Ambassador to Sudan Hilda Suka-Mafudze on BTH

Five new ambassadors from the two MDC formations in the coalition government were appointed to serve in different countries. In this series SW Radio Africa journalist Lance Guma speaks to Ambassadors Hebson Makuvise (Germany), Hilda Suka-Mafudze (Sudan), Trudy Stevenson (Senegal), Jacqueline Zwambila (Australia) and Mabed Ngulani (Nigeria). In this second part of the series Ambassador Mafudze in Sudan talks about the challenges of being a female ambassador in an Islamic state, dominated by religious tensions between the Muslim North and Christian South. 

Interview broadcast 13 May 2010 

Lance Guma: Hello Zimbabwe and welcome to this edition of Behind the Headlines. Five new ambassadors from the two MDC formations in the inclusive government were appointed to serve in different countries. In this five part series on Behind the Headlines we speak to Ambassadors Hebson Makuvise in Germany, Hilda Suka-Mafudze in Sudan, Trudy Stevenson in Senegal, Jacqueline Zwambila in Australia and Mabed Ngulani in Nigeria. 

I’m sure last week you heard the interview with Ambassador Trudy Stevenson in Senegal. This week we go to Sudan where we speak to Ambassador Hilda Suka-Mafudze. Ambassador, thank you so much for joining us on the programme. 

Hilda Suka-Mafudze: It’s a pleasure Lance. 

Guma: Right now, Sudan – are there many Zimbabweans in Sudan and if so, what are they doing there Ambassador?

Suka-Mafudze: We have got quite a sizeable number of Zimbabweans in Sudan. At the moment I’m in the process of putting together their names and their contact details and some of them are just so forthcoming, most of them are so forthcoming, they actually make a call to the Zimbabwean Embassy, Zimbabwean Chancery, so I’m still putting the number together to come up with the real, really how many people we Zimbabweans are in Sudan. I will tell Zimbabweans are doing splendid work here, some of them are in the UNAMIS, they are doing a lot of work here, they are from the police force and we have quite a number of them, also they are gender balanced, there are a number of women and a number of guys in this UNAMIS, which we call UNAMIS back here.

Guma: OK so these are essentially part of the peacekeeping force with the United Nations?

Suka-Mafudze: Yes, they are part of the peacekeeping force of the United Nations and tell you what, I’m really feeling so proud of Zimbabweans here, they are doing a lot of work, they are doing very well and the Senior Assistant Commissioner of police who is with them, who is heading them, comes here and there to my office to brief me on what they are doing here and they are doing a lot of good work and actually there is a call for more Zimbabweans to join this UNAMIS.

And we have also some guys who are teaching, some, and most of them are in the NGO world here and they actually look for Zimbabweans – they say they really know their work and they do very well in whatever field they are taking up. And we also have (Edward) Sadomba a footballer and he is raising the flag high.

Guma: Oh that’s Edward Sadomba formerly with Dynamos.

Suka-Mafudze: Yes, formerly with Dynamos. He’s raising our flag so high, we are really feeling so proud and each time someone asks you – hey where are you from – and you say Zimbabwe, they say – oh Sadomba – that kind of thing, so you can imagine what’s happening here. We are really home away from home.

Guma: And of course, the new job for you Ambassador, we know you have gone through the training that was conducted by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, but how has the transition been from opposition politics to doing this? You were formerly the MDC MP for Manyame and now you are an ambassador for your country – how has that transition been for you?

Suka-Mafudze: Yes I should just put the record straight – I have been a member of parliament for Mondoro constituency which covered the part of Manyame which used to be called Norton and later when I ran 2005 I was running in Manyame constituency.

Guma: OK and so how has that transition been for you from being that in the opposition to becoming an ambassador and how are you finding it?

Suka-Mafudze: My belief is when you are in the opposition you are fighting for one thing and one thing alone and you are like you are already in government. It looks like you are already in government so I don’t feel much of a difference. To me it is like I’ve been given the chance and I’m able to do what I was yearning for when I was doing the activism when I was in the opposition. It’s like I’ve been given the chance to do the work that I was really dying to do without any hindrances. Right now I’m like, I’ve just moved on into another which is just a big change, which you just yearn for to say I’ve done one, two, three and now I think I must move on to four, five, six – that kind of thing so I don’t see much of a difference.

