 Mutambara goes against his word
By Geoffrey Nyarota
15 December 2007
I HAVE undergone a traumatic and most unusual journalistic experience over the past week.
I spent the afternoon and early evening of Sunday, December 2, in the company of one of Zimbabwe’s most controversial and most sought-after politicians right in my own home here in Massachusetts. I must confess I have since become guilty of a rather shameful failure. I did not write a single word about my three and half hours in the enlightened company of a political figure who most politically astute Zimbabweans must be dying to read about since what appears to be his apparent withdrawal recently from the limelight.
My family’s honoured visitor had intended to stay only two hours as our guest for late lunch. Very unlike a politician, he arrived on schedule at 3.30 pm. By the time he eventually departed at 7.00 pm he was already an hour and a half late for his next appointment about 10 miles away. Such was the excitement of the meeting.
As the tail-lights of the car bearing our distinguished visitor disappeared into the night the group of Zimbabweans, who had travelled from various parts of Massachusetts to meet and exchange ideas with him about the future of Zimbabwe, looked at each other and shook their heads in bewilderment, bordering on shock. They discussed far into the night about the celebrity they had the rare occasion to meet and to interact with.
Professor Arthur Mutambara, had come to lunch, met 20 fellow Zimbabweans and had, it was so apparent, left them in a state of greater confusion about both the state of affairs back in the motherland and about his own plans and political projections for the future. With landmark presidential and parliamentary elections scheduled to take place, possibly within the next four months, their state of puzzlement was understandable.
I had first learnt through the Diaspora grapevine from an informant in London that the president of the breakaway faction of the Movement for Democratic Change, MDC, was at Harvard, a stone’s throw away from me. It turned out that Mutambara was attending a two-week programme at the Kennedy School of Government at the university.
My last encounter with the learned Professor had been less than cordial. I will skip the details of that meeting at a conference up in the Rockies, at Aspen in Colorado. I immediately decided I should make up for the less than complimentary article that I crafted after Mutambara avoided me like a leper at the conference. I had mistakenly assumed then that common sense would dictate that, as Zimbabwean compatriots meeting in the wilderness, we should honour our cultural custom by sitting down together, at least once, to ask of each other’s health.
Last week, determined that the two of us should not miss the God-sent opportunity to make amends provided by our juxtaposition in Massachusetts, I promptly dispatched an email message to invite him to lunch in our home away from home.
The following correspondence exchanged between the MDC factional president and me over the past two weeks is a veritable tale of subterfuge on his part and frustration on mine. The correspondence is printed here in the public interest as a prelude to a more comprehensive article on one of the men vying to be President of troubled Zimbabwe.
The article will be published tomorrow, Friday, December 14.
Nyarota, Thursday, November 29: I understand that you are currently in Massachusetts while attending a programme at Harvard. I would deem it an honour to break bread with you during your stay, while discussing many issues of mutual and national interest.
I would be failing in my responsibilities if I did not request an interview with you on the vexing crisis currently bedevilling our nation. We could perhaps do a Q&A, either through my submission of written questions or through a live interview, which ever is more convenient to you.
Very kind regards and welcome,
Mutambara, Thursday, November 29: Thanks for the note. We should definitely catch up. I am in sessions most of the time but I am on cell number……. I should be free on Sunday.
Nyarota, Friday, November 30: Your compatriots in this part of the Diaspora are, presumably, keen to meet you as well. If this meets with your approval we will proceed to invite Zimbabweans in the area who might be interested in meeting one who is campaigning to become President of their country. I am sure you too would be delighted to seize on this opportunity to make or renew acquaintances with them.
This would be a very informal gathering of compatriots. But you should, of course, expect questions on the burning issues of our country. This would be a God-sent opportunity for you to interact with your countrymen so that they hear an account of the current situation in Zimbabwe right from the horse’s mouth. I believe we can expect an optimistic figure of around 30 people to come around and listen to you at short notice.
I would still expect you and me to deal with the separate issue of a Q&A for publication in The Zimbabwe Times.
Nyarota, Monday, December 3 after Sunday meeting: I remain mindful of the point which you made during yesterday’s meeting about the role allegedly played by the media in aggravating our current crisis through a failure to report adequately or accurately on the important events unfolding. In that regard, as agreed, I am finalising the list of questions that we agreed after the meeting that I should submit to you in the interests of wider dissemination of the important views that you expressed yesterday.
