Wikileaks and Democracy In Zimbabwe

OCatenac writes "The Atlantic has an interesting story on the collateral damage of exposing diplomatic communications in Zimbabwe. From the article: 'The reaction in Zimbabwe was swift. Zimbabwe's Mugabe-appointed attorney general announced he was investigating the Prime Minister on treason charges based exclusively on the contents of the leaked cable. While it's unlikely Tsvangirai could be convicted on the contents of the cable alone, the political damage has already been done. The cable provides Mugabe the opportunity to portray Tsvangirai as an agent of foreign governments working against the people of Zimbabwe. Furthermore, it could provide Mugabe with the pretense to abandon the coalition government that allowed Tsvangirai to become prime minister in 2009.' Undoubtedly there are lots of things that our governments hide from us which should not be hidden but it's a shame that no one from Wikileaks could be troubled to consider the potential repercussions of this particular exposure."

Comments

Mugabe

[MightyMartian]

Why exactly some decent Western power has had that vile repugnant monster Mugabe filled so full of holes you could use him as a soup strainer is beyond me. That incompetent tyrant has turned Africa's breadbasket into a ill-run starving madhouse.

Re:Mugabe

[wowbagger]

"Why exactly [hasn't] some decent Western power has had [sic] that vile repugnant monster Mugabe filled so full of holes you could use him as a soup strainer is beyond me.

Because you cannot bring about Democracy by force. Either the people are ready for it or they are not, and the single best test of "are they ready" is that they overthrow the tyrant (bonus points for NOT filling him full of holes, but trying him in a civilized manner).

If "some decent Western power" fills the sovereign leader of a foreign country full of holes, they immediately invalidate the adjective "decent".

Moreover, since the people aren't ready for Democracy, the result will just be the rise of a new tyrant.

Re:Mugabe

[spun]

Funny how we shift the blame here. And funny how no mention is made of the fact that all the diplomatic cables were redacted by the five newspapers Assange pre-released the cables to. No, it is not Mugabe or the papers who are to blame here, it is that rapist Assange again. The spin and manipulation seem so blatant to me, so orchestrated, that it amazes me how few people seem to notice the man behind the curtain.

Re:Mugabe

[BlackSabbath]

Mugabe doesn't NEED ammo. Do you think he's survived all these years because of legal niceties and the ability to prosecute people on facts? He don't need no stinkin' facts! He's a dictator and dictators have never needed facts to support their case. The fact that this ONE time the facts give him some support is irrelevant. The implication of your comment is that its Wikileaks' fault (specifically "Lord High Julian") that Zimbabwe will now continue to be under dictatorial rule. Bullshit.

He will continue to rule for as long as the people of Zimbabwe do not rise up and thrown the bum out. If the people of Zimbabwe are more concerned at Tsvangirai's connections to Western powers than Mugabe's rape of the nation then that tells you what their priorities are. The western powers are even less interested in Mugabe than they are Kim Jong Il and even if they were - it ain't their job to tell other peoples how to run their states.

Re:Mugabe

[spun]

Sorta like Saddam Hussein and his sons running Iraq. But Jesus, did America catch hell for doing something about it. We still are.

We caught hell for that because we put Saddam in power and supported him for decades. When you have to take out the same guy you put in, it makes the game itself look ridiculous. All the players hate it when you make the game look ridiculous.

If it's one thing I've learned, dictators are protected by larger nations so that they may be used like pawns and creating stalemates in global diplomacy. Nice huh?

We are one of the worst offenders in that regard.

Re:Mugabe

[Abcd1234]

He will continue to rule for as long as the people of Zimbabwe do not rise up and thrown the bum out.

And they are far less likely to do that if the only voice of reform is painted as a western puppet and a traitor.

But yeah, you're right, I'm sure wikileaks is completely innocent... they can't *possibly* fuck up.

Re:Mugabe

[Mashiki]

Guess you missed most of the world shifting to democracy. Shifting to democracy wasn't love, hugs, and cookies. It was violent, unbelievably so. France slaughtered royalty and politicians alike. In the UK they were drawing magistrates in the streets. The US not only fought the British, but threw them out. India's shift was very violent as well, so was pakistan's. Israel's was the same. Oh lets not forget Argentina either.

