PRIME Minister Morgan Tsvangirai privately urged Western countries to maintain sanctions against Zimbabwe while publicly appearing to back calls for their removal, leaked cables from the US’ Harare embassy have shown.

In the latest batch of US diplomatic cables to be leaked by the whistle-blowing website, Wikileaks, Tsvangirai is said to have admitted in private meetings with US and European ambassadors accredited to Harare that his approach on the sanctions issue was beginning to “cause problems”.

The Prime Minister has publicly called for the removal of sanctions and, in March this year, told the visiting Danish Minister for Development Cooperation, Soren Pind: “We want the sanctions removed.”

However, the Wikileaks revelations suggest the MDC-T leader may have been speaking with a forked tongue.

In a December 24, 2009, cable sent to Washington, Ambassador Charles Ray, reports that Tsvangirai had conceded during their meeting that “his public statements calling for easing of sanctions versus his private conversations saying they must be kept in place have caused problems”.

The PM appeared to change tack as GPA talks between Zanu PF and the MDC formations teetered on the brink of collapse. Zanu PF insisted it would not make further concessions on the so-called outstanding issues until the sanctions were removed.

The Prime Minister then urged the US and the European Union to come up with “some kind of concrete roadmap that all can agree on, linking easing of sanctions with identifiable and quantifiable progress”.

He added that: “If necessary, he and Mutambara (could) quietly meet with Western leadership to develop a plan on the issue of sanctions”.

Tsvangirai also told the ambassadors he was considering ways of controlling President Robert Mugabe who, despite being “mentally acute” appeared “old and very tired”.

“Tsvangirai said his goal now is to find a way to ‘manage’ Mugabe himself. One way perhaps,” Ambassador Ray wrote.

Ray, however, expressed skepticism over the Prime Minister’s plans noting: “We are … worried a bit at what appears to be naivete on Tsvangirai's part.”