SWAZI DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER PESSIMISTIC ON CHANCES

C O N F I D E N T I A L MBABANE 000307

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/09/2014
TAGS: PGOV PREL PINR WZ ZI BC
SUBJECT: SWAZI DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER PESSIMISTIC ON CHANCES
FOR SUCCESS OF ZIMBABWE'S UNITY GOVERNMENT

Classified By: Ambassador Earl M. Irving
for reasons. 1.4 (b) and (d).


1. (C ) I spent an hour and a half with Swazi Deputy Prime
Minister Themba N. Masuku on November 2. An appointed
Senator, Masuku joined the present government in his current
capacity in August 2008, when he was recalled from his
position as an international civil servant in the U.S. He
told me that his principal responsibility was for the social
welfare of Swaziland, in particular the well-being of
children, the elderly, minorities (whites, people of mixed
race and the disabled) and veterans, and to manage the day to
day business of cabinet. I asked him whether he had any
substantive responsibility for foreign affairs and he
responded only insofar as he oversaw the work of cabinet. I
asked if he had been briefed on the Foreign Minister Lutfo
Dlamini,s trip to Zimbabwe on October 30 and he answered in
the negative. He noted that on October 19 he had been in
Uganda representing King Mswati III at the African summit on
refugees, and had sat next to Zambian President Rupiah Banda,
who was seated next to Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe at
dinner. Mugabe explained to Banda that "the problem with
Tsvangirai is that he doesn't know he can't get everything he
wants when he wants it." Banda tried to tell Mugabe to step
back from the matter and be more flexible in handling the
government of national unity, but the Zimbabwean got his back
up and made it clear that that conversation was over. Masuku
was shocked to see how arrogantly Mugabe had abruptly cut off
a fellow head of state. "Even though (Mugabe) can be quite
lucid at times, I think he's losing it," the Swazi Deputy
Prime Minister observed. Masuku continued that the
Zimbabwean government of national unity was destined to fail
because it consisted of two political parties with clearly
different and irreconcilable agendas, and questioned whether
the tripartite alliance in South Africa might not be headed
for a similar fate. He cautioned that those were his own
views and not those of his government.


2. (C) Masuku also had some brick bats for Botswana's
President Ian Khama. He noted that the president was a
military man through and through and had packed his cabinet
with fellow military officers. "According to information
I've received, it's getting more difficult to be in
Botswana," he concluded.


3. (C) Comment and Bio: Themba Masuku was born on July 7,
1950, in Hlathikhulu, Swaziland. In 1998 Masuku joined the
Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) as Director of the
FAO Liaison Office in Geneva, a position he held until 2007.
In 2008 he was transferred to New York. Between 1991 and
1996 he served as a member of parliament and minister in
several cabinet portfolios; first as Minister of Agriculture
and Cooperatives (91-93) and Minister for Economic Planning
and Development (93-96). In 1996 King Mswati III appointed
Masuku Minister of Finance, from which portfolio he resigned
in 1998 to take up his duties at the FAO. Masuku holds a
Master of Science in Agriculture and Mechanization, a degree
he earned from the University of Missouri as a USAID
scholarship recipient in 1983. In 1989 he graduated from the
University of South Africa with a diploma in Industrial
Relations. Masuku is a technocrat and rarely ventures a
political opinion in public, although he enjoys the
confidence of the king. His views on Zimbabwe square with
those we have heard of others in government who are close to
the subject. His comment on the state of Botswana was news
to me, however. End Comment and Bio.
IRVING