Mugabe launches new tirade
2004-02-24 11:55
Harare - President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe on Monday slammed "the majority" of his counterparts in Africa, saying they had succumbed to Western influence and turned against African causes.
Mugabe said that a few militant leaders reminiscient of former staunch nationalists remained, "but the majority have gone the Western way".
"Western philosophy is what is guiding them. They are oriented towards the West, not oriented towards Africa, towards their own people, not nationalistic in the true sense of the word.
"They are listening to the enemy, they are being dictated to by the enemy and it's a pity," he said during an interview aired on state television.
Mugabe said some of his neighbours "continue to be revolutionary to a very great extent, but even in some of them we are seeing now that Western influence is seeping in and trying to get them to reverse the revolutionary course which they had adopted earlier on".
He singled out Nigeria for having given in to the white Commonwealth pressure on the decision taken against Zimbabwe at the last December Commonwealth summit in Abuja.
Mugabe pulled Zimbabwe out of the Commonwealth, an organisation of mainly former British colonies, after the summit, where it prolonged the southern African country's suspension from the grouping.
In a bid to get African countries to continue to resist the Western imperialistic tendencies, Mugabe said Zimbabwe was planning to host a forum of former liberation movements in the country sometime this year.
He expressed gratitude to southern African leaders who stood by his country at the Commonwealth summit last year.
"We were happy about their stance... of supporting Zimbabwe.
"(But) the others, well,... we say sorry.... Sorry to Nigeria for having adopted that stance, but they are our brothers and we can't be seen to be condemning them," Mugabe said.
He said there were "two or three African countries in the Commonwealth... they are 'yes' people, those who salute the West. It's just again leadership which has no confidence in itself," he said in an interview to mark his 80th birthday on Saturday, February 21.
Mugabe faces an economic meltdown in his own country which has been blamed on labd reform policies, corruption and profligate spending by him and his political allies.
Mugabe has also been criticised internationally for implementing draconian new press restrictions.
Aid agencies report starvation in some parts of Zimbabwe, especially in areas where the opposition Movement for Democratic Change enjoys support.
- AFP