Mugabe says Mbeki's resignation was devastating

PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe who is currently attending the 63rd Session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York has described the resignation of President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa as devastating.

Speaking to reporters yesterday after his meeting with the President of Mozambique Armando Guebuza held on the sidelines of the ongoing debate President Mugabe said, "It's devastating news that President Thabo Mbeki is no longer the President of South Africa but that is the action of the South African people. “

He warned against making any judgment about what had transpired in South Africa.

“Who are we to judge (the South Africans)? But it is very disturbing,” the President said.

President Mugabe also praised Mbeki for his efforts in brokering an agreement between the two MDC formations and his ruling Zanu PF party.

Asked whether outgoing President Mbeki will continue with mediation efforts, President Mugabe said the mandate was given by the Southern African Development Community and they were in a better position to make that decision and that President Mbeki’s efforts were based on his experience in mediation efforts elsewhere on the African continent and has been "quite excellent."

"There is a man who has been in the seat for so many years as the father of the African National Congress and democracy in one stroke pulls him down," President Mugabe said of Mbeki. "Democracy without morality is no democracy for all."

The president also dismissed reports that the September 11 power-sharing agreement was in jeopardy “because I don't know of any hitch” and said he hopes the agreement will lead the West to ease sanctions responsible for devastating the country's economy.

"Every one of us is actually positive about the agreement, or the need to cement the agreement and make it work," Mugabe said.

"I don't see any reason why we can't work together as Zimbabweans," he said. "We are all sons of the soil, as we say, and the differences arise purely from own conceptions of what Zimbabwe should be and what the government of Zimbabwe should be."

President Mugabe said although the Movement for Democratic Change was a creation of the West, the real fight was between Zimbabwe and Britain.

"At the moment, the fight between us has been one between Britain and ourselves — Britain, of course, using as their front the opposition," Mugabe said. "So the British and the Americans, they've got to be reconciled to us."

President Mugabe also attacked the West for trying to effect regime change in Zimbabwe and jokingly said that he had no thought of dying.

"They are waiting for a day when this man, this evil man, called Robert Mugabe is no longer in control," he said. "And I don't know when that day is coming."

Asked whether he had any thought of resigning he jokingly responded: “No — or a thought of dying,"

He also said the West should remove its “demonic” sanctions against Zimbabwe adding that they were an instrument of regime change in the country.

"We don't expect investment from countries that are hostile," Mugabe said. "They can keep their investment, but we would hope in the first place that sanctions would be lifted. There is no reason for imposing sanctions on Zimbabwe at all. There has never been any reason for it, you see, except hostility."


TZG/AP/