Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe on Thursday told his supporters not to be cowed by a visit by US President George Bush next week to neighbouring South Africa and Botswana, state television reported.
The Zimbabwe government has stepped up criticism of the US government ahead of Bush’s visit, accusing it of working with the main opposition party in Zimbabwe to organise a ”regime change” in the southern African country.
US Secretary of State Colin Powell has called for Mugabe to leave office, and has said that Zimbabwe will feature prominently in Bush’s talks with South African President Thabo Mbeki on July 8-9.
”When Bush visits [the region] it shouldn’t send tremors to your spines. I understand there are shivers in some of our circles,” Mugabe told a central committee meeting of his Zimbabwe African National Union -Patriotic Front (Zanu-PF) party.
The Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC) showed Mugabe telling the meeting that Zimbabwe had neither oil nor weapons of mass destruction to warrant US intervention in the country.
”Would he [Bush] dare to do to us what he did in Iraq?” Mugabe said in a humorous tone. ”Of course not. He knows that the situations are different,” the 79-year old leader told senior party officials.
”And anyway we don’t have the oil that Iraq does, nor have we the weapons of mass destruction. But we host here close on to 100 000 whites,” he said, referring to the white minority.
The Zimbabwe government often accuses Western governments of putting the interests of their white ”kith and kin” in the country ahead of the black majority.
The US government does not recognise Mugabe’s victory in presidential elections last year, in which he beat opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai by more than 400 000 votes.
At the Zanu-PF meeting, Mugabe accused both Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair of being ”conspirators against this country”.
”Their conspiracies should never be allowed to succeed and we are glad Africans oppose that. We will not brook foreign interference in our internal affairs,” he said.
Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai said his party welcomed Bush’s visit to neighbouring South Africa and any foreign initiatives on Zimbabwe.
”The MDC welcomes, and fervently supports, all regional, continental and international efforts designed to chart a peaceful course toward the resolution of the crisis of governance in Zimbabwe,” he said. – Sapa-AFP, Sapa-AP