Guma: Now obviously any Embassy will be, particularly Embassies like your one, you will be working with people from ZANU PF, how is that going on? Are you able to work well with some of these people who have come from ZANU PF?

Suka-Mafudze: Lance, the truth on the ground is there could be, and I believe in professionalism. There could be others who have their own allegiances and I think as I was advocating for change, earlier on before I got into this position, it was to say there should be that kind of freedom, this kind of, the freedom of allegiances and I’m not the person to find who is a ZANU PF and who is a MDC and I’m finding it difficult, even if I might try to think of it that I want to check who is ZANU PF and who is MDC.

Maybe it’s also because of the pro-activeness that I took which got me into coming up with the first meeting when I got to this Embassy to say in the meeting I mentioned previously that I think we all know why we are here in this heat and the dust that comes from the desert – the reason is to raise the flag of Zimbabwe and there’s no politics in this office. Politics you can only do when you are out of this office. Within this office we are here to raise the flag of Zimbabwe, we are here to make sure, we are looking at all issues of Zimbabwe and making sure we are putting the task to make our country better, that’s the reason we are here.

So maybe, I might have in the process stopped anything that was about to come up but it was my first meeting, the first day that I got into the office, I held a meeting to say we are all Zimbabweans and we know what we want – we want a better Zimbabwe, we want a peaceful Zimbabwe and we are not doing politics here, politics is done by people who are back home and us here are to advocate for good issues for Zimbabwe, for positivity for Zimbabwe, for raising the flag of Zimbabwe in whatever area that we are working in. Maybe I must have deterred it from coming up.

Guma: Obviously raising the flag of the country is what any Ambassador is meant to do but how difficult is this for you Ambassador Mafudze given the coalition government has still not resolved most of the outstanding issues? Does that make your job a little bit harder?

Suka-Mafudze: At the moment for me to say it makes my job a little harder, it worries me a lot, as I mentioned earlier, I’m an advocate for peace, it worries me a lot and each time I’m like watching on television, I see issues to do with Zimbabwe, it gets me into thinking are things going to be really OK? I want things to be OK.

Yes, here and there you will find that you come across persons which make you start thinking that, cant we become a person, as a Zimbabwean, as Zimbabwean people and do things right and make our lives better, even for me who is so far away from home, it’s my home, I want to go back to my home when I’m through with this duty, tour of duty, yes I want to go back home so it worries me, it’s just something that worries me. I want things to be right.

Guma: Now there was quite a delay from the time you were nominated for the post by your Party and the time the president finally confirmed your deployment. Were you ever worried at any point that this was never going to go through?

Suka-Mafudze: Yah I got to that stage yes whereby I thought – ah, I’ve been thinking I wanted this yes and what is happening now and you find once you are involved into some kind of training, you are doing something else you tend to pay attention to what you are doing so that you do it right and which makes the little business that I was doing I had stopped and which meant I needed to survive, what was I to do, it became very difficult for me to survive with the family and as the head of the household it became difficult even to pay fees for my daughter which was US$120 per term, it was difficult, I paid a little later and the school was surprised, it nearly made me a pauper.

Guma: Yes even Ambassador Trudy Stevenson spoke about that for the weeks that you were not doing anything, you were not getting any salary.

Suka-Mafudze: Yes there were no salaries. Yes here and there we maybe would get allowances but these allowances when you drive a car from home and you come to the training and you are expected to do whatever you have to do which concerns the training to do it right as a Zimbabwean, it’s just not enough. You know the status that you are supposed to, the outlook that you are supposed to portray as an ambassador, a trainee ambassador, it didn’t go along, you needed to do it well, you need to eat well, you needed to be in your car to drive to town, all those things became a little bit difficult for me I must say but I didn’t lose hope.

Guma: Now obviously any Ambassador will be focused on issues like growing economic links, tourism and things like that. With Sudan, what sort of opportunities are there for Zimbabwe?

