US ambassador to Zimbabwe Charles Ray is the guest on Question Time and speaks to SW Radio Africa journalist Lance Guma while answering questions from the station’s listeners. Ambassador Ray reacts to reports that he was barred from paying his condolences to Vice President Joice Mujuru, comments on state media articles attacking him and also gives his take on prospects for free and fair elections in Zimbabwe.
Interview broadcast 31 August 2011
Lance Guma: Hello Zimbabwe and thank you for joining us on another edition of Question Time. Our guest tonight is the US ambassador to Zimbabwe Charles Ray. We asked you, our listeners, to send in your questions for the ambassador using Face Book, Twitter, Skype, e-mail and text messages. Ambassador Ray, thank you for your time.
Charles Ray: My pleasure.
Guma: Okay the suspicious death of retired army general Solomon Mujuru is obviously a major talking point for Zimbabweans right now. Last week it was reported security personnel at the Chisipite home of vice president Joice Mujuru blocked you from paying your condolences. Several of our listeners want to know what happened.
Ray: Sure. First of all, the reports that I was blocked from paying my condolences were incorrect. I did go last week in the morning to the vice president’s residence, which by the way happens to be only a few kilometers down the road from my own residence.
There were a lot of people there and I chose of my own volition to stand in a line with everyone else; I don’t like this ‘I’m a VIP, I get to push people aside’ treatment. Unfortunately there were a lot of people ahead of me; the vice president had been greeting people all morning, had to go to a meeting, and then was going to take a rest.
This was communicated directly to me by a senior member of her staff with apologies because they understood that I had a fairly busy schedule and wouldn’t be able to stay so I asked him to relay my condolences along with a letter of condolence and I left.
I went back later in the afternoon at about 5.30 with a group of ambassadors and we were able to meet directly with vice president Mujuru, so the fact is that the security personnel at the residence were very professional and very polite and I have no complaints about the performance of their duties. There was no effort made by anyone to block me from doing anything.
Guma: So what do you think was, or what created these stories because we even had pictures of you standing aside with everybody else as you are saying, so what could have been the source of a story like this?
Ray: Well frankly I think it’s because the situation here has become so politicized and so polarised that people take events and depending on their particular viewpoints, bend them to support their viewpoint rather than reporting accurately on what happened.
You see this quite often in a lot of the media; if you read some of the things that some of the media have accused me of doing you wonder if I’m not some reincarnation of Machiavelli instead of just a simple country boy who happens to the American ambassador here.
Guma: My final question on the whole…
Ray: …it’s a matter of lack of journalistic professionalism.
Guma: My final question of the whole Mujuru story – just your thoughts on it? Zimbabwe’s awash with speculation, would you like to share your opinions? Not that we want you to engage in speculation but what do you make of the whole situation?
Ray: Well at this point I would echo what vice president Mujuru said herself – let’s wait until the facts are known and investigations are completed. I don’t as a rule engage in speculation about things that I don’t have the facts on.
Guma: On Monday you came out clearly to say that although you are not opposed to black empowerment, Zanu PF officials want to use the indigenization and empowerment laws to enrich themselves at the expense of the poor. Memory in Bulawayo sends us an email wanting to know why you believe this to be the case?
Ray: Okay first of all, let me correct that statement. I am not opposed to empowerment of any disadvantaged people regardless of their colour; I have made that very clear throughout my career but also especially since I arrived here in 2009. I did not say that officials of any party were doing anything.
I said that the concern on the part of foreign investors was the appearance that some people, and I stress I used the term people, I did not say party officials, I didn’t even say government officials, I said that some people appear to be using this programme of empowerment to, or indigenization to empower themselves rather than to benefit the disadvantaged populations.
I did not and I don’t as a rule, paint an entire party or group of people with one brush. I don’t think anyone can argue that there are individuals in this country who do in fact enrich themselves but that has nothing to do with their party affiliation.
Guma: I suppose part of the problem is the majority are from Zanu PF and they are the only ones who are in a position to enrich themselves via this legislation.
