Speaker
1: |
In
an extraordinary video revealed tonight for the first time, new light is shed
on the forces that are gathering against him, forces that have been cloaking
themselves in the gentle words of democracy. |
Meeting: |
Suffice
to say that for all appearances, ultimately this meeting never happened. |
Speaker
1: |
Forces
plotting to eliminated Mugabe, not at the ballot box, but to murder him
before the upcoming election, and to launch a coup d'etat. |
Meeting: |
Why?
If you believe the press, Mugabe is going to win the election, and I think
we've certainly proved that fact to be wrong today. |
|
Do
coffins win elections? |
|
We
are to proceed to implement a plan of introducing a transitional government
through the termination of Mugabe. |
Speaker
1: |
We
expose the plan to kill Robert Mugabe. We reveal the people behind it and the
most troubling part of this plot, their motives. Why kill Mugabe when there's
every chance of defeating him at an election in just a few weeks' time? |
|
Just
about everything that Mugabe has said over the past few years has been met
with disdain and disbelief in the West. But in one respect, he's closer to
the truth than anyone, even himself, could have dreamt. |
R
Mugabe: |
Tell
me, who is being oppressed in this country? |
Interviewer: |
They're
the MDC. I mean, you- |
R
Mugabe: |
MDC?
MDC being oppressed, where? Tsvangirai is on record as having said that he
was going to remove the President by violence. |
Speaker
1: |
Much
has been made of Tsvangirai's fine principles in the capitals of the world,
but perhaps his true principles were on display recently and secretly in
Montreal. |
|
December
4, the offices of Dickens & Madson, a firm of
political consultants with extensive experience in Africa. Present are three
staff members of Dickens & Madson, a gentleman
whose identity has not been established, a British citizen and former
Rhodesian who allegedly set up this meeting and Morgan Tsvangirai. |
Meeting: |
The
MDC represented by the top man who's sitting here tonight now, commits to let's
call it whatever you want to call it, the coup d'etat,
to the elimination of the President. |
Speaker
1: |
Ari
Ben-Menashe, Dickens & Madson. |
Meeting: |
Okay,
Mr Mugabe is eliminated. Now what? |
|
Are
you in a position basically to ensure a smooth transition of power? |
M
Tsvangirai: |
Yes.
I have no doubt about it. |
Speaker
1: |
Dickens
& Madson have issued this statement. They claim
that they were contracted by Tsvangirai to kill Robert Mugabe. The Montreal
meeting, which they filmed, was to discuss how to instal
Tsvangirai into power after the assassination. They advise that they had no
intention of fulfilling the contract, that they have now informed the
Zimbabwean authorities of the plan and have recently been engaged by that
government. |
|
But
four months ago, when this story begins, they were free agents in the
political consultancy market. In October, one of the principles of Dickens
& Madson, flew to London to meet Tsvangirai. A
contract was on offer. The meeting was arranged and attended by an associate
of Tsvangirai's, identified only as a former Rhodesian and now British
citizen. |
|
According
to Dickens & Madson, Tsvangirai requested the
assassination of President Mugabe at their first meeting and a deal was
struck. In early November, in the civilised environs of the RAC Club in
London, the details of the deal to kill Mugabe were thrashed out, $500,000
and the promise of future government contracts from President Tsvangirai. |
Meeting: |
When
I came here, that was my feeling, my understanding that the second meeting
would be to brief me about the transitional mechanism. What's going to happen
if we move towards this. That's how I understand the phases to be moving. And
this meeting was supposed to be talking about, okay, we have moved so far, we
can now definitely say that Mugabe's going to be eliminated. But what is the
transitional arrangement that you have- |
|
That's
exactly why we're here. |
|
No,
I think let's ... there should be more this time around. |
Interviewer: |
So
had been discussion amongst opponents of the government to assassinate
Mugabe? |
M
Tsvangirai: |
Why
should we? He's a 78-year-old man. Crazy as he is, but we have no reason
whatsoever to make any harm to him. |
Speaker
1: |
Tsvangirai's
transitional arrangement is to seize power with sections of the military,
override parliament, suspend the elections and then reschedule them when time
and circumstances suit him. |
Meeting: |
And
who's going to call the emergency? Who is going to call the suspension of the
constitution and the emergency? |
|
No,
they don't have to. All they need to do is to tell the acting Vice President,
"Look, we have got a crisis, we cannot proceed immediately after the
head of state has been eliminated." To me, that's the fundamental issue.
