Of the ‘Dirty Dozen’, smart sanctions

US Ambassador to Zimbabwe, Bruce Wharton.

THE media was recently awash with reports of 12 Members of Parliament who are said to have received monies from the United States Embassy in exchange for classified information about the party, but the embassy denies those allegations and says the monies were for communities. But what sort of programme was that exactly and where was the confusion? The Financial Gazette’s News Editor Maggie Mzumara (MM) sat down with US Ambassador to Zimbabwe Bruce Wharton (BW) to discuss the programme; smart sanctions; to investment among other things. Below are excerpts.

MM: I would like to understand the kind of assistance under this self help programme.
BW: We do a lot of different things under this programme. Inevitably embassies like ours get a lot of requests from communities — help us build a school, help us dig a borehole. All our embassies around the world have the Ambassador’s Special Self Help Programme. It’s a very small amount of money. The whole fund ranges between say US$50 000 — US$350 000. It’s a very modest amount of money, but its funding we get to decide here with me being the final seal of approval. It’s our way of being able to fund the small projects. The criteria are quite clear. We don’t provide funding to individuals, we provide to communities. This last round we had 200 applications and we only had 12 grants. You can see how competitive it is. This is completely above board and there is nothing funny about it. It is all completely open. We tell people about it. Members of Parliament were invited to the grant signing ceremony. If it’s in their constituency they should know about it, that is our thinking. They were here as a matter of courtesy.

MM: The 12 Members of Parliament were engaged only because their constituencies were represented?
BW: Right. They had nothing to do with the application process. It was a matter of courtesy. If we are going to fund a garden project in someone’s constituency it seems appropriate we let them know and let them come if they want to.

MM: The MPs did not actually handle the money?
BW: This programme never has given money to any Member of Parliament; never has given money to individuals, always to communities.

MM: (If the MPs had no hand in the application not in handing the funds) I guess then the question becomes of why one, Eric Little, who was said to have been going round the constituencies with the MPs, like in the case of Themba Mliswa (Member of Parliament for Hurungwe) which was widely reported in the media. We need some clarification of his (Eric Little’s) role.
BW: Like any other embassy around the world, part of our job is to be in contact with the people so we have political reporting officers, economic reporting officers; public affairs officers, science and technology people. Eric Little is our parliamentary correspondent. He spends hours every week in the gallery of Parliament listening to the debate, understanding what is going on. We figure Parliament is part of governance in Zimbabwe so Eric’s job is to be there and talk to people. People see him and they want to know who he is. Eric is the guy in this embassy whose job it is to cover Parliament. So when we want to invite the Members of Parliament to something we go to Eric.

MM: So this thing about his tying him with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is unfounded?
BW: No.

MM: But it’s not as if you would say it if he was with the CIA.
BW: His job is to follow what happens so that we know and we can inform Washington. It’s standard diplomatic process. I would hope that your embassy in Washington does the same thing.

MM: Are you saying there was no direct applications for the funds (by the MPs); no direct discussion about the funding in particular?
BW: No, absolutely not. If you go to the website you will see that that is not what the fund is for. Rather than supporting individuals, we support communities. Rather than supporting political personalities we support political process and institutions. Our work with Parliament is through SAPST (Southern African Parliamentary Support Trust) not directly with Members of Parliament. Our interest here is in a strong effective Parliament with Members of Parliament able to fulfil their roles not in trying to have special relationships with people.

MM: So when we hear that some MPs then tell their people not to (chant) certain slogans is that the MP’s discretion or does it have anything to do with Eric or the embassy?
BW: Absolutely not.

MM: There is a belief among certain sections of the population that the US is moving away from the Moving for Democratic Change and getting into the ZANU-PF realm and possibly handpicking some moderate politicians, would that be close to the truth?
BW: No, not at all. Certainly for as long as I have been here, we have been very clear that what we care about is process and principle and we talk to anyone who is interested in talking to us. But we think that the most important issues are issues of policy, issues of governance and issues of development but how Zimbabwe manages those issues is really only something that the people of Zimbabwe can decide. Frankly I think it will be bad news for any political party or political personality to associate with the US (too much). So we have been very careful. We treat everybody evenly. We have (contacts) in all parties and in all factions of all the parties.

MM: Now (on the issue of targeted sanctions on Zimbabwe) what specific things does Zimbabwe need to do at this juncture to get them lifted?
BW: Targeted sanctions are not what they used to be a year ago. We review them (regularly) and we have taken people off the list and we have added a few people to the list. I am not willing to say if Zimbabwe would do A, the US would do B. There are too many shades of grey. There are a certain amount of things that would certainly reflect well on Zimbabwe and one of those would be real implementation of the new Constitution. You have got one of the most modern constitutions in the world.  It guarantees the rights of people to expression; the rights of people to assemble; the rights of women; the rights of children. It’s a progressive document but it’s got to implement.  Movement on the implementation of the Constitution would be something that would be viewed as a real step forward for Zimbabwe. I tell people that they should focus on those things that make Zimbabwe more attractive to investors — a court system that would render the same judgment for a poor person as it would for a rich person; very clear rules for investors; systems that would make it easy for people to invest.  If you look at things like the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business Index, World Economic Forum, Zimbabwe does not show very well. There are very specific criteria to those things.  I think if Zimbabwe were to address those issues and make itself attractive to investors it would simultaneously answer some of the concerns.

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