Harare — President Robert Mugabe yesterday dismissed rumours of ill-health, laughing off suggestions that he was dying of cancer and had recently suffered a stroke.
In an interview with Reuters at his official Zimbabwe House offices, Mugabe said he was surprised by speculation over his health, saying this had become a perennial issue and he hardly paid any serious attention to it.
"I don't know how many times I die, but nobody has ever talked about my resurrection," he said at the end of an hour-long interview.
"I suppose they don't want to, because it would mean they would mention my resurrection several times and that would be quite divine, an achievement for an individual who is not divine.
"Jesus died once, and resurrected only once, and poor Mugabe several times," he said, clapping his hands loudly, laughing and rocking in his chair.
He did not say whether he planned to stand in the next presidential ballot after his disputed re-election in 2008. Without getting into details on whether he had any serious health problems, Mugabe - who appeared fit and lively for his age - said only God could decide issues of life and death.
Although there have been reports over the last 10 years on Mugabe's health, the veteran leader has no publicly known serious ailment. "My time will come, but for now, 'no'. I am still fit enough to fight the sanctions and knock out (my opponents)," he said in reference to sanctions imposed on his Zanu PF party while former US President George Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair were in office.
"It is Bush who is out, Blair out, and the others are persons of no consequence any more. They are inheritors of a situation. These (Bush and Blair) were the major arch enemies, they are the ones who brought this on us."
Mugabe said Zimbabwe would continue to do its best even with sanctions in place. "God is there. He showers his blessings on us. We continue to discover a number of resources, platinum, diamonds and gold and uranium.
"Those are recent ones, perhaps others will be coming, we don't know. So God is not there for one nation, just for the Europeans, God is there for everybody, so God is great," Mugabe said.
Mugabe has been in power for Zimbabwe's 30 years of Independence from Britain since 1980. Although he was forced into a power-sharing government with his arch-rival Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai last year after a disputed re-election in 2008, he has said he may run for office again at the next election.
Mugabe said his government was waiting for positive movement from the US and the European Union to mend ties soured over the last decade by rows over the seizures of white-owned farms for landless blacks and charges of rights abuses and election fraud. "We never refuse to talk to anybody," he said when asked whether he was prepared to talk to Washington and Brussels.
"But what I don't understand about the Europeans and the Americans is the negative attitude. How do they expect the kind of cold war they decided to wage on us, how do they intend it to end?" Talks to improve ties with the EU have stalled over slow political reforms in Harare while US President Barack Obama said last month he was "heartbroken" by Zimbabwe's decline.
Mugabe - who last month told Western powers to go "to hell" over the sanctions - yesterday said: "They have imposed unjustified and illegal sanctions on us. The sanctions are comparable to the military aggression in Iraq."
Mugabe said some Western countries had hoped that sanctions on Zimbabwe would help push him out of power. "That kind of regime change is the exclusive right of the people of Zimbabwe ... I am born here and if my people want me to go, I go," he said. The 86-year-old leader said he hoped Obama and new British Prime Minister David Cameron and his deputy Nick Clegg would move to mend ties between Harare and the West.
"We are waiting to see what Cameron and Clegg will do and Obama also will do in regard to our situation and our relations," Mugabe said. "If they decide the relations should remain what they are, then we will know that they too are aggressors and not different from their predecessors, but we are giving them a chance."
Mugabe told Reuters that his government would proceed with a plan for local blacks to acquire 51% shares in foreign-owned firms, including mines and banks, despite criticism it will hurt investment flows into the country. "It has always been our aim to have control of our resources...and I don't think the private sectors of the Western countries would, in toto, decide to stay away," he said.
Mugabe says his policies are meant to correct colonial injustices and yesterday dismissed fears that the local ownership drive would be implemented haphazardly. He expressed frustration with Zimbabwean middle class blacks who criticise his empowerment plans to give them a stake in an economy in which the majority are workers and managers.
"We are saying to them you are like an eagle brought up among chickens, an eagle that doesn't know that it can do more than chickens and fly," he said.
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"Mugabe said his government was waiting for positive movement from the US and the European Union to mend ties soured over the last decade by rows over the seizures of white-owned farms for landless blacks and charges of rights abuses and election fraud. "We never refuse to talk to anybody," he said when asked whether he was prepared to talk to Washington and Brussels."
The point here being that the U.S. and the otherwise "evil" "West" have more patience than Bob's expected life-span...............