That plus how the two forces, the MDC on one hand and the army on the other,
can work together to ensure a smooth transition towards democracy, through an
election process, even if it means delaying the election. |
M
Tsvangirai: |
We
are not going to abandon this struggle. We are not going to boycott this
election. We are going to go all the way. |
Speaker
1: |
All
the way indeed. While making his speech, Tsvangirai still believes that the
Dickens & Madson contract will be executed,
that Mugabe will be killed before the ballot in a few weeks' time. |
Meeting: |
Let
there be an understanding, because we have their support, but we will lose
the election because of all sorts of reasons. |
Speaker
1: |
It
would seem that Tsvangirai may have the overwhelming support of Whitehall,
Canberra, Brussels, and Washington, but not that of his own people, not
enough to guarantee his victory. It appears that Mugabe is to be killed not
because he is a threat to democracy, but because the democratic process
threatens to reinstall him, validating his actions and threatening land
tenure across Africa. |
Meeting: |
If
we were to see Mugabe perhaps die of a heart attack in the next week or so,
obviously you would need some funding? |
|
Yes. |
|
And
to strengthen the party itself. Where would we send it? How would we deliver
it? |
|
It
will be sent through, if you don't mind, through BSMG in London. They are the
conduit. |
Speaker
1: |
Whatever
the best-laid plans of Tsvangirai and his backers were, if Mugabe is killed
and a coup attempted, the likeliest result is a civil war with thousands
dead. Even if it succeeded, Tsvangirai's transitional arrangement would
inevitably involve the slaughter of Mugabe's supporters, and there are
millions of them. |
Interviewer: |
Well,
you have accused the MDC of being a terrorist organisation. |
R
Mugabe: |
Organisation,
yes. |
Interviewer: |
Now,
this is a party which has garnered nearly 50% of the popular vote at the last
... is that a responsible term for a party that half of your people
presumably support? |
R
Mugabe: |
The
tone reflects what is on the ground. They have declared themselves, by virtue
of their actions, as terrorist. If they undertake terrorist activities,
mustn't we describe them as terrorist? |
M
Tsvangirai: |
We
have been actually at the receiving end of the terrorist actions of this
government. Not that we have initiated anything to warrant those kind of
labels. |
Speaker
1: |
So
far in Zimbabwe, a lot of property has been lost but not a lot of lives.
There's still some chance of reconciliation here. The honour of smashing that
chance, starting the mass blood shed that's been so long predicted may not
belong to these supposed dictator, but to the democrat and his friends. |
|
For
millions who dreamed of a new era in Zimbabwe, a new style of government
through Morgan Tsvangirai, it's not just his principles that he has betrayed. |
Speaker
8: |
After
the break, the story behind the story, the plot, the former Israeli spy
behind it, and what the Australian journalist didn't tell you. Is this as an
elaborate hoax or the awful truth? Don't go away. |
|
Welcome
back. Now that you've seen the core of the allegations, let's take a look at
some of the questions that have been raised this past week. |
|
The
two men at the centre of the plot are MDC leader, Morgan Tsvangirai and
Canadian political consultant, Ari Ben-Menashe. Tsvangirai says the tape is a
hoax and he was never given a proper opportunity by Australian journalist
Mark Davis to defend himself. |
|
Tsvangirai
explains that he approached Ben-Menashe to lobby for him in North America. We
interview Tsvangirai in Zimbabwe and Ben-Menashe in Canada in the very room
where the secret video was recorded, below the very air vents where the
camera was installed. |
Ari
Ben-Menashe: |
The
first meeting I had with him was in London, England. We met at the Hilton
Hotel in Terminal Four in Heathrow Airport. And they wanted to hire us
straightforward to eliminate a president and to help them organise a coup d'etat. |
M
Tsvangirai: |
How
can you talk about assassination with a lobby group? Are they an
assassination group or some mafia? It never occurred to me that such an issue
would be relevant. |
Ari
Ben-Menashe: |
In
order to gather more evidence, we asked him to come here. And that's where
the video tape was done. |
M
Tsvangirai: |
There
was no need to keep and even to mistrust them because remember I was going in
the meeting with a group that we had appointed as our ... it's like going to
your lawyer. Do you suspect that your lawyer is actually putting some peeps
around you? |
Ari
Ben-Menashe: |
Question
marks came up in my head. Why us? That's the first thing. We do political
