Zimbabwean Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai faced a tricky task in persuading US President Barack Obama to lift restrictions on aid to his beleaguered country when they were to meet yesterday.
He had to vouch for the democratic credentials of his coalition partner, President Robert Mugabe, who has been accused of stealing an election from him and orchestrating widespread violence.
Yesterday, he planned to make his case that his government is on a new path directly with Obama at the White House. After years of dogged opposition that involved suffering death threats, arrests and beatings, he is now trying to change Zimbabwe’s government from the inside after Mugabe invited him into a coalition in February.
Tsvangirai arrived in Washington this week as part of a three-week tour of Western countries, trying to persuade governments to offer some aid despite worries about Mugabe.
The administration says it is listening but still has reservations.
After a meeting between Tsvangirai and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said the administration was looking for “ways to ease the suffering of the Zimbabwean people without bolstering those forces that are clinging to corruption and repression.”
He said the US would consider development aid if certain reform benchmarks are met. Tsvangirai says that Zimbabwe, where the standard of living has plunged under drastic financial mismanagement, needs aid now. He warned in a speech on Wednesday that an overhauling of the system could falter without aid.
In the speech, he also argued that Zimbabwe has made progress since his Movement for Democratic Change joined the coalition government. He acknowledged the challenge of working with a man responsible for much of his suffering and that of his country.
“Well, I was almost killed. I know that,” he said.
But he asserted that Mugabe was allowing reform.
“We are moving into a new phase, and that’s what needs to be rewarded rather than punished,” he said.
Meanwhile, Mugabe has been portraying Tsvangirai as his personal emissary to the US.
Zimbabwe’s state-run Herald newspaper, a mouthpiece of Mugabe’s ZANU-PF party, greeted Monday’s announcement of the White House meeting by saying Tsvangirai was “assigned” by Mugabe and ministers in the power-sharing government to press for the removal of sanctions and the restoration of Western funding and lines of credit.
On Thursday, its daily cartoon depicted Tsvangirai leaving the White House empty-handed, asking Obama what had happened to his slogan “Yes, we can.”
Obama replies, “No, we can’t!”
John Makumbe, a political scientist at the University of Zimbabwe, said Tsvangirai’s Oval Office meeting with Obama was “a slap in the face” for Mugabe.
Mugabe, frozen out by the White House for more than a decade, has not commented on the visit.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in