Blair hits back at Mugabe
2002-09-03 18:11
Sedgefield, England- British Prime Minister Tony Blair hit back at Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe on Tuesday, accusing him of talking "rubbish about neo-colonialism" which most other African leaders would reject.
Blair told a news conference Mugabe's was a "corrupt and ruinous" regime which was harming the poor people of Zimbabwe more than anyone else.
Mugabe used a speech to the Earth Summit in Johannesburg on Monday to attack Britain - the former colonial power - and to lambast Blair for opposing his programme of land reform.
"We have not asked for any inch of Europe or any square inch of that territory so, Blair, keep your England and let me keep my Zimbabwe," Mugabe said in his speech to the Earth Summit.
But Blair dismissed Mugabe as a minority voice.
"The vast majority of African leaders would totally dissociate themselves from what he said on Monday," Blair told a news conference in Sedgefield, his parliamentary constituency in northeast England.
"And this rubbish about neo-colonialism, that is just a cloak, a cover, for what is a corrupt and ruinous regime."
Blair said what Mugabe was doing in Zimbabwe was a "terrible, terrible tragedy" for a nation which could be one of the richest in southern Africa, but whose population was instead facing food shortages and potential famine.
Blair blasted by Nujoma
Blair has also come under fire in recent days from Namibian President Sam Nujoma - a key Mugabe ally - who on Tuesday accused Britain of enslaving the people of Africa and sucking the wealth out of their countries.
"In the first place you enslaved us," Nujoma told BBC radio. "On top of that you colonised us. You took all our wealth and you built up your country and you made Africa poorer."
Nujoma said African nations could turn against the EU, slapping embargoes on the export of raw materials to Europe in retaliation for sanctions placed on the Zimbabwean leadership.
"If the EU does not lift the sanctions against Zimbabwe, the whole African union will also impose economic sanctions against Europe. Either there is peace or war, and we don't want a war," he said. "Change your attitudes. If you don't change, we are going to get you."
The European Union clamped personal sanctions on Mugabe and his inner circle after elections in March, citing governance, human rights and land issues.