Mugabe issues warning to Bush
Embattled President Robert Mugabe warned US President George W Bush on the eve of his Africa visit that if he is coming to dictate what should happen in Zimbabwe, he should go just home.
Addressing a rally of ruling party supporters in the south of the country, Mugabe criticised the Bush administration which has been increasingly critical of his authoritarian rule and have urged him to work with the opposition to pull Zimbabwe out of its economic and political crisis.
“If Mr Bush is coming to seek cooperation, then he is welcome, but if he is coming to dictate what we should do, then we will say: Go back home, Yankee,” Mugabe was quoted as telling supporters by the state-run Sunday Mail.
Mugabe has repeatedly accused Britain and the United States of backing the opposition Movement for Democratic Change in what he says is a bid to oust him.
The opposition blames Mugabe for plunging Zimbabwe into three years of political violence and chaos. They say state-orchestrated human rights violations have only compounded the nation’s worst economic crisis since Mugabe led the nation to independence in 1980.
Mugabe told supporters on Saturday in the Chivi district, 220 miles south of Harare, that Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair were responsible for human rights abuses in Iraq, the Sunday Mail reported.
He said they should stand before the International Court of Justice on charges of genocide in Iraq.
On Thursday, Mugabe acknowledged the US focus on Zimbabwe and Bush’s visit to neighbouring South Africa coupled with American economic and diplomatic leverage in the region had made some of his ruling party colleagues jittery.
“When Bush visits here it should not send tremors to your nerves ... he would not dare to try what he did to Iraq. He knows the situation is different. After all, we do not have oil here,” Mugabe told his Zanu-PF party’s 125-member central committee.
US Secretary of State Colin Powell has called for an end to Mugabe’s 23-year rule.
Zimbabwe is suffering its worst economic crisis since independence, with record inflation of more than 300%, mass unemployment and acute shortages of food, gasoline, medicines and other essential imports.
A state programme to seize thousands of white-owned farms in the name of equitable land redistribution has crippled the agriculture-based economy.
Investment and foreign aid has been largely come to a halt in protest at human rights abuses and disputed presidential elections last year that gave Mugabe another six-year term in office.
Britain, the EU and the United States have refused to recognise the election that independent observers said was swayed by political violence, corruption and vote rigging.
Two national anti-government strikes called by the opposition have further dented the economy this year. Last month, opposition-led street protests were crushed by a massive show of force before they could begin.