People can be ready and want democracy. The shift to give people rights beyond what the government(royalty, or dictatorships), was violent everywhere. So yes, you can bring democracy by force. In fact, most of the democratic world was brought into existence by force. It's the erosion of democracy that's silent.

Re:Mugabe

[spun]

Assange is to blame as well.

To invoke Godwin's Law, would you have supported a leak of where all the Jews were hiding in Nazi Germany? Only the Nazis would be to blame for what happens next, right?

No, but if diplomatic secrets were given to party A, and party A went to five separate well known and well respected papers to redact those diplomatic secrets, and people were then harmed by unredacted material, I would blame the papers, not the person who went to the papers. You do realize that Assange, responding to criticism that he was not redacting confidential information, made a deal with five venerable papers of record in various countries, and gave them the cables to redact, right? So Assange is still not to blame, the papers are. Nice attempt at deflection though.

Re:Mugabe

[shaitand]

"if the only voice of reform is painted as a western puppet and a traitor"

If the shoe fits. Are you saying it was wrong of wikileaks to expose a western attempt to manipulate a people into overthrowing their leader?

The people of Zimbabwe are perfectly capable of deciding for themselves if they want to live under a dictator there is no need for western govs to manipulate them.

Re:Mugabe

[TFAFalcon]

If all information about Mugabe was free, even his supporters would probably lynch him.

Re:Mugabe

[IICV]

Here's the money quote from the article:

The topic of the meeting was the sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe by a collection of western countries, including the U.S. and E.U. Tsvangirai told the western officials that, while there had been some progress in the last year, Mugabe and his supporters were dragging their feet on delivering political reforms. To overcome this, he said that the sanctions on Zimbabwe "must be kept in place" to induce Mugabe into giving up some political power. The prime minister openly admitted the incongruity between his private support for the sanctions and his public statements in opposition. If his political adversaries knew Tsvangirai secretly supported the sanctions, deeply unpopular with Zimbabweans, they would have a powerful weapon to attack and discredit the democratic reformer.

In private, he says "Keep these sanctions up". In public, he says "Down with sanctions you evil western foreigners etc".

When the cables were released, surprise surprise, his opponent capitalizes on the fact that he says one thing in private and the exact opposite in public - and arguably, the things he says in private are detrimental to his country (he was basically saying "USA, it's totally okay for you to keep on penalizing our entire country because one political party refuses to play ball"). The citizenry, now that they know this guy is not necessarily acting in their best interests, turn against him. It's not really their fault that his opposite number is a complete asshole.

Maybe he shouldn't have been a two-faced liar? That would have kept this from happening. Pity integrity is apparently something that happens to other people.

Re:Mugabe

[BobMcD]

Saddam never changed, though. He was an evil, ruthless bastard when we put him in power, we knew how he would act, and we didn't care until he turned against the status quo.

But you know what the real bitch of it is? Poor old Saddam never actually did any of the stuff he wanted us to think he was going to do. There just weren't any WMD's, and really there never were ever going to be any. I think history's final review will show that he was actually the most 'effective' ruler of that province in a very, very long time. Sometimes, like when you're forcing three disparate people to share the wealth of one tiny corner of an otherwise inhospitable province, it really could be that a despot is the best choice.

Re:Mugabe

[Vinegar Joe]

Because you cannot bring about Democracy by force.

Hmmmm.....seems to have worked fairly well in Germany and Japan.

Re:Mugabe

[angus77]

What you missed was that "by force" meant force by another country. As in, one nation cannot force democracy on another (except nominally).

Re:Mugabe

[ShanghaiBill]

There just weren't any WMD's, and really there never were ever going to be any

I think the thousands of Kurds who died in nerve gas attacks would beg to differ, if they were alive to do so.

Re:Mugabe

[Alaska Jack]

Myth. Sadam didn't need U.S. help getting into power. There are some things that happen, believe it or not, without the all-powerful USA pulling strings behind the scenes.

Don't get me wrong -- the CIA was all over the Middle East in the mid-to-late 1950s, and they had peripheral involvement in just about everything. But there is no evidence whatsoever that the CIA played any kind of fundamental role in his acendancy to party power.