Nyarota, Monday, December 3: Please find attached the list of (14) questions that I have compiled for your urgent attention. I would be most grateful if you can let me have your responses by Thursday morning, December 6, at the latest.
Nyarota, Wednesday, December 5: Sorry to overload you, but just another two more important questions:
1. What, briefly, is you vision of a future Zimbabwe? (Don’t feel too constrained. We can serialise, within limits, of course, if necessary.)
2. What is your view on the vexing issue of the granting of amnesty to President Robert Mugabe?
3. Any other important issue you feel compelled to raise?
Nyarota, Sunday, December 9: I am still anxiously waiting for your response to the questions that I submitted to you last week in terms of the arrangement agreed upon before our meeting on Sunday, October 2. I appreciate you must have been busy while preparing for your departure last week, but I am sure you will also appreciate the need for my assignment to be completed within reasonable time.
I am now extending our deadline to Tuesday, December 11. If I have not heard from you by the end of that day I will assume you have decided not to co-operate after all. I will then proceed on the basis of the questions submitted to you in writing and my own recollection of the many interesting statements you made during Sunday’s meeting.
Incidentally, I have just two more questions to add to those already submitted.
1. Is it true that you left Standard Bank in Johannesburg under a dark cloud?
2. Is it true that a few days before your return to Zimbabwe from South Africa in February 2006 you dispatched Mrs Mutambara off to Atlanta in the US, there to deliver a baby?
Mutambara, Monday, December 10:
Thank you very much for the meeting we had at your house. It was great meeting with you all. Thanks for your note attached below. As discussed at the meeting, everything was off the record. It was a friendly discussion among Zimbabweans. The negotiations in Zimbabwe have reached a delicate stage, consequently I will not be able to do a proper Q and A. Once again thanks a lot or your hospitality. Let’s keep in touch.
Nyarota, Tuesday, December 11:
I think you misunderstand me. Apart from the first three questions, the focus of my interview is you, not the ongoing talks about Zimbabwe. It appears you want to have it both ways - have your cake and eat it. I stated right at the beginning that there were questions that I wanted to put to you for your attention. We agreed the meeting on Sunday December 2 would be off the record on the understanding that there would be a comprehensive Q&A subsequently. It appears you now seek to avoid both, which is clearly unacceptable.
I have put to you a number of very pertinent questions, honest answers to which could actually affect the course of the talks you refer to, if published. It is only fair that you respond to these questions as fully as possible or I will resort to the course of action outlined in my last message to you.
These questions are being put to you in the public interest. Not only are you are a public figure, you actually seek to be our country’s next President. Surely, you should be delighted to sit down for interviews and to answer questions about yourself and your plans for us, the citizens, in the public interest. You cannot make your way to State House through some secret strategy.
I have just one last question. It is said that when you returned to Zimbabwe in February 2006, after spending many years abroad, you were met at the airport by a vehicle from the Zimbabwe Independent newspaper. It is said further that your first port of call in Harare was the office of the publisher of that paper, Mr Trevor Ncube, who apparently had flown to Harare just ahead of you from Johannesburg. It is alleged that you spent roughly two hours in a meeting with the said publisher. After this you then proceeded to Bulawayo where you were publicly proclaimed as the leader of the newly formed other MDC party.
Is this an accurate presentation of events and their sequence?
I look forward to hearing from you by the end of the day.
Mutambara, Tuesday, December 12:
There will be no Q and A from me at the moment. Our discussions at your house were an off the record friendly talk among Zimbabweans.
At this point I decided that Professor Mutambara was clearly attempting to take me for a ride when I was going out of my way to accommodate an important and very newsworthy politician. Apart from suddenly withdrawing from the public arena, he has a number of legitimate questions to answer in the public interest as Zimbabwe approaches the country’s first combined parliamentary and presidential elections. He will most likely stand as a presidential candidate, unless as he disclosed during the meeting on Sunday, December 2, he now fully endorses MDC president Morgan Tsvangirai’s candidature against President Robert Mugabe of Zanu-PF.
While journalists have an obligation to protect their confidential sources of information, politicians on the election campaign trail are not, by any stretch of the imagination, confidential sources of information when they express their political views and aspirations or when they address questions asked by members of the public..
Tomorrow the list of questions that Prof Mutambara seems to have difficulty in addressing will be published on this website, to be accompanied by the fascinating highlights of his encounter with a group of Zimbabweans based in Massachusetts.
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