The Frazer enigma

This has to be a quickly composed blog because I have run out of time, but I promised Parafeen that I would practise the art of blogging regularly.

By coincidence, two entirely separate references to Dr Jendayi Frazer, the newly appointed US Ambassador to South Africa and a former US Assistant Secretary for Africa, came up today. There is a little mystery here, fit for the attention of some investigative journalism.(ButI am not the one!) My peculiar talent for putting two and two together (and sometimes making five) brings me to the point I shall try to make as delicately as possible:

Ms Frazer is (was?) a friend of Jonathon Moyo. In 2003 Walter Kansteiner was her predecessor in the Assistant Secretary of State job. He wanted a hard line on Zimbabwe. She clashed with him then. Now there is a turnaround, Ms Frazer has changed her tune. If Moyo were still in the bosom of ZANU(PF) and not cast out of his powerful position as Information Minister, she and Moyo would not now be such close friends. But he too has also experienced another (his second) remarkable change of heart. Now in opposition as an Independent in Zimbabwe's Parliament, he is taking a hard line on ZANU (PF) - never mind the reasons: the Tsholotsho debacle and all that...*

In 2002, Kansteiner had said that the U.S. government had a “strained relationship” Mugabe's government. (Specifically, he pointed out that Mugabe was violating principles of “ democracy, human rights, civil liberties and economic freedoms”). He got precious little action out of President Bush who visited South Africa and praised Mbeki as the `point man' for the solution to Zimbabwe's troubles at a time when Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice (Frazer's former teacher) were at odds with each other(Powell wanted more pressure on Mugabe, Rice was the radical).

Dr Frazer, a black American woman, had been the NSC's senior director for African Affairs and was at that time known to have radical views. Another little chip of information is that she was once a student at Stanford University - the place where Condoleezza Rice taught for many years. Rice has now also lost her radical stance (remember? Zimbabwe is one of her recently named `outposts of tyranny'). It is clear why Kansteiner originally lost out when the NSC’s view had prevailed over his own.

Mugabe has reacted viciously to Rice's turnaround and no doubt he will have some hard words for Frazer, now taking her former boss's tough line on him. She has even been quoted recently in The Star (South Africa), saying that she is "disappointed" that African leaders are `"looking away" from the Zimbabwe crisis". She observes that `the country could easily descend into violence'and `the international community, including the UN Security Council and the African Union's Peace and Security Council, should be taking up the Zimbabwe issue because ... the US [is] busy deepening and broadening its selective travel and financial sanctions against Zanu PF leaders by also targeting their children and spouses.'

This really is quite extraordinary. I quote further from the Star:
`It [the US]was also targeting specific farms taken over in Zimbabwe's land grab. Frazer disagreed that US and other sanctions had failed, saying it was impossible to tell whether a government had been weakened until it cracked. She agreed with the SA government that ultimately only Zimbabweans could solve their own problems. But she disagreed that Zimbabweans should be left to do this in isolation. The international community should do its best to create the right environment for Zimbabweans to solve their problem. "It is ironic that the ANC should take that stance since the ANC itself built a strategy which included both inside and outside forces for change here. It's not either-or. It can't be." Frazer was also adamant that the US would not abandon the opposition Movement for Democratic Change and focus its hopes for change elsewhere, as some analysts had advised, because of the MDC's failure to weaken the Mugabe government. She said the US intended to stick to its long-term strategy of supporting all elements of civil society...'

What would her friend Moyo, if he were still serving the ruling party, have had to say about that?

What does one make of the amazing coincidence of Frazer and Moyo's simultaneous change of heart. Can the one have influenced the other?

* Sorry to bang on about the Moyo man, but he was, at the start of the nineties, an intellectual whom I admired for his being the first, post-independence, who had both the courage and the ability to confront, through his teaching, speaking and writing, the ruling party's betrayal of the ideals of the liberation struggle. His mysterious reversal and iniquitous attacks upon fellow Zimbabweans pursuing those same ideals - especially those of freedom of expression - by ingratiating himself with the Mugabe regime was sickening. It is well known how well he was rewarded.