60 years after the UN Convention - Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation
60 years after the UN Convention - Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation
60 years after the UN Convention - Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation
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<strong>the</strong> making and meanings of <strong>the</strong> massacres in matabeleland 203<br />
outspoken <strong>the</strong>n as later (The Star, 22/3/1983), were any of Zimbabwe’s<br />
independent African neighbours prepared to voice any criticism. Moral<br />
indignation was as selective as it was contingent. In Africa as in <strong>the</strong><br />
West, Mugabe was showered with praise even as <strong>the</strong> Fifth Brigade went<br />
about its bloody business. In August 1983, Mugabe made a triumphant<br />
state visit to Botswana, which of all countries, must have known exactly<br />
what was going on in Matabeleland. Everywhere he went, he was<br />
greeted by large and enthusiastic crowds. At a banquet in his honour,<br />
Mugabe’s audience ‘roared <strong>the</strong>ir approval’ when he warned <strong>the</strong> ‘racist<br />
Pretoria regime’ that no amount of intimidation would ever make African<br />
states compromise <strong>the</strong>ir principles. Mr Mugabe, said Botswana’s<br />
President Quett Masire, represented ‘a symbol of hope for <strong>the</strong> people<br />
[of Namibia and South Africa] to whom freedom and justice are distant<br />
dreams still to come true’ (The Star, 15/8/1983).<br />
The following month found Mugabe in <strong>the</strong> United States. Here too,<br />
he was accorded a ‘warm reception’. Such criticism as <strong>the</strong>re was from<br />
<strong>the</strong> House Foreign Aff airs committee concerned Zimbabwe’s recent<br />
<strong>UN</strong> Security Council abstention from a resolution condemning Russia’s<br />
shooting down of a Korean airliner. Matabeleland issues were not<br />
raised publicly. Because <strong>the</strong> Reagan administration ‘attached higher<br />
priority to encouraging <strong>the</strong> prospects it still sees of Zimbabwe becoming<br />
a stable bulwark against communist expansion into Sou<strong>the</strong>rn<br />
Africa’, it was ‘clearly prepared to tread softly on controversial actions<br />
by <strong>the</strong> Mugabe Government’ (The Star, 15/9/1983). It was certainly<br />
not prepared to be infl uenced by <strong>the</strong> Washington Post, whose frontpage<br />
report detailing allegations of brutality by government troops<br />
in Matabeleland, was ignored in <strong>the</strong> State Department’s background<br />
briefi ng to Mugabe’s visit. Zimbabwe, journalists were informed, was<br />
‘a very key country’ with whom <strong>the</strong> US needed to ‘streng<strong>the</strong>n and<br />
deepen’ its co-operation’ (The Sowetan, 14/9/1983). Such briefi ng took<br />
its cue from an article in Foreign Policy by Jeff rey Davidow, a former<br />
deputy chief of mission at <strong>the</strong> American embassy in Harare. Despite<br />
its present diffi culties, Zimbabwe was undoubtedly a success story,<br />
wrote Davidow. Its government was moving forward with ‘<strong>the</strong> tasks<br />
of national reconstruction and development in a manner that is heartening’<br />
(as reported in <strong>the</strong> Sunday Mail, 5/2/1983).<br />
This assessment was only challenged when for a brief period <strong>the</strong><br />
United States felt obliged to threaten that it would stop aid unless <strong>the</strong><br />
Mugabe regime lifted an embargo on food supplies to Matabeleland<br />
South. Once this was grudgingly done, however, it was back to business<br />
as usual. During testimony before a House of Representatives<br />
hearing on Zimbabwe in May 1984, a State Department spokesman