He can be as healthy as can be and "fight" the allegedly "illegal" "sanctions" as long as he continues to breathe and he will continue to "Totally Empower" Zimbabwe in the fashion Zimbabweans have now grown accustomed to........
Until he addresses the issues in the GPA, muzzles his CIO/JOC to civilian control and assures (by way of U.N. supervision) that any future "elections" really ARE "free and fair" - the SANCTIONS against him and his bootlickers will remain.
WE can wait MUCH longer than HE can............... the clock is ticking, he is an old man, every year that passes increases the odds of his passing, WE will be patient........ hopefully, after his passing, ZANU-Poof will read the tea leafs and see it's future in constructive opposition instead of destructive oppression!
"Total Empowerment!" - an empty phrase neither the Russians or Chinese or Cubans are willing to spout anymore............
Maggot is a liar. He says, "That kind of regime change is the exclusive right of the people of Zimbabwe ... I am born here and if my people want me to go, I go." But the people told him to go in the last election and he knows it. He lost the election but he refuses to go away and let new leaders repair the wreckage that he has wrought.
In fact, the personal sanctions on Maggot and his boys are there because he's used very dirty tricks to stay in power and probably lost every election since 2000. He's hardly democratic. He asks how it will end, but surely he knows that it will not end until the "regime change," known as a "democratic election," occurs, followed by a peaceful transition of power to the winners.
DL;
You together with your fellow retarded idiot, Juhlman, are just but stupid c...ts on here that people should just ignore. How can you say the people of Zimbabwe told the President to go when he did not lose the election of 29 March? The law, my friend is the law; it does not change simply because you want someone to go yesterday and simply because you hate them.
In Zimbabwe, just like in many democracies around the world - if you are Zimbabwean you should know this - the law says where there are more than two candidates in a presidential election, the winning candidate should obtain 50+1 votes to be confirmed. Tsvangirai did not get that. While it is true that he got more votes than President Mugabe, he did not make the grade for him to be declared president.
Why did you not question this same scenario when it happened in Liberia? Did the former football star not get more votes than the current lady president? Was it supposed to be automatic that simply because he got more votes in the first round then he was the winner? It does not work that way and it does not follow that the one who was ahead in the first round will maintain the lead position in the second round.
Many factors come into play when the two go for the re-run. Moreover if one of them decides, especially at the eleventh hour, to withdraw his or her candidature, it is not anyone's problem but the fool's. Tsvangirai did exactly that through advice from the CIA and MI6 who could see that he was going to lose the re-run and he has totally lost it.
Since when has Mugabe been fighting sanctions? Why does he even care? Three of the biggest economies in the world have no sanctions on him or his cronies; China, Russia and India. Why aren't they falling over each other to invest in and lend Zimbabwe money?
Besides, Mugabe doesn't need to be physically fit to fight sanctions or the opposition. Even if he were dead the JOC/CIO would tie strings to his lips and limbs and prop his corpse up against a podium and pretend he was still alive for as long as they could get away with it.
Mr zyphl.
"since when has Mugabe been fighting sanctions??? Three of the biggest economies Russia,China & India do not have sanctions on him/cronies"..
His Excellency The Honourable Cde Robert Gabriel Mugabe has been fighting sanctions since the day the British decided that they order more than 599 British owned companies in Zimbabwe to shut down. since the days the EU ordered more than 1500 companies to shut down! ...since the day WHITE COMMERCIAL FARMERS decided to (fucking snakes)with hold grain... since the day America decided to fine any American corporation or individual operating in Zimbabwe! ..since the day Morgan Tsvangirai called for violent removal of Mugabe! ... and lastly but not least...since the day you fell head first out of your mum's womb onto a pile of cow dung!
Russian,Indian and Chinese are currently the LARGEST investors in Zimbabwe right now! All this economic progress that's going on in Zimbabwe right now is a direct result of His Excellency the Honourable Cde Robert Gabriel Mugabe's "Look East" Policy! We are yet to see MDC backers invest in Zimbabwe! We all know that they have been and STILL ARE taking a "wait and see approach".. It's FACT!!
The question that begs to be answered is...WHAT EXACTLY HAS MDC DONE TO ATTRACT INVESTMENT??
Tsvangirai was recently invited to South Korea to receive an O'level/Matric certificate... and came back home LYING TO ZIMBABWEANS THAT HE HAD SIGNED A BILATERAL DEAL WITH SOUTH KOREA!! It later turned out that NO DEAL WAS SIGNED!! That's the closest he has ever got to attracting investors to Zimbabwe! IN HIS FUCKING DREAMS!
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