announced.
The drought might be looming. Whether true or false, the rural people now have something with which to explain any likely disaster to befall them this season. The land is defiled and its guardians have slapped it with a crippling curse. Tsvangirai is that curse. Implausible, is it not? Yet real to rural minds. Come to think of it, in 1896 it was the drought and rinder-pest. These mishaps, however you interpret them, were potent enough to cause and sustain a whole war of resistance. And the Negomos were not by-standers in that war. Add to what Tsvangirai has done the whole issue to gays and their so-called rights. And now the fact of pulling down the holy tree of which Ambuya Chagwe was hanged. It is Tsvangirai's Council, is it not? Soon he shall realize that belief is a material force. Let someone whisper that to the Prime Minister. Let him also know that Chief Negomo's actions are not about the law, the courts and culture only. They are about Tsvangirai and his humility and lack of it, once he wields power. With the little power he wields presently, he has shown he is only too conscious of it, and will not hesitate to wield it to deal with a gnat. He stands for the proverbial king who governs with his right hand romancing the hilt and scabbard.
Ray, Tom's Uncle!
Back to Charles Ray, that blunderous black envoy of mighty, white America. He tells us how to judge Tsvangirai. He says we must judge Tsvangirai not by his sex-scapades, but his performance in public office. His public power has nothing to do with his sex life, he seems to intimate. Who is he to tell us how to judge, what to do? What gives him the standing? He must go and hang on a banana tree, if that symbolizes and resembles anything in the whole saga he has plunged himself into, uninvited. He has not told White America - his employer race - that same message, which is why his fellow black, a Presidential aspirant called Cain, has had to drop out of the race, all on account of his sex errands. Only in advanced, Calvinistic America, is reckless sex politically indictable? Surely his advice to us must go to guide the society which accords him voting rights, indeed must go towards helping an embattled fellow black politician? Or is he an Uncle Tom, helplessly wedded to white interests at home, white hegemony abroad? We reject him.
Power's aphrodisiac
His intervention confirms the relationship of puppetry between Tsvangirai, his MDC-T and white America. And that relationship infantilizes Tsvangirai who must be rescued all the time by Uncle Sam through its deployed Uncle Tom. Only a few months back, Ray attacked our history, urging us to turn our backs on it. Today, he tells us the private life of leaders does not matter.
Why is it that all Wikileaks leaks reports on President Mugabe related to his private life? If private life has no bearing on the exercise of power, why does America invest so much in gathering facts around it?
I hope the silly, intrusive ambassador has read the torrent of reaction from angry Zimbabweans, responding to his unsolicited advice after a wonderful afternoon of a golf match with the embattled Prime Minister.
I hope, too, that teaches him that affinities developed on the golf course often translate to coarse politics for an intrusive ambassador. Whichever way, Manheru is happy that the American ambassador has made what MDC-T officials simplistically viewed as an a-political matter turn into full-blown politics. Sex and sexuality, power's best aphrodisiac. Icho!
Labels: CHARLES RAY, MDC, MORGAN TSVANGIRAI, NATHANIEL MANHERU
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