MEDIA REACTION POWELL ON ZIM CRISIS; HARARE

UNCLAS HARARE 001318 SIPDIS DEPT FOR AF/PDPA FOR DALTON, MITCHELL AND SIMS NSC FOR JENDAYI FRAZER LONDON FOR GURNEY PARIS FOR NEARY NAIROBI FOR PFLAUMER E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: PREL KPAO KMDR ZI SUBJECT: MEDIA REACTION POWELL ON ZIM CRISIS; HARARE ¶1. Under headline "Ball in your court" the independent daily "The Daily News" dedicated its June 26 editorial to encouraging Robert Mugabe's government to embrace Secretary Colin Powell's recommendations, carried in an op-ed published in the New York Times, in support of a recovery program for the country's ragged economy. Excerpts: ¶2. ". . .Zimbabweans. . .must not allow Mugabe and ZANU PF to sacrifice on the alter of ego the latest opportunity offered by America to pull Zimbabwe out of crisis. United States Secretary of State Colin Powell, writing in the `New York Times' newspaper this week, vouched generous economic aid for Zimbabwe if ZANU PF and the MDC seriously engaged in dialogue that would lead to peaceful, transparent and democratic elections to choose a new government. Powell promised that aid would even start flowing to Zimbabwe even before fresh elections were held, as long as the transition to democracy was irreversibly set in motion. . .It would be a terrible betrayal to posterity if Zimbabweans allowed a government, whose time has - as Powell correctly puts it - come and long gone, to once more sabotage the future of this country by letting the offer of help being extended by the U. S. with the backing of the rest of the international community, slip away. The ball is in your court, Zimbabweans." SULLIVAN