MEDIA REPORT AFRICAN AMERICANS UNDER FIRE; HARARE

UNCLAS HARARE 001879 SIPDIS DEPT FOR AF/PD, AF/S E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: OIIP KPAO ZI SUBJECT: MEDIA REPORT AFRICAN AMERICANS UNDER FIRE; HARARE ¶1. Under headline "African Americans betraying Zimbabwe" the independent "Daily News" dedicated its August 19 editorial to criticizing a group of African Americans who are currently in the country at the invitation of the Zimbabwe government. The editorial accuses the group of being used as a propaganda tool by the Zimbabwean government as it attempts to demonstrate the "support of the international community" for its controversial fast- track land reform program. Excerpts: ¶2. ". . .During (Mr. Robert Mugabe's) visit to the Far East in the first week of August Mugabe, to the utter disbelief of all diplomatic observers and the world Press who knows what the true position is, stunned everyone by claiming that his government was leaving all white commercial farmers with at least one farm each. Last week he repeated that false claim when he told a group of `visiting' black Americans that his controversial land reform program, a disguised, violent campaign launched to destroy the MDC (Movement of Democratic Change), would not leave white farmers landless. . .President Mugabe clearly believes that those claims will successfully fool everyone. And that is extremely disconcerting, to say the least. . .And yet some obscure American blacks appear only too happy to support the lie - for the money of course. It is a crying shame. The world's moralists may not regard the late former President of the United States, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, as having been the best qualified to lecture the international community on matters of morality. Nevertheless, his pronouncement: `The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in times of crisis, maintain their neutrality' will stand forever as one of the best moral teachings of all time. It's much worse for those who actively support injustice." WHITEHEAD