But I was also searching myself, wondering if I had overstepped. Had I gotten something wrong? Was I in over my head? Was I a naive do-gooder? I had never even been to Zimbabwe. What right did I have to wade into the country’s crisis, imperiously assuming it needed my help? Could I, far removed in my little office on the other side of the world, through my actions cost innocent lives?
I was aware that Tsvangirai was regularly accused of being a Western lackey, a claim fomented by Mugabe himself. This snafu was going to make him look like a puppet with his strings exposed.
And, professionally, this was possibly fatal. Could I recover?
I told my editor at The Guardian that I stood by my work and my belief that it had been approved by Tsvangirai. I vowed that it was my belief the article was authentic. I argued that he had called for peacekeepers before.
Brooks told me they would have to pull the article online and issue an explanation. I was told the paper’s then-reader’s editor, Siobhain Butterworth, would require an interview with me for an article she was writing on the matter.
Overnight on June 25, The Guardian Letters page ran a statement from Tsvangirai. Its opening paragraph read, “An article that appeared in my name, published in The Guardian…did not reflect my position or opinions regarding solutions to the Zimbabwean crisis. Although The Guardian was given assurances from credible sources that I had approved the article this was not the case.”
While the letter’s explanation of Tsvangirai’s position seemed based more on semantics than any definitive difference to the op-ed, I died a little with each word I read.
In situations like this, with a PR advisor from outside the client organization, it’s imperative that the client and advisor work together seamlessly. I had a feeling the dynamic between me and Tsvangirai had broken down, that I hadn’t been told everything. Perhaps my man in Harare didn’t have all the facts, either.
Who was he, anyway?
In 2008, Eliphas Mukonoweshuro was the MDC-T’s official International Affairs spokesperson. He went on to become the Public Service Minister in the National Unity Government that the MDC and ZANU-PF eventually manufactured in those days following the 2008 political crisis.
Mukonoweshuro, from the southern Zimbabwe province of Gutu, the same part of Zimbabwe Tsvangirai came from, was a student activist in the 1970s and had been arrested at the time for his political views. He studied political science at the University of Zimbabwe, in Sierra Leone and in the UK. He became a professor of political science at UZ and went on to be the dean of Social Studies there. He joined the MDC in 1999 as the secretary for international affairs and international co-operation. It was from that position that he came to be a special advisor to Tsvangirai, in 2008. After that year’s selections, he was named minister for public service in the National Unity Government.
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