This record is a partial extract of the original cable. The full text of the original cable is not available.
UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 HARARE 000451
SIPDIS
DEPT FOR INR/R/MR AND AF/PDPA DALTON, MITCHELL AND SIMS
E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PREL KPAO KMDR ZI
SUBJECT: MEDIA REACTION IRAQ; HARARE
1. In an opinion piece carried in the March 2 edition of
the government-controlled weekly "The Sunday Mail," Dr.
Tafataona Mahoso criticized the United States and Britain
for appearing to be "arm-twisting" the United Nations to
sanction the war against Iraq. Under headline "Sinister
motives fuel assault on Iraq: "Britain and U. S. arm-twist
U. N. to bless illegal war," Mahoso argues:
2. "An impressive number of international summits and
conferences have come out clearly on the side of
peace and against the threatened U. S. - UK war on
Iraq. A few weeks ago, the African Union declared
its position against war. . .All these are
impressive expressions of world opinion, when taken
together with the millions of demonstrators who took
to the streets on 15 February on all five continents
of the globe. But there is now a need for the key
members of the coalition, especially NAM, to think
ahead beyond the current stalemate between U. S,
weapons of mass destruction, on the one hand, and
the moral power of the loose anti-war alliance on
the other. First of all, too many opponents of the
war in Europe and America are opposing it just so
that history will count them as having expressed
doubts about it but having failed to stop it. This
is particularly true of the white liberals in North
America. They know that the U. S. military-
industrial complex stands to make huge profits from
weapons and oil if the war takes place. However,
they wish Bush and Blair would not wage the war
without first bribing the U. N. to bless the war.
This is where the African Union and NAM stand out.
They see the war as a most horrific holocaust,
whether or not the U. S. and UK manage to bribe the
U. N. to bless it. In other words, too many in the
North oppose only the Bush-Blair means of waging the
assault on Iraq. They would go quiet if Blair and
Bush succeeded in making the proposed genocide
legal. The view from the South, on the other hand,
is that Iraq is only a sacrificial lamb, another
means to an end; just as Yugoslavia was also a means
to an end.
"The real objectives of the war are: To bring
western and central Asia firmly under the unipolar
system dominated by the U. S., and to prevent a
possible coalition or alliance of the future which
could bring Russia, India and China together,
especially if Namibia's proposal to make India a
permanent Security Council member were to succeed;
To bring all major oil reserves under U. S. control;
even Sudan and Nigeria will not be spared; To wage
war on the old U. N. system before its Security
Council mechanism is captured by a coalition of
emerging powers and used to neutralize the U. S.-UK
alliance. . .; To use the oil power so obtained as
means of controlling the allies of the U. S. who may
be threatening to declare their independence from
their post-Second World War dependence on North
America. Now, the main objective of the loose
alliance against war should be to stop the
aggression before it happens. . .So the loose
alliance needs to become tighter and immediately
announce that a unilateral war on Iraq will mean:
That the majority of U. N. members would decide to
forfeit U. S. contributions to the budget of the
same and move the U. N. headquarters out of the U.
S. for good; That the majority of the U. N. members
would immediately change the U. N. Security Council
system by creating new permanent members such as
Brazil, India and the AU; That the majority would
seek to tighten their anti-war alliance until it can
impose some trade sanctions against the U. S.; That
the coalition would agitate for the removal of U. S.
military bases from member states, especially in the
South.
"These ideas follow from a logical analysis of the
situation. In Yugoslavia, the U. S. managed to wage
war on Europe, using NATO and making Europeans pay
for the cost. Many thought that would be the last
war in which the U. N. was arm-twisted to bless an
illegal war. But it was not. Over Afghanistan, the
world at first went along with the `war on
terrorism' until that war became terrorism in
itself. Now, the aggression against Iraq just came
out of the blue. The attempts to justify it have
been the weakest the world has ever heard compared
to those for the Gulf war, the Yugoslav war and the
Afghan war. But the current attempts are costing
the U. N. very dearly. The whole system has been
commandeered to make the war on Iraq appear to be
the only business of the U. N. that is worth doing
at present. This should not be tolerated."
SULLIVAN