The Crisis in Zimbabwe

  1.  While many observers regard the tidal wave of police brutality, arbitrary arrests, torture, assassinations and generalised state-sponsored ultraviolence to be the primary focus for the tribulations engulfing Zimbabwe, I believe that the trial of Mr Morgan Tsvangirai, et alia should provide the core analytical context for the crisis. In other words, the crisis should be viewed and analysed through the lens of the trial, rather than vice versa for reasons that will become apparent in the paper that follows.

Mr Robert Mugabe—A formidable tyrant

  2.  Mr Robert Mugabe is a formidable tyrant. He is both extremely intelligent and utterly ruthless. In late March, he proclaimed himself to be a "black Hitler" who would crush his political opponents. In his statement, Mr Mugabe announced a radical escalation of state-sponsored police brutality against his opponents, and he promised to be "ten times worse" than Hitler in the pursuit of the eradication and punishment of his enemies.

  3.  Mr Mugabe's long career of opposition to colonial rule has earned him the steadfast friendship and respect of his generation of political leadership in southern Africa. The political support Mr Mugabe is enjoying from Mr Mbeki, Mr Obasanjo, the governments of Namibia and other nations in southern Africa is understandable for it is the result of longstanding personal and political alliances formed against a common enemy—western colonial powers. It is clear that these leaders will remain united by their common history of militant opposition to colonial rule. They have built their careers upon the tactic of exploiting widespread hatred of the colonial and western powers, and they are not likely to change.

  4.  Due to this aspect of the political dynamics undergirding and uniting the society of the power elites in southern Africa, Mr Robert Mugabe is longing to attract the disapproval and ire of the western powers. He craves the exposure of western influence in the region—a tactic designed to strengthen his core of support amongst his generational comrades, many of whom are immensely influential in the politics of southern Africa. To fall into his trap would be a gross strategic blunder.

  5.  It is clear that the African leadership embodied in Mr Nelson Mandela and Mr Kofi Annan and others is the primary strategic asset for political opposition to Mr Mugabe. Only African leadership can provide stability to the current crisis engulfing Zimbabwe and then move the nation forward into the post-Mugabe era. Mr Morgan Tsvangirai is in position to become the primary instrument of this process, if and only if Mr Mugabe's nefarious plan to neutralise him does not succeed. Mr Tsvangirai's survival is the key factor in the equation for bringing democracy and human rights to Zimbabwe.

Domestic Politics in Zimbabwe

  6.  The rationale controlling and shaping every aspect of Mr Mugabe's present crackdown is his increasingly precarious domestic political position. It is in that context that Mr Mugabe fears and loathes Mr Morgan Tsvangirai and the leadership of the Movement for Democratic Change whom he views as his archenemies who must be destroyed at all costs.

  7.  In the 2002 elections, the MDC campaign (which was both directed and headed by Mr Tsvangirai) won the election by a huge popular majority. However, victory was denied the MDC through the crude bureaucratic ploy of covertly destroying ballot papers and discarding election results followed by a swift proclamation of victory for Zanu PF. The MDC is bringing their formal complaint regarding the widespread election fraud and the resulting bogus results to the attention of the court in Zimbabwe. The legal process has been deliberately prolonged and delayed. The election fraud case will probably reach court sometime in the next month, well over one year after the fraudulent election.

An insidious conspiracy

  8.  In addition to blatant election fraud, Mr Mugabe has resorted to a second very public conspiracy to assassinate—by constitutional means—his primary domestic political opponents: Morgan Tvangirai and the MDC leadership. In order to deploy and implement his constitutional assassination strategy, Mr Mugabe and his coterie of loyal security operatives of the Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) retained the services of Mr Ari Ben Menashe, a rogue intelligence officer formerly of Mossad, the Israeli state security agency. Mr Ben Menashe has been operating as a free agent for hire to the highest bidder for the past twenty years. Mr Ben Menashe acts through his company, Dickens & Madson, based in Toronto, Canada. Through Dickens & Madson, Mr Ben Menashe purports to offer an odd range of professional services including: commodity brokerage and political consulting. However, Mr Ben Menashe has no professional standing, qualifications or other legitimate credentials to substantiate his description of himself as a political consultant. (See below)

The plan unfolds

  9.  According to the public record, while posing as a political consultant, Mr Ben Menashe contacted the MDC and set meetings between Mr Tsvangirai and his key staff at the offices of Dickens & Madson in Toronto, Canada. In these meetings, Mr Ben Menashe videotaped the conversations taking place between him and his clients. Immediately prior to the elections last March, Mr Ben Menashe launched a disinformation campaign to discredit Mr Tsvangirai and the MDC, by leaking what he purported to be the contents of these meetings to the Zimbabwean media to support his allegations that the MDC leadership had retained him to assassinate Mr Robert Mugabe.

