SEKAI HOLLAND, MDC INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS SECRETARY: In the situation we are in right now, my job is to develop policy. Having developed policy with my committee, we make recommendations to the executive. We recommended to the executive that we needed another public relations company to do Washington, Canada, and the Americas for us. We had not yet been advised of whether that had been achieved as an executive.

MARK DAVIS: So when you say you were not yet advised to...

SEKAI HOLLAND: It was in the process.

MARK DAVIS: Until very recently you became aware of Dickens and Madson, or you became aware of it last year?

SEKAI HOLLAND: We knew talks were going on...

MARK DAVIS: With Dickens and Madson, yeah?

SEKAI HOLLAND: ..but we didn`t know what the result was going to be.

MARK DAVIS: What is the - in your view, what is the reputation of Dickens and Madson and, of course, one of its principals, Ari Ben Menashe.

SEKAI HOLLAND: Well, fortunately for us, the international press has come up with a lot of information that Ben Menashe is a fraudster and a trickster and a liar. So, we know that now, but I am sure that you know yourself that even before the tapes were released, Tsvangirai had discovered that for himself, because of the manner in which they were trying to divert the discussion from being a lobby group and doing lobby work to other scenarios.

MARK DAVIS: And would you agree it takes about five minutes to establish what the reputation of Dickens and Madson is and the reputation of Ari Ben Menashe?

SEKAI HOLLAND: For whom though? Tsvangirai is a trade unionist - he`s only been a political leader since September 1999 - and the MDC as a whole, including myself, are in the process of learning through the school of, you know, hard knocks, which is the political playing field, so Morgan Tsvangirai is a trade unionist leader and MDC is trade unionist-based. We are going to meet more fraudsters, more tricksters, but we are better-educated now. Yes, we should have done more scrutinising, we didn`t - we are learning from that. And I think it is to Morgan`s credit that even though that video looked so bad and the voice is so terrible, he has said, "Yes, I went to Canada, yes, I went to London," and he`s told us the exact number of meetings. A politician would have said, "No, that`s not me, no, I never went to Canada, I never went to London." That should go to Morgan`s credit. Your whole approach with this video in Zimbabwe is a huge diversion to what Zimbabweans right now want to talk about, which is that people are starving to death in a country which was a bread basket for the region. People have to face HIV/AIDS, people have to face state-sponsored violence for Mugabe to prevent having an election, which he doesn`t want, and that MDC from day one, when we were formed, said, "We want to have elections as a way of change." That`s what Zimbabweans want to talk about, not this thing, which is a scam. And our belief in Zimbabwe is that this whole thing comes from Mugabe himself. It`s part of his international campaign, local campaign, to divert attention from what is really going on. That`s how we view this.

MARK DAVIS: Have you seen... Alright, look, let`s...

SEKAI HOLLAND: So I really want us to come on to debate issues in Zimbabwe. I have no real interest in the video, because in Zimbabwe, to tell you the truth, people just dismissed it, and they`re still dismissing it now.

MARK DAVIS: Okay. Don`t you believe it`s pertinent if your leader is involved in a meeting with men who are openly discussing murdering the President. He remains for an hour-and-a-half, engages in that discussion, confirms that discussion, and indeed then goes into extensive discussion about using the army to install the MDC into power after the death of the president?

SEKAI HOLLAND: There is absolutely no evidence in the two videos I was shown last night as the ones that have been shown on SBS, that Morgan at any point discussed assassination. Those words have never come out of Morgan`s mouth.

MARK DAVIS: He says `elimination`.

SEKAI HOLLAND: `Elimination` is a political term that is used by politicians after a race. If you lose the election you`re eliminated. That`s how I understand it. That`s how Zimbabweans understand it. We have no evidence up till now that Morgan engaged in anything like that. We have none.

MARK DAVIS: Madam, if you have any uncertainty about the context of those comments, I`m more than prepared to show you the tape preceding those comments. We`ve already aired them. The comments preceding the comments that Tsvangirai make are absolutely about killing Mugabe.

SEKAI HOLLAND: We haven`t seen anything like that at all. I would also like to say in Zimbabwe what we did have was a transcript, not a video of these things, and looking at the video, I am sure if Zimbabweans saw that, they would even be more convinced that this whole thing is rubbish, because Menashe, as we are being told by everybody, is a liar, a fraudster and a trickster. So that`s why we have this.

MARK DAVIS: And you engage him, your senior executives engage him, knowing that it takes five minutes to establish the reputation of Ari Ben Menashe.

SEKAI HOLLAND: We are not going to go over that. I`ve already said, to us this is a scam, and it`s part of Mugabe`s engineering, internationally and locally, that Tsvangirai, the fifth opposition leader in 23 years, is trying to kill him. We don`t believe it. There is no evidence you have offered.

MARK DAVIS: In this case, there is a 1.5-hour video of a meeting. It is not in dispute what is being said.

SEKAI HOLLAND: It is in great dispute, because the video has been edited.

MARK DAVIS: Of course the video has been edited.

SEKAI HOLLAND: Five minutes of the footage there what Morgan is answering, the footage is actually done where the question comes later. So I`m just saying...

MARK DAVIS: As I say, you are welcome to see that video, you are welcome to see that video.

SEKAI HOLLAND: I don`t have the time, because I simply don`t believe your story from the footage that you have offered to everybody as what this story is. My task is to promote our presidential candidate, Morgan Tsvangirai.

MARK DAVIS: If it was proved to your satisfaction that Tsvangirai was involved in - if not an assassination attempt - in instigating or approving a plan to use the army to install the MDC before the election, would you still stand by him?

SEKAI HOLLAND: I know that what you have offered us shows us that there is no case to answer for Tsvangirai, so you are actually taking us up on another diversion of casting aspersions on our leader, and trying to get us to have doubts about his credibility as a leader.

MARK DAVIS: But you haven`t seen the video?

SEKAI HOLLAND: We have seen what you`ve offered to the public. We have seen that. I saw it yesterday, I saw it several times.

MARK DAVIS: Okay, alright, thanks for your time.

SEKAI HOLLAND: Thank you.