Cook tried to kill me - Mugabe

2004-02-21 15:35

Harare - During his lavish 80th birthday celebrations on Saturday, President Robert Mugabe revealed a recent suspected attempt to kill him by putting ground glass in his food.

Mugabe, in power since Zimbabwe's 1980 independence from Britain, told the state broadcaster during a special birthday interview a presidential cook had been questioned about the incident.

"I do not think it was anything to do with Western imperialism," Mugabe said. "Western imperialism is much more thorough than that. I think it was just some internal thing. Perhaps the cook was not happy. Bits of broken glass found themselves included in a meal. I do not want to say it was deliberate," Mugabe said.

"One has to be aware of the machinations of the West but I haven't come to a stage where I fear for my life yet," he said.

Bewitched

Speaking in Shona, Mugabe said the cook may have been "bewitched" into perpetrating the incident.

He did not say whether he was harmed or if it took place at the presidential complex in Harare or his rural mansion at Kutama, his birthplace 80km west of the capital.

Last month Mugabe flew to South Africa amid reports he needed urgent medical attention for vomiting fits. This was vehemently denied by his officials.

Kutama was the scene of celebrations on Saturday attended by ruling Zanu-PF party dignitaries from throughout the country and its youth league, named the "21st February Movement" in honour of the day.

Proceedings began with a Roman Catholic church service.

The government controlled daily, The Herald, carried a 12-page supplement of birthday congratulations messages, many from public corporations teetering on the verge of bankruptcy in Zimbabwe's current economic crisis.

One advertisement was taken by the national airline, which recently failed to pay international creditors. Another was by the prisons department, which cannot afford to feed the 28 000 inmates of Zimbabwe's overcrowded jails.

Mugabe rejected suggestions he might step down before the end of his current six-year presidential term in 2008.

The opposition Movement for Democratic Change has rejected the 2002 poll amid international observers' reports of widespread intimidation and vote rigging.

'Not in the habit of surrendering'

"I have not been in the habit of surrendering at all," he said. "In five years I will be here, still boxing, writing a lot, reading quite a lot, and still in politics. I won't leave politics but I will have retired, obviously," Mugabe said.

At a ruling party congress in December when he announced Zimbabwe's exit from the Commonwealth, he silenced debate on a successor.

Asked about President Thabo Mbeki's announcement that formal talks were under way with the opposition on resolving Zimbabwe's crisis, Mugabe said he was unwilling to speak to "those who are going to destroy our economy".

MDC secretary general Welshman Ncube confirmed: "Formal negotiations have not started."

- AP