 Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe is solidly in power and the world is misled on the crisis prevailing in the country, President Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal has said after a two-day visit to Harare. "We are misled on (the situation in) Zimbabwe," he said on state television Thursday night on his return from Zimbabwe.
| "What're y'gonna believe? Me? Or your lying eyes?" |
He was there as part of efforts to mend broken ties between the southern African country and its former colonial ruler Britain.
| Senegal used to belong to La Belle France... |
Zimbabwe was doing well and led by Mugabe with the support of the rural population, Waded was quoted as saying, even if the country was going through "difficulties, like us (in Senegal), perhaps more. There is no threat to Mugabe's power right now, and those who believe that he will be deposed one moment or another, are mistaken. They are totally mistaken."
| I thought the problem was that he hadn't been deposed, and that there aren't any prospects of deposing him. But maybe that's just me. |
Mugabe, 83, in power for the past 27 years, and the only independent leader the country has known, accuses the Britain of trying to effect a regime change in the country, which is now in its eighth year of recession. Critics have accused Mugabe of stifling basic freedoms and political opposition and blamed his policies for Zimbabwe's economic meltdown.
| He's kinda the textbook case for the evil pseudo-Marxist kleptocrat. |
Zimbabwe's economy has shrunk by a third, inflation is running at around 8,000 percent -- the world's highest -- and at least 80 percent of the population lives below the poverty threshold.
| The same percentage is in fact reported to be unemployed. |
But Mugabe has blamed the country's economic woes on drought and the imposition of targeted sanctions by Western nations on himself and members of his inner circle.
| If the sanctions are targeted at the ruling circle's personal fortunes, why's the rest of the country imploding? That doesn't make any sense. |
Wade joined the chorus of southern African leaders calling for an array of targetted sanctions imposed by the West on Mugabe and his inner circle to be lifted.
| "They've suffered enough!" |
The sanctions, which include a travel ban and the freezing of bank accounts, were imposed following allegations that he rigged his re-election in 2002. Britain, the prime instigator of the sanctions, has made it clear that it did not want Mugabe to attend the European Union-Africa summit due next week in Portugal. Since Mugabe has said he will be there, no senior British government minister will attend the summit. |