Ray: Well I’m not sure that’s actually accurate; my own experience in travelling to the countryside and hearing people is that a lot of people have used this as an excuse to empower themselves without regard to their party affiliation.
But again I think getting into finger pointing and name calling doesn’t help. When you have a climate of impunity and lack of respect for rule of law it really doesn’t matter what party people belong to. Until the rule of law is firmly entrenched and respected you’re going to have these problems.
Guma: On Face Book comes a question from Michael Ruva. He says Zimbabweans have been tortured, killed and oppressed and those responsible are still roaming the country free, in fact enjoying the highest privileges of the land.
The same however cannot be said for the likes of Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi, so his question is – at what point do you and your allies, military or otherwise, decide it’s time to intervene? He also says how many people have to be killed first before a situation is classified humanitarian and what criteria is used when you are making these decisions?
Ray: Well I think you’ve got a lot of different things rolled up into one statement there. Military intervention in cases where a government is employing massive military power against its citizens, in effect genocidal actions is one thing, political violence, inter-party violence that does not threaten the interests of outside countries really can’t be used as an excuse for any kind of physical intervention.
In the first instance, it’s really up to the people of a country to sort these things out themselves. You know there’s no chart somewhere that says if x number of people get killed you do this and if y number get killed you do something else.
I think it’s a bit dangerous to compare situations between and among countries; to compare Zimbabwe to either Iraq or Libya I think is a bit of a stretch so I don’t know that there’s anyone who could actually give you a rational answer to that question.
Guma: Zimbabwe has been back and forth as an item for discussion at countless SADC summits and there never seems to be any movement or progress. Priscilla Nyathi in Victoria Falls wants to get your take on the usefulness of SADC in resolving the Zimbabwean crisis. She says has the time not come for alternative approaches?
Ray: Well I mean Zimbabwe is a part of the southern African region and in the first instance, Zimbabwe’s problems need to be dealt with by Zimbabweans in a manner of being committed to actually solving those problems, but SADC as a regional body has a right to be concerned.
Zimbabwe is a large portion of SADC, both in terms of population and economic potential and I think it’s appropriate that the region consider ways to be at peace with itself.
I think you should always consider alternative approaches; I think having just one approach to something is a bit of a problem because if you only have one method of dealing with a problem and it doesn’t work you tend to create disaffection and disillusionment but I would argue that the problem is it takes people of good will and commitment to sit down and develop those alternative approaches and it would be best if they were done here in the region.
Guma: How do you see Zimbabwe’s future and prospects for a free and fair election?
Ray: Well for Zimbabwe’s future, particularly over the long term given the demographics, the large number of people under 35, I think that the long term future is bright.
Prospects for credible elections, which is the term I prefer, that is elections that are trusted and accepted by the people and I think ultimately in the long term, Zimbabwe will find its way to that but until the institutions that support credible electoral processes and honouring the will of the people are put in place, supported and respected by all parties here I think that there will be problems.
Guma: Much is being made about the need for security sector reforms to guarantee free and fair elections or credible elections as you call them and a smooth transfer of power irrespective of who wins. Now you yourself have served in the military for over 20 years – what are your thoughts on security sector reform as demanded by the other political parties in the coalition?
Ray: Well I don’t know, I think maybe just that term security sector reform frightens people. As a former professional military man in a country where the military is clearly subordinate to civilian authority and sees itself as an instrument of the people and the state rather than a single political party, my view is that professional military people, in order to deserve the title professional military, take an oath to defend the entire country, not just to defend the interests of a specific party and when senior military people in uniform become obviously and overtly political then that makes it impossible, even when there’s no violence, to have a credible election because you have hanging over you this threat that if the military doesn’t like it, it won’t stand and that is not a government of, for and by the people.
Guma: Of all the ambassadors in Zimbabwe you seem to be the one the state media and Zanu PF love to hate. Several of your meetings have been disrupted by Zanu PF hooligans, you have been the victim of many vicious articles in the state media. How do you take all this within your stride and continue with your job?
