An associate editor at the Institute for Security Studies, a South Africa-based think tank, says the spilling of United States government secrets about Zimbabwe by the WikiLeaks organization is ?dangerous? for the region, and could lead to instability and violence ahead of the election Harare?s expected to call next year.
?Certainly for southern Africa, the WikiLeaks Zimbabwe revelations are most significant, and I don?t think it?s an exaggeration to say they could destabilize Zimbabwe ? and thus the region - even further in the months to come,? says Liesl Louw-Vaudran, the editor of the ISS magazine, .
?I am not for one second saying WikiLeaks did not have the right to make the information public; I am merely exploring the possible ramifications now that this information is out there,? she clarifies.
WikiLeaks recently began publishing thousands of previously confidential communications between the US State Department in Washington, DC and its embassies around the world. Some of the documents relate to Zimbabwe. The country has been in the throes of political and economic instability for about a decade, as President Robert Mugabe and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai have fought a bitter and often violent battle for power.
A so-called ?unity government? headed by Mr. Mugabe, of the ruling ZANU-PF party, and Mr. Tsvangirai, of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), has failed to end violence, corruption and rampant unemployment there.
The New York Times has published a secret communiqué leaked to WikiLeaks, from former US ambassador to Zimbabwe, Christopher Dell, to Washington in 2007. It reveals America?s preference for an end to Mr. Mugabe?s rule, in close cooperation with the MDC.
?We need to keep the pressure on to keep Mugabe off his game and on his back foot, relying on his own shortcomings to do him in,? Dell writes.
Louw-Vaudran says, ?I do fear that the revelations (are) really going to give ammunition to President Robert Mugabe, especially while we are facing a new election in Zimbabwe next year.?
She adds Mr. Mugabe will ?obviously? use the information leaked by WikiLeaks as a ?political tool? to further entrench his hold on power. She says it?s now going to be ?far easier? for Mugabe to ?demonize? Tsvangirai as a ?puppet of the Americans.?
?We are sitting with a very tense situation, very delicate, where we?ve got a dictator now for the last 25 years here in Africa, absolutely insistent that any opposition to him is being instigated by the West. And now he has that on paper, and that is dangerous,? says Louw-Vaudran.
She comments that she?s ?sure Robert Mugabe is putting his feet up late at night and laughing his head off, not quite believing that such a massive boost has been given to him by his arch enemy, America, ahead of an election. It?s manna from heaven for him!?
Louw-Vaudran says ?already the gloating? about ?Dell?s criticisms directed at Tsvangirai? and the ?vilification and mockery? of the MDC leader has started in Zimbabwe?s state-owned media. The Herald newspaper, for example, writes of the Dell memo as proof that Tsvangirai and the MDC have grown ?fat on the back of engorging the West's filthy lucre over the past decade as Uncle Sam's willing cat paws.?
?The WikiLeaks information has served to make the propaganda that Mugabe has been using all along against his opposition, such as that the US is funding the MDC, so much more credible,? states Louw-Vaudran. ?It?s lovely for Mugabe to actually sit back and say, ?Listen, I told you so ?
She says ?what?s also a godsend? for Mr. Mugabe is the American ambassador?s ?strong? criticism of Tsvangirai in the cable leaked to WikiLeaks, and reported by the New York Times.
Dell describes Tsvangirai as a ?flawed figure, not readily open to advice, indecisive and with questionable judgment in selecting those around him? and goes on to write that while the MDC leader is ?a brave democrat? and ?the indispensable element for opposition success,? he is ?possibly an albatross around their necks once in power?.?
Dell brands the MDC ?far from ideal? as opposition to ZANU-PF, and says had Washington ?had different partners,? it ?could have achieved more? in Zimbabwe.
In her reaction to this, Louw-Vaudran comments, ?Well, whether it?s the end of Washington?s previous very close relationship with the MDC, we can?t yet say. But that would certainly be great for Mugabe and ZANU-PF. What we can be certain of is that the relationship between the US and the MDC, in the immediate future, is going to be much more strained, and that must be very pleasing to Mugabe indeed.?