ZIM PANEL SHEDS LIGHT ON MUGABE'S MESS

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 WINDHOEK 000115 SIPDIS SENSITIVE SIPDIS E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: PGOV PREL MASS MARR WA SUBJECT: ZIM PANEL SHEDS LIGHT ON MUGABE'S MESS REF: (A) Castillo-PAO Collective email 4/18/2008, (B) 07 Windhoek 438 Summary -------------- ¶1. (SBU) A panel of five Zimbabwean activists, sponsored by PAS Harare and Freedom House to travel the region, impressed their Namibian listeners with revelations about the situation in Zimbabwe. Their cogent arguments prompted a public discussion that turned upside-down many of the liberation themes that Mugabe and his allies have used repeatedly to block criticism. Namibian public support for Mugabe appears to be waning and public discourse has become more in favor of active SADC intervention in Zimbabwe. For its part, the GRN leadership continues to adopt a go-slow approach. End summary. "If Zimbabwe Needs a Second Liberation, So Be It" -------------- -------------- ¶2. (SBU) Bulawayo Agenda Executive Director Gorden Moyo, Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights Executive Director Irene Petras, journalist Gibbs Dube, Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ) representative Abel Chikomo, and USAID DG specialist Jacob Mafume participated in public discussions and interviews on April 15 to shed light on the situation in Zimbabwe. The team made crisp, well-articulated points, stressing that the worsening violence, Mugabe's ongoing violations of Zimbabwean law, and the lack of electoral results or legal recourse is going to leave Zimbabweans feeling their only option is to retaliate. The panelists urged people to lobby their governments to pressure the GOZ to release electoral results and avoid deepening the crisis to a point of no return. ¶3. (SBU) The over 200 Namibians and Zimbabweans in the audience during an April 15 debate with the five panelists were firmly in agreement that SADC and the regions' leaders needed to take a more active stance to pressure Mugabe and his government. Many of them broke regional taboos by using sacred liberation language against Mugabe and his fellow former liberators. Some of the most notable comments from the audience: "We need to urge the GRN to have solidarity with people of Zimbabwe, not the state." "How can we decolonize minds from Mugabe's colonialism?" "If Zimbabwe Needs a Second Liberation, So Be It!" A Namibian in the audience won applause when asked "Why can't we do to Mugabe what he did to the DRC?" referring to Zimbabwean, Angolan and Namibian intervention in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in the late 1990's. Namibian Public Opinion Shift -------------- ¶4. (SBU) The tide of Namibian public opinion may slowly be turning in favor of a more activist approach by SADC to address the Zimbabwe crisis. A year ago, when Zimbabwean professor John Makumbe visited Namibia and criticized Mugabe's regime, a surprisingly large number of participants at the public lecture vociferously defended Mugabe and castigated Makumbe as a puppet of the West (ref B). With this recent panel, only two questioners indicated mild support for Mugabe, and one was a member of the Zimbabwe High Commission. All the major media outlets covered the visit by the Zimbabwean activists. ¶5. (U) In the same vein, the SMS pages of the independent Namibian newspaper are replete each day with renewed condemnation of Mugabe, South African President Thabo Mbeki, SADC, and the region's leaders. Even the Editor of the government-owned New Era newspaper, who typically adopts pan-Africanist or even anti-western positions, used his Friday editorial on April 18 to urge SADC to intervene now, "Because later may just be too late!" GRN Taking it Slowly -------------- ¶6. (SBU) The government, however, seems less interested in intervention or public discourse that could be construed as pressuring Mugabe. During his State of the Nation address on April 10, President Pohamba avoided taking a position, saying only that he had dispatched Foreign Minister Hausiku to Harare to assess the situation. The independent media has criticized the GRN's silence. ¶7. (SBU) On April 7, SWAPO MP Royal J. K. /Ui/o/oo (protect) made the press after he publicly criticized Nambia's approach to Zimbabwe and Mugabe. /Ui/o/oo told PolOff on April 18 that he made the comments because he felt he had to speak his conscience and that he was tired of the fact that SWAPO MPs always had to get permission from on high before speaking their minds. /Ui/o/oo said he did not think the most recent events in Zimbabwe had changed any of the minds of the SWAPO elite about Mugabe or Namibia's policy because too many of the SWAPO cadres still believed that the West was plotting to oust Mugabe. /Ui/o/oo was visibly incensed by his SWAPO WINDHOEK 00000115 002 OF 002 colleagues' perception of the West and Zimbabwe: "Mugabe's own people voted him out... 28 years is too long to stay in power." MATHIEU