The "we put Saddam in power" thing is willful disbelief at its worst -- just a trope trotted out by those who can't bring themselves to admit that at least SOME good was done in forcibly removing a psychopathic dictator from power. The only rationalization they can come up with is, "Well, that wouldn't matter if the US was the one that put him there to begin with!" So they believe it.

  - AJ

Re:Mugabe

[spun]

You do know who sold him that nerve gas, right? The good old US of A. No one was calling them WMDs when he was gassing the Kurds, that phrasing came in the push for war. By the time we started accusing him as opposed to covering up for him, he had none left, so what BobMcD says is arguably true.

Re:Mugabe

[Mr. Slippery]

Wow, must be nice to be able to judge, without reservations, someone in a corrupt, violent, third world country who is trying to weaken a brutal dictator. And to do it from the comfort of your pleasant, suburban existence.

I think that even from my reasonably comfortable suburban existence, I can judge that trying to weaken a brutal dictator via lies and deceit is a highly non-optimal strategy, and gives us reason to suspect that the person engaging in such actions may have their own interests in mind more than the interests of the people living under said dictator.

The enemy of my enemy is not necessarily my friend; sometime he's just an asshole of a different stripe. Failing to realize this has been one of the reasons that American foreign policy has been so brutal and stupid.

Re:Mugabe

[flyingsquid]

And Mugabe doesn't need Wikileaks for this, it was merely convenient. Do you think that someone who shoots people because they bother him has any issues lying about people?

You can't have it both ways. Either Wikileaks and Assange are responsible for what happens when they release information, or they aren't. You can't say that they're heroes when a leak promotes democracy, but that when a leak sets it back, they're off the hook. If Wikileaks wants the credit when good things happen, then they also get the blame when bad stuff happens.

Re:Mugabe

[Mr. Slippery]

I see. So for example, Adolph Hitler should have been allowed to do as he pleased with the Jews. Is that what your telling me?

That was, in fact, the policy of the U.S. and other Western powers. We did not go to war with the Nazis to save Jews, we did it because they were invading other nations. In fact, reports of the Holocaust were being downplayed as late as 1943.

There are alternatives between letting a nation engage in genocide without comment or penalty, and invading that nation.

What is so difficult to understand about such a simple concept of "right" and "wrong"?

Apparently, it's difficult for you to understand that "right" and "wrong" are not always such simple concepts.

Many aspects of Hitler's programs were based on American policies like the genocide of Native nations and forced sterilization in the name of eugenics. Should other nations have invaded us to stop our actions? Where do you draw the line?

The question of using deadly force is never a "simple" question, and I fear anyone who thinks that it is almost as much as I fear tyrants and dictators -- for such people are all too likely to foolishly support tyrants and dictators who promise simple, black-and-white solutions.

Re:Mugabe

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Quite frankly, The Atlantic should be bitterly ashamed of itself for that ghastly piece of drivel.

Wikileaks revealed a cable, the contents of which included the fact that Tsvangirai, while pretending to be against sanctions against Zimbabwe while at home, sucking up to the electorate, was in fact in favor of them. The Atlantic says that this is a blow to democracy. Srsly? Do they actually think that "Democracy" is just some kind of game show, where you get to line up and put your little scrap of paper in the box every few years, to decide which of the competing politicians you find more mediagenic? Some kind of variant on "Survivor"; but with more national pride?

Unless your "democracy" is to be a cargo-cult sham, where you go through the motions and get none of the effects, people must be able to(and must be willing to, which might ultimately be the harder part...) vote for positions and platforms represented by politicians, not for politicians-as-characters. The fact that one of the major contenders actually represents the exact opposite of his stated position is, y'know, just a teeny bit relevant...

Now, if The Atlantic holds the view that, since Mugabe is just such a scumbag, his removal is more important than democracy; they ought to say so. It isn't hard: "Hey, Raison d'etat, bitches! Getting rid of an obviously bad dude is clearly more important than a bunch of little people getting to know what they are casting their cute little ballots for. Maybe when they are all grown up and sophisticated, like us, they will be ready for real democracy; but, for now, the important thing is making sure that they get what they need, not what they claim to want." See, that was easy, use it with my compliments.