Ray: Well I raised four children and I’m the oldest child in a family with three younger brothers and sisters; I’m accustomed to dealing with people who throw temper tantrums and the way I deal with that is I ignore it until they run out of steam.
I have as I see it a job to do; one to represent US interests and if I can help to, help Zimbabweans create a situation where they have a better life, that they create a country they are proud to call home and I focus on that, all of the rest of this is just background noise, it’s static if you will, I tune it out.
Guma: How much of that rabble-rousing though can lead to self-censorship where you have to watch what you say because you know it can be twisted by the state media?
Ray: Well if you’ve listened to my speeches and you’ve heard me speak before, you know that self-censorship is not a skill that I practise. I say what I think is right and I don’t censor myself for fear that someone might disagree with what I’m saying or, if you say nothing, you can still be twisted.
I will continue to speak out when I think it’s appropriate to speak out and say what I think the truth is and those who don’t like it – that’s a problem they have to deal with. I don’t, basically if people choose to twist my words, that’s their choice; I try to put enough words out there so that rational people will know when things have been twisted.
Guma: My final question, as things stand is there a sustainable and feasible diplomatic relationship between Zimbabwe and the United States? Is there room for engagement at all and as Tarisai K Mazibananga on Face Book asks, how would you describe the working relationship with Harare and what is US engagement strategy if any with the government of national unity?
Ray: Well first of all, we’ve been engaged diplomatically with Zimbabwe since independence and it’s never been disrupted. You could probably describe the relationship right now as being a bit dysfunctional like squabbling siblings. We for some reason got upset with each other and we’ve been bickering for a while and I think we’ve forgotten what started it.
There’s a lot of room for what I would consider to be productive relations between the US and Zimbabwe. We have more in common then we have that we differ on if we would just get past the rhetoric and as a senior official said to me this morning, deal with issues not tissues, I think we could get more done.
We are in fact getting a lot done; we are working with the business community here now to assess the challenges and opportunities for American companies to invest and do business here. We’ve worked very closely with the minister, the Ministry of Education on redressing the textbook to student ratio to get it closer to one-to-one so all students have an opportunity to learn.
We’re working with the Ministry of Health on the problem of HIV-Aids, prevention of mother to child transmission, malaria and other debilitating diseases. We’re working in the agricultural sector to revitalize the agricultural sector so that all people living on the land here will have the opportunity to more productively and effectively exploit that land.
So we are engaging in a lot of areas; there are other areas where with time I think, as we focus on issues rather than on differences, that we can work even more.
It requires an effort on both parts – us to understand the things that motivate people here, people here to understand what motivates us and learn to disagree with each other without being disagreeable and keep our eyes not focused on where we used to be because we can never go back there and we can’t undo it but where we need to be and keep our eyes focused on the future. So I think that there is a lot of room for more engagement; we are engaging. We certainly can find more things that we can do together and I’m committed while I’m here to doing that.
Guma: Some say just like the government of national unity you have politicians from different political parties meeting and running a government but playing to the gallery and saying all sorts of things. Could we say the same for US/Zimbabwe relations that a lot is played out in the gallery but is it a different picture in terms of your various interactions?
Ray: I think in some cases you could probably say that. Many of the direct interactions don’t have quite the negative tenor of the public statements which is why as I said, I don’t pay attention to what appears in the media, I focus on what people do, not what they say and that’s true of politics anywhere. Politicians play to the gallery.
I have the advantage of not being a politician, I am a public servant, I took an oath to do a job a certain way and I do it and I do not play for public opinion polls or for popularity. I play for productivity and achievement so yah, you’re right, a lot of what you read in the media has no bearing on reality but unfortunately that’s what people have to make their decisions on so we need to work on having a media that presents a balanced picture of things rather than what they would like or what supports their preconceived beliefs.
Guma: Well Zimbabwe that was the US ambassador to Zimbabwe, Mr Charles Ray joining us on Question Time and taking questions from you our listeners. You sent in questions using Face Book, Twitter, Skype, email and text messages and I hope the ambassador has answered your questions adequately. Ambassador Ray thank you so much for your time.
Ray: Well thank you for inviting me.
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