Andrew Kenny
If the US government does not see progress soon towards democracy in Zimbabwe, it is not going to keep quiet.
So spoke US ambassador Eric Bost at a small Press conference in Cape Town yesterday.
Bost said he had deliberately kept quiet on Zimbabwe for at least four months, as he had been told by the SA Foreign Affairs Department they did not want the West dictating to Africa.
He wanted to give SA a chance to deal with Zimbabwe.
He said he had however seen no real progress, although he would be delighted to be proven wrong.
He wanted genuinely free and transparent elections in Zimbabwe next year – and not just on election day.
The US has continued to provide aid on food and HIV/Aids to Zimbabwe.
Bost was asked about the revelation in a recent biography that President Mbeki remained an Aids dissident. He said he disagreed with Mbeki, but would continue to work with the SA Government towards trying to stem the Aids pandemic.
The US had provided more assistance to South Africa on Aids than all the other donor countries put together. This was because President Bush “genuinely cared” about the plight of Aids sufferers in SA.
On the refusal of the US to allow entry to Professor Adam Habib from SA, Bost would not be drawn, saying he could not comment on the matter.
He said he would not tolerate discrimination on race, and an embassy spokesman said visiting Iran would be no grounds for exclusion.
He expressed puzzlement at South Africa’s refusal to back a proposed UN resolution condemning rape as a weapon of war, as happened so often in conflicts.
Asked about the ANC succession, he said he had “no thoughts”.
Bost said “our people” genuinely cared about SA.
His parents had once told him “leave a place better than you found it”, and it was his greatest wish to try to do this for SA.