Suka-Mafudze: Yeh I see opportunities which maybe at times they are here and there especially for tourism. We have already started agitating, my office has started agitating, around talking to ZTA (Zimbabwe Tourism Authority) about them opening doors for us inviting Sudanese here to come to the do that happened with tourism around October, October/November somewhere there. So we have started writing letters to the ZTA which has positively replied to us and we want to do a meeting with the auditors here in this country for them to identify the guys who can go to Zimbabwe to have an appreciation of Zimbabwe.

These people are not really travelers so they say, they are like content with their country maybe only because they have not traveled, they have not seen beyond their borders and for them to have an appreciation, it should be advertised in their papers. This is the route that we have taken, that is tourism, that is a plus for Zimbabwe and if a very good advert is done here in Sudan, there are people who have it who can really, who can surely travel to Zimbabwe but there’s not been some kind of advertising of Zimbabwe because whoever you talk to, certainly in the ministries, like former ministers, former ambassadors, they tell you that it’s a beautiful country, they tell you of Victoria Falls, they tell you of Kariba and they tell you of the man-made lake which is Kariba and they say it is so beautiful and they say why aren’t your people going to enjoy seeing the Victoria Falls and this man-made lake and they tell you – ah people here they don’t know about these things much, you need to advertise – this is what they tell us. So we have taken that stance especially in the tourism area.

Guma: Is there anything that Zimbabweans could export to Sudan? Is there anything that you’ve identified that you would recommend to business people and say – you know what, there’s a chance for you could export this to this country?

Suka-Mafudze: Yes there is a lot of, I think you also have to have an appreciation that I’m only plus 60 days in this country but I’ve really gone out of my way to find out how things are going and also having an appreciation that we’ve been in elections in Sudan so you can imagine, we went into a standstill especially courtesy calls for me to go talk to the ministers, the concerned ministries of Trade and Tourism and the like because there’s likelihood there will be a new Cabinet and I would say for the whole month of April there was some kind of standstill and with my going around talking to other ambassadors, I’m finding there’s a lot of opportunities in Juba in the south of Sudan, it’s actually that whole it’s starting from zero, so anything goes there in Juba but it needs to be identified and I’m also preparing to go down to Juba so that officially I make, I produce documents to support that there’s a lot of business in Juba which is south of Sudan.

Guma: And my final question for you Ambassador Mafudze, Sudan as we know is a country that is often in the news for the problems in Darfur, the country is divided along religious lines between the north and the south, how is it for someone like you, I’m assuming you are obviously a Christian and you are an ambassador in a country that’s torn along religious lines, does that pose any challenges for you?

Suka-Mafudze: Yes exactly you know when you get into a country you like, you have your own way you look at it and you also you go along with what people tell you but eventually you develop your own outlook and your own assessments and your own analysis of issues and the situation and the issues that are around you. Yes it has been very hard for me at first when I see every woman wrapping themselves around, the whole body is wrapped, even on the head, leaving only the eyes and the like, it became a bit difficult.

Some also just leave the face, the whole face, some leave just the eyes out and it would be like people just look at me and say like, where does this woman come from, that kind of thing. At first it was difficult for me but I later said you know I’m a Zimbabwean, I’m dressing decently, I think that is what is more important and I’m a Christian and also there are challenges of the language here, I don’t speak Arabic and I have to go around with an interpreter so it’s like people just appreciate, they are very nice people here, they just appreciate that you are a foreign person and they understand you, as long as you are dressed decently.

Guma: OK and I take it you obviously don’t have any major security concerns being in a country like Sudan?

Suka-Mafudze: With Khartoum, there’s not much of that though they’re always alert, they’re just alert, they’re involved with policemen and whatever and whatever. There’s everybody like in the security sectors all over but I’ve not seen anything threatening so far in Khartoum but I’m told by other ambassadors, it’s also important for me to travel to other places out of Khartoum for me to have an appreciation of what other people are going through out there which is those security concerns that you are talking about. Yes but in Khartoum it’s OK.

Guma: That was Ambassador Hilda Suka-Mafudze, she’s the Zimbabwean ambassador to Sudan. Many thanks for joining us on the programme. 

Suka-Mafudze: Thank you so much for having me Lance.- SW Radio Africa 

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