[The American Ambassador in South Africa has made a number of excellent statements about the fear of White farmers, the impact of Zimbabwe, etc. His very measured comments are examples of when we are almost SANE in this part of the world. But, his words carry no action, and it is 100% clear to me that US foreign policy here is completely – hands-off. The USA will not go against the will of the South African Govt. It just stands and watches. Sadly. By doing so, things will just get worse. I never expected it to be any other way though. Jan]

Human rights violations in Zimbabwe have been slammed by the outgoing United States ambassador to South Africa, Cameron Hume.

In an exclusive interview with the Pretoria News, Hume lashed out at Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe’s apparent need for “another year” to study an African Union human rights report on his country.

Speaking a week before the end of his term of office, Hume said he believed South Africa had been damaged directly in its own national interest because of the flow of refugees from Zimbabwe, and the impact on its economy.

Asked whether he thought the South African Government should become more vocal on the Zimbabwe crisis, he said real diplomacy needed to extend to the question of what kind of strategy one was applying.

That strategy had to be realistic.

Hume believed events in Zimbabwe were not only of concern to that country’s citizens, but also legitimately of concern to others – South Africans in particular.

He said the US was aware of the fact that it was hard to fix problems in another country.

The US had had its own experience of this in Haiti in the 90s and was also finding it difficult in Iraq.

“It’s a little hard to be prescriptive. However, such things as the AU (African Union) deciding that Mr Mugabe needs another year to read a human rights report in order to know what is going on in his country absolutely stretches my credulity.”

“If he doesn’t know the degree of human rights violations in Zimbabwe it could only be because he doesn’t want to know.”

Hume said one in 10 Zimbabweans were Aids orphans and questioned what protection existed for a 14-year-old girl whose parents had died of Aids.”

“What is her prognosis?”

“Does Mr Mugabe think of that before he goes to bed at night? I frankly doubt it,” said Hume.

In report tabled at the recent AU summit in Addis Ababa, Mugabe’s government was lambasted for flagrant human rights abuses.

The report slammed the government for the arrests and torture of opposition MPs and human rights lawyers, the arrests of journalists, the stifling of freedom of expression and clampdowns on other civil liberties.

Zimbabwe’s foreign minister, Stan Mudenge, protested against the adoption of the report by the AU, saying the Zimbabwe government had not been given an opportunity to review or respond to the report.

It was to have responded to it earlier this month, but has not.

This article was originally published on page 3 of Pretoria News on July 22, 2004

Source: Independent Online (IOL)
URL: http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click…/p>