consultancy and advice, but we don't have a history of doing violent things
like coup d'etats and things like that |
M
Tsvangirai: |
In
fact, for the whole hour, we were talking about the scenario emerging in
Zimbabwe's political discourse. How about if Mugabe refuses to accept the
results? How about if he collapses dead? How about if he ... and it went on
and on and on. |
Ari
Ben-Menashe: |
And
they obviously came through the wrong door because not only that we reported
the matter, but we also had a relationship with the Mugabe government for a
long time. |
M
Tsvangirai: |
It
was getting to a stage where he was talking about these scenarios. How about
if the president is eliminated? How about if he collapses dead? How about if
he refuses to accept the results? How about if you take over and the military
refuses to accept that? That was in that context. |
Ari
Ben-Menashe: |
Yeah.
It was very interesting for me especially because we had a relationship with
the president of Zimbabwe. It was very useful information for the president. |
M
Tsvangirai: |
Well,
after we left, I came back and said, "Look ... I was briefing
[inaudible] and others. I said, "I'm not happy with the meeting I had.
It would appear these guys are raising so many questions outside the
mandate." So we started investigating. He's never broken off from links
with ZANU-PF. And then we said, "Oh, if that is the case, we have had
three meetings with these guys. Let's back off. If they fail on this
assassination plot to dent the political image of the MDC and Morgan
Tsvangirai in particular, they will have just one [inaudible], which is to
terminate, eliminate Tsvangirai." |
Speaker
8: |
What
the Dateline programme did not reveal is the shadowy background of Ari
Ben-Menashe. Today he presents himself as a political consultant and runs a
company called Dickens & Madson in Montreal,
Canada. It's to this company that Morgan Tsvangirai allegedly turned for help
with the plans for assassination. But Ben-Menashe is a man with a dubious
past. He came into the limelight in 1990 when he made fantastic claims about
the twilight world of spying, gun running and abductions. |
|
He
also claims to be a senior former Israeli intelligence operative. And by his
own admission, he's had a long close association with Robert Mugabe for the
past 15 years. |
Ari
Ben-Menashe: |
We
feel that even though he's not perfect, nobody is perfect, he is on the right
side of history. He liberated the country from a nasty apartheid regime. And
now what he's trying to do is do land reform, take away land from 4,000 white
settlers and distribute it to landless blacks. |
Speaker
9: |
Ari
Menashe is a fantasist. He is by nationality Israeli. And he, for some years
had a fairly lowly position in the Israeli intelligence. He was a translator
as far as I recall and he found this not too exciting. And so, he in fact got
fired I think from the Israeli intelligence, for essentially delusional
behaviour, and started basically going and ... as far as I can see, making a
full [inaudible] as a fantasist. |
Speaker
8: |
Journalists
like John Barry and publications like Time Magazine and the New York Times
investigated Ben-Menashe extensively. He'd made startling allegations in
connection with two political scandals in the United States in the early 80s.
They were dabbed Irangate and the October Surprise. |
|
Ben-Menashe
and others alleged that Ronald Reagan's campaign team had tried to make a
deal with Iran to delay the release of American hostages until after the
presidential elections in 1980, thereby denying the then president Jimmy
Carter credit for their release. Ben-Menashe also claimed to have known of
plans to send arms to Iran as part of the deal. |
Speaker
9: |
Newsweek
investigated this. We spent months investigating it and we travelled half way
around the world to do so. And one of the people we clearly had to interview
was Ari Ben-Menashe. And so, we flew him from Australia to New York and we
put him up in New York. And we questioned him at great length. |
Ari
Ben-Menashe: |
My
background goes back to Israel and so on and so forth, the Iran-Contra, arm
sales to Iran. |
Speaker
9: |
But
first of all, he didn't know anything about what he was talking about. I
mean, he claimed to be an arms dealer, for instance. So we asked him
questions about arms and he flunked. I mean, he just didn't know. We went and
checked everything he'd said. We checked mandates. Just nothing stood up. And
we came to the conclusion he was complete and utter fantasist, a conclusion,
by the way, which his wife or possibly his ex wife
in Israel agreed with. She said, "You can't believe everything he says.