The disinformation campaign

  10.  The shocking allegations in Mr Ben Menashe's story were broadly reported but poorly received by the people of Zimbabwe who are conditioned to recognise Mr Mugabe's habitual practices of underhanded subterfuge, disinformation and extreme violence against his political opponents. Furthermore, it is perfectly clear from the public record that Mr Ben Menashe's story was especially unconvincing. In Zimbabwe, Mr Ben Menashe's testimony is largely regarded as a crude and poorly-executed conspiracy orchestrated by the security apparatus to perpetuate the regime of Mr Mugabe.

  11.  Last year's election results prove that the story lacked public credibility from the outset of Mr Ben Menashe's disinformation campaign. In recent days, the results of two byelections have returned massive majorities for the MDC candidates, and these results come after Mr Tsvangirai and the MDC leadership have been the victims of a very public show trial for the previous two months. Zimbabweans simply do not credit the Mugabe regime, and they reject the veracity of the prosecution's case against the MDC leaders. The voters have consistently registered their distrust of Mr Mugabe at the polling stations of Zimbabwe.

The indictments of Mr Tsvangirai and the MDC leaders

  12.  While the government of Mr Mugabe does not have public credibility, it does retain political power. Following Mr Ben Menashe's disinformation campaign, charges were filed against the MDC leadership; indictments were returned, and a trial date was set for February, 2003. For the past two months, the trial has been unfolding as a Kafkaesque nightmare in full view of the Zimbabwean public and those amongst the international community who are willing to take notice. Today, in my judgment, the trial of the Mr Tsvangirai and the MDC leaders is the most perverse example of political prosecution taking place anywhere on our planet.

The show trial

  13.  In early February, the trial opened with great fanfare. The videotapes made in secret by Mr Ben Menashe were broadcast on public television during the first days of the trial. Even this disinformation strategy immediately backfired, for the tapes were crudely edited, and had obviously been cut and crudely pasted together to tell a story that supported Mr Ben Menashe's allegation.

  14.  When the tapes and their contents were examined by the defence team, it became clear that the taped evidence presented by the prosecution did not substantiate the charges of conspiracy even though it had been doctored. On the tapes, Mr Tsvangirai never called for the "assassination" of Mr Mugabe, nor did any of his co-defendants. Neither did the MDC defendants make any direct or oblique statements that could be construed as mandating the execution of Mr Mugabe. Instead, the tapes revealed Mr Ben Menashe leading the conversation through a tortuous series of circumlocutions in a transparent attempt to entrap his victims in an assassination conspiracy.

Mr Ben Menashe testifies

  15.  Mr Ben Menashe was the star prosecution witness. Under direct examination, he testified that Mr Tsvangirai, et alia, had attempted to hire him to assassinate Mr Mugabe. During a lengthy cross examination, Mr Ben Menashe testified that he had been paid a fee of $400,000 (£250,000) by Mr Mugabe's Zanu PF for political consultancy. Further, he testified that his work for Zanu had commenced prior to his initial contacts with the MDC. When asked why he believed the MDC would hire a firm known to be working for their political opponents, he replied that they were, "stupid". During 12 days of testimony, Mr Ben Menashe lost his composure on more than one occasion and generally performed in such a manner that would not impress any responsible judge or jury. He eventually left the dock thoroughly exhausted and discredited.

No evidence to support conspiracy charges

  16.  Following the departure of Mr Ben Menashe, the prosecution called his secretary to testify. Her direct testimony confirmed Mr Ben Menashe's account of the meetings in Toronto. Under cross examination, her testimony was demolished. She was asked whether she had rehearsed her testimony, and her reply confirmed that she had rehearsed her testimony. When asked to explain why the tapes did not record Mr Tsvangirai or any of his colleagues explicitly ordering the assassination of Mugabe, she replied that the tape recorder had not been switched on at that point in the meetings. Further, she testified that the firm of Dickens & Madson had not had any clients other than the government of Zimbabwe and the MDC, and that Mr Ben Menashe was undergoing intense pressure from his bankers to satisfy their demands for funds.

  17.  At the time of this writing, the trial has been adjourned for several weeks to allow the judge to hear other cases in his circuit. The pubic of Zimbabwe are following the trial closely, and the vast majority believe it to be a clear cut case of official conspiracy and political persecution. The results of the byelection mentioned earlier confirm the political opposition to—and the public mistrust of—Mr Mugabe and his government.

