MEDIA REPORT U. S. FOREIGN POLICY UNDER FIRE;

UNCLAS HARARE 001849

SIPDIS

DEPT FOR AF/PD (DALTON),AF/S (SCHLACHTER),AF/RA, INR/R/MR


E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PREL KPAO KMDR ZI
SUBJECT: MEDIA REPORT U. S. FOREIGN POLICY UNDER FIRE;
HARARE


1. Under headline "Bush's policy disastrous" the August
12 edition of the government-controlled daily "The Herald"
carried the following op-ed by Tim Chigodo on page 8:


2. "Since the fall of the Communism in Eastern Europe and
the end of the Cold War, the United States has been engaged
in bully tactics and is trying to impose leaders in Third
World and Middle East countries. Since President George W.
Bush came to power in controversial presidential elections.
. .he has appointed himself arbitrator over destinies of
millions of people in other countries around the world. .
.In a bully fashion, the American president is using his
country's economic and military power and has threatened to
oust presidents in countries which do not agree with his
foreign policies. Such countries include Zimbabwe, Iraq
and Palestine. He wants to impose leaders on the
countries, a move the people of the targeted countries have
resolutely resisted. The U. S. has assumed a god-like
arbitrage over other nations.

The U. S. has been working tirelessly to tarnish the
good intentions of socialism saying the ideology
could not deliver the goods like capitalism of which
America is the supreme incarnation. . .In its
determined efforts to destroy communism, the U. S.
has engaged in competitive struggle to prove to the
world that it could out-materialize socialism and
deliver what the ideology could not. The American
leader wants to make decisions in Washington that
affect the entire world, yet the world has got no
say in his policies. It is very clear that America
still holds paternalistic and imperialistic
attitudes towards African and Arab states. The
recent legislation on farm subsidies signed into law
by President Bush will not only push millions of
small African farmers out of business but impoverish
them. Some analysts fear that the Bill will
sabotage world trade negotiations launched in Doha,
Qatar in November last year. . .The huge subsidies
given to American farmers will contribute to global
over production of wheat, corn, cotton and other
basic crops. Small countries will be particularly
hard hit since agriculture plays a very significant
role in their economies.

". . .The U. S. has been relentlessly trying to
topple CUBAn President Fidel Castro for dumping
capitalism in favor of socialism. . .Since the
September terrorist attacks on the U. S., the Bush
administration has turned to righteous vengefulness
and sought to display its supremacy with some
supernatural power which it could not do during the
Cold War because of the Soviet Union's military
rivalry. The U. S. is now using the attacks to bomb
Moslem states under the pretext of fighting
international terrorism. The man blamed for the
terrorist attacks, Osama bin Laden, has put up a
challenge that has deflated American ability as a
superpower and demoralized its security
forces. . .This is not the first time the Americans
will have lost a vicious war. They did so in
Vietnam despite all the sophisticated weaponry.

"Observers have described President Bush's foreign
policy as disastrous. The U. S. administration has
continued to support Israel that has violated Middle
East peace accords with impunity. . .President Bush
has also threatened to topple Iraqi President Saddam
Hussein with the assistance of Britain. . .The
Americans can never claim to be holy and begin
lecturing to Zimbabwe, Iraq and Palestine when their
past is tainted with evil and injustices. The
Americans and some EU countries were directly
involved in the slave trade to be capable of
selfless contribution to issues like good governance
and democracy. They failed to denounce the social
ills of racism during the racism and xenophobia
conference in South Africa last year. They have
their hands, historically, dripping with the
incalculable suffering of the black people under
slavery. The latest moves by the U. S. to topple
leaders on other countries and replace them with its
stooges has clearly shown that Mr. Bush regards the
earth as America's experimental playing field."

SULLIVAN