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Zambia: Mbeki Dead Wrong About Mwanawasa
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Business Day (Johannesburg)
4 July 2008
Posted to the web 4 July 2008
Hopewell Radebe
Johannesburg
UNCONFIRMED reports of the death of Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa yesterday led to red faces in the southern African region, and acute embarrassment for President Thabo Mbeki who held a minute's silence in Pretoria.
A solemn Mbeki asked for the silence to be observed for Mwanawasa, as well as local struggle veterans Brian Bunting and Joe Nhlanhla at a ceremony in remembrance of victims of the recent xenophobic violence.
"A few days ago, we lost one of the struggle veterans, Brian Bunting; yesterday we lost Joe Nhlanhla, and this morning the executive director of SADC (the Southern African Development Community) called me to say Levy Mwanawasa has passed away in Paris. I would like us to observe a moment of silence."
But a few hours later, foreign affairs said there had been a misunderstanding and that Mbeki now wished Mwanawasa a speedy recovery.
"The government has been informed that President Mwanawasa has not passed on."
The blunder appeared to result from information Mbeki got from the executive secretary of SADC , Tomaz Salomão, who apparently confirmed the death.
Yesterday, Radio 702 was quoted reporting the death of Mwanawasa, 59, a critic of Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe and chairman of the SADC. He suffered a stroke in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, earlier this week during the African Union summit and was later admitted to a hospital in Paris.
After news wire services quoted the Radio 702 report, Zambian Vice-President Rupiah Banda denied the death, saying the ailing statesman was in "a stable condition" in a Paris hospital. "The president had a satisfactory night at the Percy military hospital in France. The news reports ... are not true."
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Journalists at a briefing of the SADC council for NGOs also observed a moment of silence.
Get well soon, our beloved President, we are praying for you. Zambians need you. We don't want to end up like Zimbabwe where you can't know whether they are going forward or backward. God be with you.
Indeed it should have a big embarrassment for South Afriacan President Thabo Mbeki! But I think Mbeki can not be blamed because he was purely misimformed. No one can wish another human being dead especially looking at the good relationship that exist between President Mwanawasa and himself Thabo Mbeki. Therefore, the Zambaian Government should understand and sympathise with him. VIVA Thabo Mbeki and quick and speedy recovery to my President Mwanawasa. We want you back home alive.
Samuel Kangwa, Zambia Forestry College, Kitwe.
Yes It sure was a big embarrassment for Mbeki. My problem with him is that like other Presidents who first consulted the Zambian government, he should have done so rather than start oberving minute of silence. Like the Zim radio and TV station they were celebrating or is it gloating. Remember Mbeki rushed to China or is it Japan without having even visited the victims of Xenophobia.
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