He's just a compulsive fabulist." |
Speaker
10: |
The
joint hearings of the House Select Committee, the investigate corporate arms
transaction with Iran, and the Senate Select Committee on secret military
assistance to Iran and the Nicaragua ... |
Speaker
8: |
Ben-Menashe
failed a lie detector test about his Irangate
allegations. A subsequent American Congressional investigation into the
scandals found his allegations to be total fabrication. Ben-Menashe claimed
to have seen George Bush senior at a Paris meeting with Iranian officials in
October 1980. It was later established that on that date, Bush was in
Washington addressing a meeting. He also lied when he said he was a commander
of the Israeli raid on Entebbe Airport in Uganda, and that he had planted a
spying device in Iraqi nuclear installation. And now, the Zimbabwe
assassination tapes have appeared. |
Speaker
9: |
I
know nothing about the alleged plot. I know of Ari Ben Menashe. Anything Ari
Ben-Menashe is involved in [inaudible] a scam. The tape would be terribly
grainy. He wouldn't have a clear tape with clear evidence. It would be very
grainy and he'd have to say, "You've got to take my word for it. This is
really what's on the tape." Well, don't take his word for it. |
Speaker
8: |
The
Zimbabwe minister of security has now announced an investigation into the
alleged assassination plot. Obviously, the plot also received huge publicity
there. This is how the Zimbabwean Broadcasting Corporation reported the
story. |
Speaker
11: |
The
alleged assassination plot by the MDC is characteristic of its violent
nature, similar to that of the notorious Rhodesian Selous Scouts, some of
whom are now active members of the party. And Australian network yesterday
broadcast a video clip showing MDC leader, Morgan Tsvangirai discussing a plot
to assassinate President Robert Mugabe. |
Ari
Ben-Menashe: |
Our
sympathy and our personal sympathies always was on the side of the
colonisation of Africa, African liberation, and the liberation of land.
Africa's for the Africans and not for the colonial powers. And I believe
we're on the right side of history. And Mr. Tsvangirai is basically a black
face for a new Rhodesia. |
Speaker
8: |
We
know about Ben-Menashe. But now it's also emerged that the second man on the
tape, Alex Legault, is wanted in the Unites States on $13 million fraud
charges. Why did Australian journalist, Mark Davis, not give us the
backgrounds to these men? Why did he not tell us about the long-standing
relationship between Ben-Menashe and President Robert Mugabe? He was asked
about this on CNN's international correspondence. |
Speaker
12: |
Okay,
John Sweeney ... |
Speaker
13: |
This
is not something that I have been ... |
Speaker
14: |
But
as a reporter, don't you have a duty to your viewers to tell them the source
of your information? And the truth is the source of your information ... |
Speaker
13: |
John.
John. |
Speaker
14: |
No,
no, no. You have not said. |
Speaker
13: |
Please. |
Speaker
14: |
You've
not said the character of these people. It's a fantasist and alleged fraudster,
and who are in the pay of ZANU-PF. |
Speaker
13: |
What
is Morgan Tsvangirai doing dealing with this company? Please give me that
explanation. |
Speaker
14: |
Okay. |
Speaker
12: |
The
question here really is whether or not you in some way are being manipulated.
And we, just in talking about it, are being manipulated. |
Speaker
13: |
I'm
hardly being manipulated on this. This tape, if people ... and if Morgan
hasn't realised this, I should say very clearly, this material was coming
anyway. The Zimbabwean authorities have, according to Dickens & Madson, all information and more. I'm aware of other
information that I have not presented. |