Tsvangirai ghostwriter spills the beans

I wrote three op-eds for Mukonoweshuro with his byline, for The Wall Street Journal, the International Herald Tribune, and The Australian. I penned others in The Washington Post, The Age, and The Guardian (prior to the June article) for Tsvangirai, working through Mukonoweshuro.

Mukonoweshuro died in August 2011, at 58, after a short illness in a South African hospital. We never met.

When we were working together via odd-hour phone calls, he asked that I keep his name confidential, at least, I believe, until after the elections. He claimed there were already death threats against him and that, should it be known he was liaising with a foreign advisor in this way, his life would be in danger. He didn’t even want some people within the MDC to know. When I met with fellow MDC member, and later Senator David Coltart (who I had also worked with around the election) while he was in Australia sometime after these events, he asked who the contact was. I said I couldn’t tell him, although I trust Coltart implicitly. I had made a promise.

For this same reason, I felt I had to take the rap on The Guardian article and not draw Mukonoweshuro into it. Through the whole saga, as I was labeled a foreign spy, conspirator, and worse, I never named him. Even when I spoke with Tsvangirai’s English press secretary in Zimbabwe, I kept his confidence.

I feel now, it is time for his courage to be honored.

I did ring Mukonoweshuro as soon as the editor informed me of Tsvangirai’s volte-face, and he swore a blue streak at ZANU-PF, Mugabe, and his henchmen. He confirmed with me that Tsvangirai was aware of The Guardian article before it went to press and that he, Mukonoweshuro, was satisfied it had been signed off by the MDC-T leader.

None of this helped me much, as my name had already become mud in certain circles in Zimbabwe—including in Tsvangirai’s own office, I believe—and media outlets gleefully reported on The Guardian‘s apparent error.

The Guardian itself chose not to go at the situation harshly. Off-the-record talks with the newspaper left me with the impression that they backed my story and knew of Tsvangirai’s phlegmatic reputation, and acknowledged the highly fraught context in Zimbabwe.

On June 26, 2008, then-Comment Editor Toby Manhire ran an explainer.

In an email interview for this article, Manhire, now no longer with the newspaper, notes that there wasn’t really a protocol for such a situation at The Guardian.

(A)s with anything we would expect to be satisfied that what we were publishing was indeed the work of the bylined author. In that particular case….there was no need to do fresh checks on the provenance and authenticity.

As I recall it was a straightforward decision to remove the piece from the site and publish a note in the paper when Tsvangirai said he had not approved the article….

We should always be satisfied that the authorship is authentic and that there is no ulterior motive on the part of the third party, and I was on this occasion. Is it fair to say that thereafter I set the bar higher on those fronts? Yup.

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