international community take a "tough and quiet" approach against President
Robert Mugabe and Zanu (PF), according to a latest report by Wikileaks.
According to a document called Africa:US Versus UK Priorities, London Think
Tanks Comment published on a new Wikileaks website, Zimbabwe should and will
remain a top priority for the UK.
The original Wikileaks website was closed after the controversial leaks of
the classified documents and its founder, Julian Assange, has been described
as a "high tech terrorist" and is now being hunted by police on sex crime
charges.
However, it noted that President Mugabe's history of bombastic statements
had only served to solidify his status as a colonial liberation leader.
"From a strategic perspective, these analysts termed the United State's
focus on Zimbabwe as "surprising" because Zimbabwe was not a threat, but
largely a contained crisis. They said that Zimbabwe's crisis should be
treated as a regional issue, not an international one, and that the US
government should not sacrifice it's relations with South Africa, the more
strategic partner, over Zimbabwe, even if the political events in Zimbabwe
run contrary to the US government's democracy agenda."
They asserted that the international community's concern about Zimbabwe
being a regional destabiliser was largely unfounded, as most of the Southern
Africa Development Community (SADC) - especially South Africa - "can take
care of themselves."
Wikileaks has been releasing classified United States diplomatic cables sent
to and from US embassies in countries throughout the world. These cables
include orders sent out from the Department of State, embassy reporting
about the local governments and details of US government activities in each
country.
It has published 251,287 cables, originating from 274 embassies and dating
from 28th December 1966 to 28th February 2010. Of this total, 15, 652 of the
cables were marked Secret, 101,748 Confidential and 133,887 Unclassified,
although even the 'unclassified' documents contain sensitive information.
It said in its Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) that the motives for
releasing these documents were based on the US founding father James Madison
who famously said: "Knowledge will forever govern ignorance and a people who
mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which
knowledge gives."
"This basic philosophy of the American revolution inspires all our work," it
said.
The cables appear to be the single most significant historical archive ever
released and affect basic and heartfelt issues all over the world;
geopolitics and democracy; human rights and the rule of law; national
resources and global trade.
US authorities have said the release may put people at risk.
Wikileaks said it had a four-year publishing history during which it had
released documents pertaining to over 100 countries. There was no report,
including from the US Government, of any of their releases ever having
caused harm to any individual.
It said as part of its review process, it requested the US State Department,
which had claimed to have conducted an extensive review of the material of
its own over the last few months, to provide the titles of the cables which
they should look at with extra care.
It said the State Department refused to provide that information, or
negotiate any other arrangement, suggesting that its desire to cover up at
all costs eclipses its bona fide desire to minimise potential harm.
The State Department gave its side of the correspondence to the New York
Times and elsewhere at the same time.
Instead of publishing the documents all at once, the organisation will be
releasing the embassy files in stages over the next few months.
"The subject matter of these cables is of such importance, and the
geographical spread so broad, that to do otherwise would not do this
material justice.
"We owe it to the people who entrusted us with the documents to ensure that
there is time for them to be written about, commented on and discussed
widely in public, something that is impossible if hundreds of thousands of
documents are released at once. We will therefore be releasing the documents
gradually over the coming weeks and months."
Wikileaks is staging the release of the embassy cables in order to maximise
the impact of their release and do justice to the source material. A later
phase of this release will involve working with partners in a far wider
selection of countries to ensure each country gets to see the real workings
of its government's relations with the USA.
It said it protected its sources. "We will not publicly comment on the
source of any of our releases, how the information was obtained, or on the
security measures used to protect sources identities. Our submission systems
are secure and anonymised."
The US embassy cables cover serious issues for every country in the world
with a US diplomatic presence.
"As far as knowledge about what is truly going on in the world can influence
our decisions, this material must result in political change and reform," it
said.
"One newspaper has alleged the cables might destabilise the Middle East.
These cables, by giving the players an unvarnished description of how they
are seen, there will be a common ground on which to effectively negotiate
peace and stability. We do not see this as a risk of destabilisation, but an
opportunity for stabilisation and reform in the Middle East.
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