Posted on 02/20/2002 12:03:38 PM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
HARARE, Zimbabwe - Government claims that the opposition leader plotted to assassinate President Robert Mugabe have left many Zimbabweans puzzled about how they should vote in next month's hard-fought presidential elections.
Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai has vehemently denied claims his party, the Movement for Democratic Change approached a Canadian political consultancy to arrange a hit.
Voters like Caleb Dambiti said the nonstop coverage of the alleged assassination plan in the state-run media has perplexed him.
"I don't know what to believe any more. If he did it, why isn't he in jail?" Dambiti said.
Mugabe himself, campaigning for the presidential election scheduled for March 9-10, has told supporters he knew his assassination was hatched last year but did nothing out "for fear of plunging the country into chaos," state television reported Tuesday.
Mugabe dismissed opposition claims of a sting operation orchestrated by the government to incriminate Tsvangirai ahead of the election.
"We have not manufactured that story," state television reported Mugabe as saying. The report said Mugabe scoffed at the assassination fee allegedly offered.
"Only 500,000 American dollars. Only that, for me, it's nothing," Mugabe reportedly said.
Dambiti, huddled with friends over a copy of the state-run Herald newspaper during their lunch break, said reports of the plot made him wonder if Tsvangirai was trustworthy.
But his friends said they didn't believe the claims given all-out coverage by the state media since they were first broadcast by an Australian television station a week ago.
Andrew Moyse, head of the independent Media Monitoring Project of Zimbabwe, said poor Zimbabweans - 70 percent of the population live below the poverty line - mostly have access only to the dominant state controlled media.
"There is proof of the old adage that if you reproduce propaganda long enough people will begin to believe it, irrespective of whether they believed it in the beginning," Moyse said.
The Canadian firm Dickens and Madson said last week that it secretly videotaped a meeting on Dec. 4 in its Montreal offices with Tsvangirai in which he allegedly asked for help to kill or overthrow Mugabe.
The Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation has repeatedly run the grainy footage. State newspapers have given prominence to the claims every day.
Information Minister Jonathan Moyo suggested Britain, the former colonial power, and several member nations of the European Union were trying to hide their role in the alleged assassination plot.
The Zimbabwe government has condemned the European Union for imposing sanctions on the country this week. The European Union's move came in anger over Zimbabwe's refusal to let its observers freely monitor the elections and it sent its observer team home.
According to Moyo, Tsvangirai first met executives from the Canadian firm in Britain.
Moyse, the media monitor, said state media coverage was selective and publicized only implicitly incriminating material from the video and the Australian television documentary without mentioning that the firm acknowledges it was working for the Zimbabwe government and had set up the Montreal meeting to secretly film Tsvangirai.
"The entire coverage by the state media has been misleading at best if not dishonest. Certainly it is a manipulation of the truth," Moyse said.
Tsvangirai denied the assassination claims but said he met four times with the Canadian consulting firm about possible publicity it could offer his party abroad.
But he said he walked out of the fourth meeting, taped in Montreal, after "strange questions" were asked about the elimination of Mugabe, 77. He said his recorded remarks were taken out of context.
In next month's polls, Tsvangirai is the main threat to Mugabe's almost 22-year hold on power.
Results of an informal opinion poll released in Harare on Wednesday said of 1,693 people sampled across the country, 19.8 percent said they would vote for Tsvangirai, 11.3 percent said they would vote for Mugabe.
Amid continuing political violence, an overwhelming 59.7 percent refused to divulge their preference, said the U.S.-funded survey conducted by a Zimbabwean research group.
There was no margin of error in the poll.
Government set up Mugabe assassination sting, Zimbabwe opposition leader says
[Excerpt] "At no stage during the first three meetings was the issue of elimination or assassination ever discussed," Tsvangirai said.
The meetings focused on the need "to bridge the communications gap abroad."
At the fourth meeting, secretly filmed in Montreal, Ben-Menashe and his team "raised the issue of elimination and kept on asking strange questions."
Tsvangirai said he became suspicious of the firm's motives and walked out. The opposition later found out Ben-Menashe had been hired by top Zimbabwean officials "to set up the MDC," he said. [End Excerpt]
Media Research Center: [Excerpt] Ari Ben-Menashe appeared three times in the first show, highlighted as an Israeli intelligence officer. PBS reported that "Israeli intelligence officer Ari Ben-Menashe says he was one of half a dozen Israelis sent to Paris at Casey's request to help coordinate arms deliveries" and "Israeli intelligence officer Ari Ben-Menashe claimed that he saw intelligence reports about Casey's trip to Madrid." After Newsweek and The New Republic published their exposés of the sources pushing the October Surprise story, including the fact that Ben-Menashe's wife called him a liar, Frontline's second program admitted: "His credibility with reporters collapsed because some of his assertions proved implausible, particularly his claim about George Bush." [End Excerpt]
I believe the fine Mr. Mugabe. How magnanimous the gesture on his part, to not take action in this matter. Plunging this well rooted model of democracy and civil rights into chaos would be an unsettling development. Yes, turning the other cheek in a case like this is very much representative of the character of this distinguished civil servant.
The era of colonialism draws to a close and all is sweetness and light again in the continent…
Owl_Eagle
”Guns Before Butter.”
Mugabe set it up while at the same time preparing the punishment.
The opposition said the story was part of an ongoing government smear campaign intended to distract people from the important issues of joblessness, AIDS and food shortages.
The Zimbabwean government did not immediately comment on the accusation. Under security laws passed last month acts of "insurgency, banditry, sabotage or terrorism" carry a penalty of life imprisonment.… Source
They may never get to the polls or have the necessary documentation if they do.
Ruling party militia set up bases ahead of Zimbabwe election-eight more killed in political violence [Excerpt] The government announced last year it was forming a national youth service and was establishing youth training camps around the country. The youths, given green uniforms, are trained for community service activities, the government said, but witnesses have seen the youths manning roadblocks to search vehicles for opposition campaign materials. The youths have been accused of assaulting drivers not holding ruling party membership cards and seizing thousands of identity papers needed to vote. The Human Rights Forum claimed that militia also raided homes of rural voters and seized identity documents. "This appears to be a wholesale elimination of eligible voters from the voters roll," the forum said. [End Excerpt]
And now Menashe shows up in the Epstein case claiming Epstein was Mossad
Well, that sounds familiar. Did he meet with any Australian officials while there, as happened in the attempt to set up Trump aides? Australia was also involved here, or rather their media was used to give credibility to the Menashe video against Mugabe's opposition.
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