However, if The Atlantic actually values "democracy" in Zimbabwe, they should be celebrating the fact that the people thereof now know more than they did before about who and what they are voting for. Instead, we get this pusillanimous drivel. Pathetic.

Re:Mugabe

[DesScorp]

Hmmmm.....seems to have worked fairly well in Germany and Japan.

Indeed, the "you can't force Democracy" trope is just a variant of "violence doesn't solve anything", which is also a pile of manure, as violence has settled quite a bit in human history... especially Germany and Japan.

Re:Mugabe

[Bootsy Collins]

So you were opposed to many countries' economic sanctions against South Africa during the apartheid era?

WikiLeaks didn't set back democracy in Zimbabwe

[ConaxConax]

There will be never be democracy in Zimbabwe with Mugabe in power.

I had no idea there was democracy in Zimbabwe

[kaptink]

I had no idea there was democracy in Zimbabwe. I was under the impression that Robert Mugabe bullied his way into power and has fixed it so he never leaves? Is this not right?

But isn't the cable real?

[mosb1000]

If the cable proves that Tsvangirai is working with foreign governments to subvert Mugabe, shouldn't the people of Zimbabwe know that? It seems like it would be in their interest to know.

Re:But isn't the cable real?

[Senes]

It doesn't necessarily mean that what Tsvangirai is doing is illegal or immoral. Mugabe is just misrepresenting information and using it to fuel his own propaganda machine. Wikileaks isn't at fault either; they're not passing judgment on anyone.

It seems like what is happening here is that Tsvangirai is trying to cooperate with 'western' governments, and Mugabe is painting this as an evil action which needs to be stopped.

Re:Ellsberg actually redacted diplomatic cables

[twoallbeefpatties]

While Ellsberg supports Assange and what they are trying to do, in actuality he redacted many names and even entire sections of diplomatic reports that assessed the allies of the US who were secretly supporting the Vietnam war, like Poland.

Assange (or whoever at his organization) also redacts names from the majority of Wikileaks releases, generally except where the names are of public figures.

The question is, is it worth it? To see how the bankers and the financiers and the heads of state control the world and the wealth in the world? Will it REALLY help democracy and display capitalism's flaws? Haven't we known that since Marx?

This is the most cynical, hopeless thing I have ever heard. It's essentially an admittance of defeat. You're saying, we may as well let the government and the corporations operate in secret, because we know that exposing their crimes won't do any good anyway. And the sad thing is, you might be right.

Re:They're mixing up the terms

[Monkeedude1212]

I don't see how they've managed to call this undemocratic - nothing undemocratic has been done yet. Even though your or I might dislike Mugabe, him gaining popular support is part of the democratic process. It's the exact point of democracy. I am surprised at how they manage to label this as undemocratic when just as bad smear campaigns make the local television stations in the US.

What happened was Anti-American. Not Anti-Democracy. People need to stop using Freedom, Democracy, Liberty, and other similar terms as synonyms for America. Mugabe would be a fool to scrap the democratic process if he had popular support of the people, and any under-handed rigging for the next elections he might set up could be just as possible in the States as anywhere else.

It's funny, as AG he brings up charges against the Prime Minister which might have been, in fact, not in the interest of the Zimbabwe people (knowing how the US likes to exploit developing nations and all that).

However, worse crimes are done by US Officials and the judicial system does nearly nothing about it. I wonder which state is actually more democratic right now.

They wouldn't say that with the roles reversed

[vadim_t]

This case:

Tsvangirai (good) hiddenly supports sanctions against his own country to harm his opponent, Mugabe (bad). That scheme comes to light, possibly spelling doom for democracy. Shame on Wikileaks for screwing it up.

Now let's try in reverse:

Mugabe (bad) hiddenly supports sanctions against his own country to harm his opponent, Tsvangirai (good). That scheme comes to light, possibly spelling doom for the tyranny and opening way for glorious democracy. Glory to Wikileaks for uncovering Mugabe's shady deals.

