Mugabe claims victory over UK in Lisbon summit row

Mugabe claims victory over UK in Lisbon summit row

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By MacDonald Dzirutwe

PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe said on Tuesday British efforts to isolate Zimbabwe were crumbling after London failed to have him excluded from an EU-Africa summit.

Mugabe, who has ruled Zimbabwe for nearly three decades since independence, will attend the Lisbon summit on December 8-9. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown plans to boycott the meeting in protest over Mugabe's record on human rights and the economy.

"The sinister campaign led by Britain to isolate us, indeed in the recent attempt to bar us from attending the European Union-Africa summit soon to be hosted by Portugal, continues to disintegrate," Mugabe said in a televised address to parliament.

"I wish to thank the European Union and African countries for their support and the Portuguese government who are hosting the European Union-Africa summit for their correct reading of the situation," Mugabe said.

He also thanked "our brothers and sisters for their solidarity with us in the face of sustained manipulation and arm-twisting manoeuvres cunningly spearheaded by Britain".

He added: "Let the message ring clearly to our detractors that as a sovereign nation we will not brook any interference in our domestic affairs."

Western governments accuse Mugabe of gross human rights violations and ruining Zimbabwe's once prosperous economy.

Some political commentators say Brown has handed Mugabe a propaganda victory by boycotting the summit.

"I think Gordon Brown is making a mistake," said Professor Eldred Masunungure, a professor of political science at the University of Zimbabwe. "He should go there not to confront Mugabe but to participate in a bigger agenda. He could contribute more meaningfully to the resolution of the Zimbabwean crisis by being there and extracting as many concessions as possible."

Masunungure believes that Mugabe is willing to retire, but only on his own terms and "with his tail up".

"That's one reason why he is so keen on attending the Lisbon summit," he said. "For him and his lieutenants that's a major victory.

"The West, principally the US and UK, mostly they have insisted on him leaving with his tail between his legs and it was a major tactical error. That's never going to work given the psychological make-up of Robert Mugabe."

Ibbo Mandaza, the executive chairman of the Sapes Trust, a Harare-based thinktank, and a well-connected member of the ruling Zanu-PF party, said Mugabe's presence in Lisbon, and Brown's absence, would only bolster his "exaggerated self-importance".

"Initially the threat shook the edifice but now it has projected Mugabe's image, especially as the British didn't have the wherewithal to follow through," he said.

The United States said on Monday it would impose financial and travel sanctions on about 40 more people with ties to his government.

Mugabe said the further travel and financial sanctions planned by the United States were vindictive and driven by hatred of his government.

Washington has already imposed sanctions on about 130 people with links to Mugabe, and the plan is to expand that list by placing financial restrictions on about half a dozen more people and US travel bans on an additional three dozen.

"Well, they are obviously sanctions that have no rationality and sanctions that are vindictive," Mugabe told journalists as he left parliament after delivering his speech.

"So you just have to look at them in that light, that the Americans have no cause. Their cause is just hatred, hatred of us and I would like to believe that there is some racialism in it also," Mugabe said.

While Western powers have tried to isolate Mugabe, many Africans see the 83-year-old as a hero of the independence struggle who is still resisting Anglo-American hegemony. - Reuters/Staff Reporter

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