Mugabe mansion row simmers
2004-05-27 07:21
Kuala Lumpur - A political row brewed in Malaysia on Thursday over claims that the government is partially funding the construction of a lavish $8.9m mansion for Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe.
Mugabe, in a recent interview with Britain's Sky News television, denied that the 25-bedroom mansion near Harare was being financed by Zimbabwean taxpayers, saying the Malaysian and Chinese governments were providing partial funding.
Malaysian opposition party leaders and rights groups expressed outrage at Malaysia's reported support for Mugabe, who is accused of having ruined his country economically and impoverished his people.
Opposition leader Lim Kit Siang of the Democratic Action Party said Mugabe's statement was "shocking".
"I call on the government to issue a ministerial statement as we want to know whether we have secretly and unlawfully funded the 25-bedroom mansion," he said.
A local corruption watchdog, the Kuala Lumpur Society for Transparency and Integrity, said the government "owes it to its people to confirm or deny Mugabe's assertion.
"If true, the government must explain why it funded such a luxury for a political head reputed to be a dictator," its deputy president Param Cumaraswamy said in a statement.
"Zimbabwe is in serious political and economic disorder. The unemployment rate exceeds 70%. Agricultural output has been so ravaged that Zimbabwe now has the highest number of citizens starving to death in Africa," he said.
Mugabe's government has come in for similar criticism from Western countries, which also accuse him of abuses of human rights and democracy.
Several Malaysian government officials questioned by reporters said they were unaware of the deal but would investigate.
"I have no information about that. I will check," Deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak was quoted saying by The Sun daily on Thursday.
Mugabe, who has ruled the southern African country for the past 24 years, did not disclose the exact sum involved or when the money had been channelled to him but said former Malaysian premier Mahathir Mohamad had also provided the timber for the structure.
Mahathir, who retired last October after 22 years in power, was an ally of Mugabe's, with the two men sharing a love of anti-Western rhetoric stoked by a history of British colonialism in both countries.
But while Zimbabwe's economy has suffered under Mugabe, Malaysia flourished under Mahathir, who turned it from a rubber and tin exporting country to a high-tech manufacturing powerhouse.