Potter's Staff Meets Mugabe's Opponents in Zimbabwe

Just back from an official visit to Zimbabwe, Mayor Tom Potter's staff reports that Portland's sister city Mutare is now run by opponents of President Robert Mugabe.

Members of the opposition party Movement for Democratic Change swept Mutare's municipal elections in March, says Austin Raglione, Potter's chief of staff. Now Mutare, Zimbabwe's fourth-largest city with 200,000 people, is run entirely by the MDC.

Raglione says the three-member Portland delegation, which made the trip despite political upheaval in the African nation, got a warm welcome.

"It was really appreciated that we had come despite what was happening in the news," Raglione says. "It was sending a signal that we support their efforts and the opposition party."

The delegation spent eight days in Zimbabwe and needed special permission to travel in the country, because the Portlanders were perceived as supporters of the opposition, Raglione says. Military checkpoints were frequent, and the team was questioned often on the road to Mutare from the capital, Harare.

They arrived in Mutare (pictured above) with 38 suitcases of supplies for the local government, schools and hospitals. They met the 19-member city council, all newly elected members of the opposition, and Mayor Brian James, a white Zimbabwean elected by the otherwise all-black council to lead the city.

A former farmer who had his land confiscated by the state, James had been accused of trying to assassinate Mugabe, but was freed from jail after a week for lack of evidence, Raglione says. At one point he was beaten and doused with diesel. But he escaped being killed.

"He was probably the most remarkable person I've ever met in my life," Raglione says. "It was just so clear that the opposition is clearly in control of the city of Mutare, and that there is so much support for what they are trying to do."

The Portland delegation found a city unable to provide basic services because of a lack of money and fuel. But the newly elected government was already using 22 used computers that had been donated from the city of Portland.

James told the delegation what his government needs most is training in how to manage the city. Raglione would like to see Portland send a team to teach them, or invite them here for training. But she rejected giving money, along the lines of the Moscow mayor's foreign policy.

"I just don't think it's an appropriate use of Portland taxpayer money to be funneling it to another government or another continent," Raglione says.

Still, she says, "The city of Portland and the community of Portland are loved in Mutare."