FORMER coloniser Britain and her allies came within a whisker of declaring war against Zimbabwe to rid the country of President Robert Mugabe as relations hit an all-time low, the veteran leader claimed Thursday.
Once a darling of the West, Mugabe fell out of favour with his erstwhile friends after he embarked on a land redistribution program meant to redress colonial imbalances.
But the programme was often violent and claimed the lives of both commercial white farmers and black labourers who sought to resist the move.
In his key-note address to the ruling Zanu PF party’s congress currently underway in the capital, Mugabe said the West has sought and still seeks to divide and topple his party and government.
He said his deputy, Joice Mujuru, who is now facing allegations of seeking to topple the 90-year-old leader, had become the latest conduit for the regime change agenda following the failure of the opposition.
“They have tried every trick in the book just short of war which they have contemplated at some stage,” said Mugabe.
“They created well-heeled opposition against us; that opposition has now fallen. They sought and still seek to divide us; that too has failed. They attacked our economy, attacked our currency.
“(But) we have conceived strategies which have exposed to them the futility of those spiteful measures. They sought to isolate us, even mobilizing multi-lateral institutions against us, even blocking trade between us and other nations”.
The Zanu PF leader then turned on Mujuru, accusing her of joining the regime change bandwagon.
“What boggles the mind is why anyone claiming to be cadre of the struggle, cooked the crucible struggle, would hobnob with such politics,” he said.
“Why? Why? Why? We raise you in the struggle, grant you leadership, build your stature, and impart consequence to your person, often against your intrinsic worth. Instead of recognizing all these efforts, you turn against the party and president!
“Today the people reject you, spit you out, and push you into the arms of the very opposition you sided with. I never thought a true cadre of the revolution would decay to that level.”
Not done, the Zimbabwean strongman continued: “When you desert your own comrades …
“… desert the ideals of your own revolution, abandon principles that mobilised you for the struggle, commit infamy of joining quislings, you suffer fate of quislings. The people will reject you.”
Mujuru has not attended the congress thus far and looks set to be on her way out of a party that she has been a member of since her teens when she joined the liberation struggle in the 70s.
She is joined on the side-lines by other veterans of the brutal bush war Didymus Mutasa and Rugare Gumbo. Also out of favour is cabinet colleague Nicholas Goche along with several other leaders, among them nine provincial chairpersons.
Mugabe said the West had now turned to blackmailing his government by withholding mineral earnings due to Zimbabwe.
“They hold our earnings which they have impounded, buccaneer style. Is there international law anymore we ask? But we have remained unflinching, undaunted.
“Now Europe seeks peace with us to re-establish friendship with us,” said Mugabe, inviting Europe and the rest of the western world to “come let us be friends again”.
“As before, we tell Europe; we have been more sinned against as sinning. We have always sought amity and friendship with all nations great or small, black white brown or yellow.
“We have not even sought to hit back at Britain, much as it has assets here. Well, let them come if they want friendship.
“But it has to be on terms that you recognise our sovereign right to exist as an independent African enjoying equal status accorded to all nations under the UN Charter.”
However, while some countries in the European Union wanted to improve relations, Britain still seeks to perpetuate the stand-off for political expediency.
“We are aware of a small cabal of European nations predictably led by the United Kingdom and joined by the United States of America which still opposes a normalization of relations with us,” said Mugabe.
“In the case of the United Kingdom this has something to do with their pending elections. Zimbabwe’s fate must wait while the sons of Albion choose a new Government! What rank madness!
“As for the United States of America we honestly do not know what grievance she holds against us. I doubt even if Obama (Barack US president) understands that grievance, whatever it is.
“I suppose in his case it has to do with being a black President in a White House, a virtual prisoner enjoined to pander to and dutifully mind white interests.
“He retires from office with an African curse this man from whom so much was expected by our continent.”
