Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe on Sunday prepared to celebrate his 81st birthday, launching a fresh attack on British Prime Minister Tony Blair and hitting out at his sacked information minister Jonathan Moyo.
Mugabe, who turns 81 on Monday, also described the relationship between the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) and former colonial ruler Britain as ”treasonous”, in a 90-minute interview on state television.
”That’s the worst betrayal there can ever be, its treasonous, condemnable. You can’t eat with the enemy,” he said.
”You can never ever convince an Englishman that you are equal to him, never, never. He is always superior, it doesn’t matter what circumstances, it doesn’t matter what education, it doesn’t matter what power, you are always inferior.”
Without mentioning him by name, Mugabe inferred that Moyo, whom he fired from the information ministry at the weekend, was overly ambitious for trying to ”arbitrarily” uproot the old guard in the ruling Zanu-PF and government.
Moyo, Mugabe’s chief propagandist over the past five years, got the sack after he decided to run in parliamentary elections next month as an independent candidate.
”Democracy is rules, you cannot operate without rules, you must recognise how people together can share power,” he said in an interview recorded before he sacked Moyo.
Asked what he would do if he was to meet Blair, Mugabe said he would accuse him of being a liar.
”I would tell him that he, Tony Blair, is a liar, straightforwardly, that on Zimbabwe he has lied, on Iraq he has lied.
”At least those are the two principal lies, there are other small insignificant lies he has told I wouldn’t know.”
Mugabe accused Blair of falsely claiming that Zimbabwe is undemocratic, lacks transparency and the rule of law.
”That’s a lie and he knows he is telling a lie, it’s a deliberate lie, it’s damnable.”
Asked if he was not running away from issues at home by adopting an ”anti-Blair” theme for his party’s electoral campaign, Mugabe said Blair had interfered with Zimbabwe’s domestic affairs through his ”agent” the MDC.
”We are saying Blair has interfered with our economy, Blair has intefered with our system of government, Blair has interfered with our right of sovereignty … by projecting lies about Zimbabwe.”
Mugabe charged that Blair has used the difference between London and Harare over Zimbabwe’s controversial land reforms ”to try and ruin our relations with the rest of Europe”.
He accused Blair of interfering ”with the progress in our economy by urging those countries not only to impose personal sanctions, but privately not to invest in Zimbabwe, not to assist Zimbabwe technically and financially”.
The European Union has since 2002 imposed travel bans on Mugabe and his inner circle, leading Harare to bar the European Union and the United States from observing next month’s elections.
”I am Robert Mugabe with my own beliefs, my own likes and dislikes, but I espouse definite political principles, the principle of sovereignty, that the people of Zimbabwe must be free … that we must be respected as an African people,” was the
president’s final message to the Western media. – Sapa-AFP