I don't like double standards. Christopher R. Albon seems to be saying that the end justifies the means, and so long that the end is democracy, pretty much anything goes.

IMO, the problem here is not with Wikileaks. It's one of two things:

A. Tsvangirai isn't all that saintly, and not that much better than Mugabe, so he must to resort to underhanded means to defeat his oponent.

B. The people don't really want democracy. They either like Mugabe for some reason, or he convinced them his oponent is worse, or just don't give a damn. Whatever the issue in such a case should they get this democracy it's unlikely to make things all that much better for them, because democracy requires people who care, and parties willing to represent the will of those people. If the people don't care, or all the choices are horrible, it's democracy in name only.

Re:wrong way round

[twoallbeefpatties]

it takes wikileaks reporting to expose mugabe by "triggering" him to act out his true (insane) nature, for the world to observe how inappropriate a leader he really is.

To further that argument, remember that when we uncovered abuse of tortures at Gitmo, we were told that there were terrorists who would now know what kind of interrogation techniques we use and would train their operatives to resist those techniques. We were told that we needed to keep our interrogation processes secret in the name of national security. And to some extent, there's some truth in that - if terrorists want to be arrested and made into martyrs, it helps to know how your captors will deal with you.

I don't know how I feel about this particular incident. I think there's a lot in the latest batch of WL releases that the public deserve to know, while a lot of it is just backroom chatter and face-saving things said behind doors that could've just been let there alone. But I absolutely hate this argument that we can't uncover the truth about things because TEH BAD PEOPLE will use that information against us.

Number one, the bad people will always find something that they can use to fuel their propaganda. You're not going to stop the bad people by keeping these things secret. Number two, if you give people a freedom, then some people will use it for bad purposes. You give people the right to bear arms, then some people are going to get shot. Some people will say that if you ban guns, then only the criminals will have guns, and I sympathize with that argument. I would say that if we don't have information getting out to people about how their governments are functioning, then only the government itself will know how it is functioning.

I want to quote a paragraph from TFA here: Zimbabwe's Mugabe-appointed attorney general announced he was investigating the Prime Minister on treason charges based exclusively on the contents of the leaked cable. While it's unlikely Tsvangirai could be convicted on the contents of the cable alone, the political damage has already been done. The cable provides Mugabe the opportunity to portray Tsvangirai as an agent of foreign governments working against the people of Zimbabwe. Furthermore, it could provide Mugabe with the pretense to abandon the coalition government that allowed Tsvangirai to become prime minister in 2009.

What that paragraph says to me is - Mugabe is still in control, and if Wikileaks hadn't exposed this bit of dirt on one of his rivals, then it still would have happened for the first bit of negative information he could uncover. On top of that, the author of the post isn't talking about a loss of support for the prime minister that's already happened - he's predicting everything that's going to happen in the future, so there's no direct guarantee that the whole coalition government is about to collapse. It's terrible that Zimbabwe could be back in trouble again - not new trouble, just the trouble that was already there and was simmering quietly - but I still find blaming Wikileaks for this trouble to be the equivalent of blaming a pebble for the avalanche.

From a Zimbabwean

[beneppel]

I grew up in Zimbabwe (my family still live there) and there are probably a few things that are worth pointing out about this:

• This is not the first time Mugabe has had Tsvangirai charged with treason
• The sanctions placed on Zimbabwe are "smart sanctions" against specific members of ZANU (PF) (Mugabe's party) and their personal interests
• The state media in Zimbabwe consistently blame the country's economic hardships on the sanctions, which is clearly preposterous - but fools a lot of people who have no access to alternative media
• There is likely to be an election in the next 6 months, and this is mostly a ploy to sabotage it
• If it wasn't for Wikileaks, something else equally infuriating would undoubtedly have happened anyway (i.e. political turmoil in Zimbabwe is hardly collateral damage of cable gate)

I think Wikileaks is great. I am sure Zimbabwe would be a different place if the majority of people had access to unbiased information - the vast majority of people only have access to state media check out http://www.herald.co.zw/ and http://www.chronicle.co.zw/ for a taste of what that's like!