Mr Ben Menashe is not a political consultant

  18.  My personal interest in this case is that Mr Ben Menashe has incorrectly described himself as a "political consultant". As a longstanding member of all three professional associations of political consultants: The International Association of Political Consultants (IAPC); the American Association of Political Consultants (AAPC) and the European Association of Political Consultants (EAPC), I am concerned that Mr Ben Menashe might be able to convince the uninformed members of the public that he is, indeed, a legitimate political consultant.

  19.  The term "political consultant" was coined by Mr Joseph Napolitan of New York in the 1950s. Mr Napolitan and his associate, Mons Michel Bongrand of Paris, formed the IAPC in 1968. The IAPC has always been a small professional organisation and today numbers fewer than 200 members. In the following year, Mr Napolitan founded the AAPC. The AAPC is based in Washington, and with over 1,000 members it is the largest professional association of political consultants in the world. The EAPC is the newest of the three professional associations and numbers fewer than 100 members. I do not contend that all genuine political consultants are members of these three professional organisations, however, for the purposes of this paper, I do contend that the ethics and professional practices of political consulting are embodied in these three associations. Mr Ben Menashe has never been a member of any of the three associations, and he is not qualified to use the term "political consultant".

  20.  Mr Ben Menashe neither has the experience in electoral politics nor the professional tools and equipment to master the techniques necessary to function as a genuine political consultant. For example, he attempted to represent opposing political candidates and to derive fees from each of them when he worked for both Mr Mugabe and Mr Tsvangirai who were standing against one another for the same office, President of Zimbabwe. Mr Ben Menashe's dual representation in this case was a fundamental violation of the ethical standards of political consulting. This practice would be tantamount to a lawyer working for both the prosecution and the defendant in the same trial.

  21.  According to Mr Ben Menashe's testimony, he played the role that he was willing to undertake the assignment of assassination of Mr Tsvangirai's political opponent. Mr Ben Menashe's assassination tactic is simply not credible within the legitimate practice of political consultancy. Mr Ben Menashe's other practices of bugging, wiretapping or secretly tape-recording private conversations with his client and then sharing them with his client's political opponent for a fee is another set of violations of the ethics of political consultancy. Rather than go through many more observations of the ethical impossibility of Mr Ben Menashe's own accounts of his exploits as a political consultant in Zimbabwe, it might be helpful to provide information on the legitimate services routinely offered by professional political consultants.

Genuine political consultancy

  22.  Political consultants advise candidates and parties how to gain public support and to win open, free and honestly contested elections. Genuine political consultants would not be willing to counsel their clients to violate the rules of elections. Neither would they counsel clients to thwart electoral results by destroying ballot papers or forging ballot papers, nor to distort the results of a free and open election in any other way.

  23.  While political consultants might properly urge their clients to ensure that the results of the election are correctly and honestly reported, they are primarily focused on influencing public opinion in advance of elections. In our three professional associations, political consultants simply do not prefer to work in electoral systems that are not known to be honest, fair and above board in the handling of ballots and electoral results. Instead, the political consultant seeks to shape and mould public opinion in advance of a free, open and honest election in order to help his candidate project the most effective message in hopes of garnering the winning share of the votes on election day.

The IAPC responds

  24.  Following the outset of the disinformation campaign to discredit Mr Tsvangirai, our professional association has been monitoring developments in the case. In 2002, the IAPC awarded the Democracy Medal to Mr Morgan Tsvangirai for his work to bring positive democratic change to Zimbabwe. We of the IAPC are appalled that: Mr Ben Menashe has testified to his actions on behalf of both competing parties; he has violated professional ethics so egregiously and as a side-effect his testimony has misinformed the public about the practice of political consultancy. For these reasons, the IAPC has taken a firm position to inform the pubic that Mr Ben Menashe is not now—nor has he ever been—a legitimate political consultant. Accordingly, on the twelfth of February, the President of the IAPC, Mr Ken Feltman of Washington, issued the statement that is appended herewith (Annex).

Personal view

  25.  I view the case of Morgan Tsvangirai, et alia to be an insidious conspiracy to use constitutional means to assassinate the political opposition of Mr Robert Mugabe, and I believe that any informed and balanced consideration of the facts will confirm that interpretation.

  26.  It is with great regret that I have called the details of the case of Mr Morgan Tsvangirai, et alia, to the attention of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee. This brief paper is far from complete, but I hope that it will be helpful in your deliberations.

  If I may be of any additional service or provide any further information to the Select Committee, please, do not hesitate to contact me.

Michael Carmichael

The Oxford Centre for Public Affairs

2 April 2003