Bush's stance on Mugabe, a 'diplomatic flute'
ZIMBABWE: Zimbabwe's government on Tuesday slammed US President
George Bush's government's declaration of loss of confidence in
President Robert Mugabe as a "diplomatic flute" by an outgoing
administration.
"We have no time for US President George W. Bush's diplomatic flute.
We are talking about an administration whose sun has set. Why bother?,"
Mugabe's spokesman George Charamba said, according to state-run The
Herald newspaper.
United States top US envoy for Africa, Jendayi Frazer, said Sunday in
South African capital Pretoria that Zimbabwe's power-sharing deal could
not work with Mugabe as president.
"We have lost confidence in the power-sharing deal being a success
with Mugabe in power. He has lost touch with reality," said Frazer, US
assistant secretary of state for African affairs.
Frazer was in the South African capital to consult with regional
leaders about the deteriorating political and economic crises in
Zimbabwe, now also in the grip of a cholera epidemic that has already
claimed more than 1,120 lives.
Mugabe is "completely discredited" and southern African leaders now
want to know "how do they facilitate a return to democracy without
creating a backlash like a military coup or some sort of civil war," she
said. The newspaper quoted Mugabe as describing Frazer as a "little
girl" who was out of touch with reality in Zimbabwe and the rest of the
world.
"There is this little girl called Jendayi Frazer. She was in South
Africa recently making all sorts of noises. She thinks that Africans are
idiots, litle kids who cannot think for themselves," Mugabe, 84, was
quoted as saying last week in Bindura last week while opening his ruling
ZANU-PF national conference.
Harare also has harsh words for the British government which has
asked Mugabe to go.
Charamba said that Gordon Brown's administration was also on its way
out in Britain and that the prime minister was trying to gain relevance
back home through "posturing" on Zimbabwe, the newspaper said.
Harare, Tuesday, AFP |