Re:They're mixing up the terms

[c6gunner]

However, worse crimes are done by US Officials and the judicial system does nearly nothing about it. I wonder which state is actually more democratic right now.

This is the kind of mind-blowing stupidity that make me lose all hope for humanity.

Re:wrong way round

[jeff4747]

Because some of us believe that being open and truthful, even at the cost of social stability, or 'democratic progress', is more important.

You remind me of Christine O'Donnell (former US Senate candidate). She said she'd reveal Anne Frank to the Nazis because lying is wrong.[/godwin]

Re:Ellsberg actually redacted diplomatic cables

[oblivionboy]

You are mistaken I'm sure. Whatever you value them as, Assange seems to have very specific ideas and motives behind him as illustrated here:

http://www.mara-stream.org/think-tank/julian-assange-conspiracy-as-governance/

In addition to this, and as has been pointed out elsewhere on Slashdot, unlike the Ellsberg leak, Assange has no actual interest in the US. Rather what he has is an interest in letting the rest of the world understand its influence upon different citizen's countries and how their governments may have interacted or even been pressured into doing deals with the US to further its own interest, often at the cost of democratic values.

The only people I see complaining now are those that are in the US. Well too bad. You made your bed (Cambodia, South and Central America, Africa, the list goes on and on), so deal with it. Its quite possible that the US are not "the good guys" that Americans would like to think and that this rallying against Wikileaks is not against the leaks, but rather a very deeply rooted cultural self esteem which is now threatened. The US is coming out as not very nice at all -- and if it was Russia no one would care, because you'd expect that from Russia, right? But the US? Bad?

Don't believe me? Its very interesting that the nature of the discussion is all about whether Wikileaks should leak, rather than the contents of the leaks themselves. Information is just information after, no? But suddenly everyone is defending Hillary Clinton and who ever else on needing this kind of secrecy to broker "important deals" and keep "security" whatever that means. This is not democratic freedom.

People in the US are probably very good people or bad people within the usual statistical distribution of a Western population. I see alot of people from the US complain endlessly about their "one party" system, and how everyone is in bed with the lobbyists and the corporations and that something should change, but then Wikileaks comes along to challenge this, and everyone complains. Its mysterious. Its important to separate yourself as a citizen from your government which Wikileaks is working against. Stand back objectively and make up your own mind.

Here's an exercise, try and place yourself in the position of any of a number of countries that have been muscled by the US in the last 50 years, and see if you can see the other side. Then understand that its not you, but your government which is responsible for this.

Re:Derp.

[Martin Blank]

What if the internal politics include genocide, or involve practices that involve significant oppression of a given group? Do you keep trading with them (tacit acceptance of their internal policies) or do you stop trading with them (indirect disapproval of their internal policies)? The latter is definitely something that could bring about political change if they need the trade and will not get it unless they change their ways.

BFD

[rainer_d]

As if anybody really cared about Zimbabwe. Mugabe didn't exactly fall out of the blue sky last year.

Re:They're mixing up the terms

[hedwards]

I don't see how they've managed to call this undemocratic - nothing undemocratic has been done yet. Even though your or I might dislike Mugabe, him gaining popular support is part of the democratic process. It's the exact point of democracy. I am surprised at how they manage to label this as undemocratic when just as bad smear campaigns make the local television stations in the US.

I must have missed it in class when they suggested using militias to beat, torture and kill opposition supporters as being a part of the democratic process. Sure he might have won anyways, but don't pass this off as a legitimate will of the people situation. A legitimate will of the people does not require crimes against humanity to be expressed.

PsyOps

[AftanGustur]

I see the US PsyOps team have all created /. accounts ..

Re:Derp.

[sco08y]

But Lord High Julian never made a mistake and ALLL information needs to be free ALL the time.

When it comes to my government once again fucking about in a country it has no business meddling with, absolutely.

Right! We need a way to figure out what is the legitimate scope of what our government can do in the name of national security.

We can't exactly poll the entire American people, but maybe if we had some "representatives" of the people elected by a "vote", those representatives could confer with the elected President to determine a policy that, as best as possible, represented the will of the people...

That is, until, some asshat decides to disenfranchise all 300+ million of us by completely derailing that foreign policy.