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You can’t make old friends

25 Sep, 2016 - 00:09 0 Views

The Sunday Mail

Before there was Cde George Charamba there was Mr Constantine Pafitis.

British journalist Max Hastings in 1976 reportedly referred to Mr Pafitis as “the seedy little Greek who ran Ian Smith’s information department”.

That is not to draw any parallels with Cde Charamba. After all, Cde Charamba can hardly be described as seedy, little or Greek! Further, Mr Pafitis – who died a few years ago – did not run an “information department”.

And more so, whatever Mr Pafitis’ faults in service of Smith, any characterisation relying on ethnic slur cannot command respectability.

Anyway, Mr Pafitis was quite the character. He was also a great study in survival.

Born on the outskirts of Chegutu, then Hartley, in 1938, Pafitis was to go to Sandhurst, rise to the rank of captain in the King’s African Rifles during the days of Federation, join the diplomatic and espionage community through a good chunk of UDI, become Smith’s Press secretary, moved on to Bishop Abel Muzorewa’s office, and then served Prime Minister Robert Mugabe for a couple of years after Independence.

All this is contained in Mr Pafitis’ autobiography, which is grandiloquently titled “Through the Arch of Constantine”.

The most interesting aspects of that autobiography have to do with Mr Pafitis’ roles after Smith’s Unilateral Declaration of Independence in 1965.

Mr Pafitis found himself a spy for Southern Rhodesia in Italy, a job he did so well that after the 1976 Geneva Conference, Smith summoned him back to Salisbury to serve as his Press secretary.

He was to find himself soon afterwards hand-holding Bishop Muzorewa through to Lancaster, and it was at this point in time that he vented frustration over Sir Shridath Ramphal’s and Mr Malcom Fraser’s support for Zimbabwe’s independence.

“History further records that (Malcom) Fraser, the outgoing Liberal prime minister of Australia, used the (August 1979 Commonwealth Heads of Government Summit) to champion the cause and aspirations of those Commonwealth leaders supporting the Patriotic Front and led by the Secretary-General himself, Shridath Ramphal.

“Without question, the two persons uppermost in pushing for this outcome, were Ramphal, in collaboration with Fraser, who by this time had formed a relationship with Robert Mugabe.”

Fraser died in 2015, and it is unknown if the friendship with President Mugabe endured beyond Lancaster. Sir Shridath is still alive, and the ties that bind are still as strong as ever.

Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton put it thus: “You can’t make old friends.”

The message in the line from their 2013 song of the same title is simple. You can make new friends, but old friends have been around forever.

The old friends met in New York last week on the side lines of the United Nations General Assembly, and anyone listening to the exchange that followed does not have to guess that this was not only a meeting of two gentlemen, but of two warriors who have survived more battles than most people have fought.

Sir Shridath is little talked about in Zimbabwe’s public discourse, particularly within the context of land and liberation.

Yet the man has always been a firm believer in the centrality to the land question to Zimbabwe’s past, present and future.

On sitting down for the tête-à-tête with President Mugabe, soon after the Zimbabwean leader had addressed the 71st Session of the UN General Assembly, the Guyanese gent remarked: “I see that Africa is still listening and we must try to return to those days of solidarity. Your speech this morning was very good.”

President Mugabe, never one to soak up adulation, deflected the words of praise with a light remark: “They told me you were here. And I said, ‘Oh, he’s here? Is he still. . .”

At which point his guest caught onto the banter and cut in laughing, “Walking? I’m an old man?” President Mugabe, also chuckling, asked: “. . .walking on two legs or are you on three legs.”

After a few more pleasantries, things got serious again.

Sir Shridath, looking and sounding very sincere and with no small amount of nostalgia, said to President Mugabe, “I am, all my life, very proud of our work together.”

This was in reference to how the two engaged and pushed forward the only logical outcome to the Lancaster House talks – freedom for Zimbabwe.

President Mugabe, too acknowledged, the great relationship forged in the heat of battle, and went on to shortly recount the push by nationalist parties and their allies for a settlement that recognised the importance of the land question, the promise by the United States and the United Kingdom to compensate white farmers for land redistributed to the black majority, and the deception that culminated in Claire Short’s knavery via that 1997 letter repudiating agreements reached at Lancaster.

“We said fine, if you don’t want to pay the farmers, it’s your money. The farmers are holding what is ours, our land. So keep your money and we keep our land. They thought we were joking.

“The British then offered grants for what they call poverty alleviation. But we didn’t want poverty alleviation. We just wanted the farmers to be paid,” President Mugabe concluded.

Sir Shridath, after a reflective pause, then summed it all up: “History must record very clearly the problem that arose was due to the fact that they went back on their word.”

This is a history that Zimbabwe must never shy away from reminding its people and the world; it is a history that explains why we are where we are today, and it should inform how we engage both among ourselves and with the West as we go forward.

Rising to leave, Sir Shridath clapsed his old friend’s hands and said, “It is a joy to see you. Give my love to Zimbabwe.”

It is a love we have felt since 1979.

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