‘Shame on you, I am not dying’ – Mugabe

‘Shame on you, I am not dying’ – Mugabe – NewZimbabwe 07/04/2016

HARARE: President Robert Mugabe on Thursday accused potential successors for wishing him dead and told ruling Zanu PF supporters to unite against foreign enemies he said wanted to destroy the Southern African nation.

Africa’s oldest leader at 92 years, Mugabe has held power since independence from Britain in 1980 and says his heir must be chosen democratically and that his wife will not automatically inherit the role.

Mugabe told a meeting of about 10,000 veterans of Zimbabwe’s 1970s independence war that his frequent trips to Malaysia and Singapore had fed newspaper reports that he was ill and sometimes dying, stoking succession fights in Zanu PF.

“You then see a stampede now, they will be saying the president is dying. ‘I am not dying, shame on you’,” Mugabe said during the first ever such meeting with the veterans.

“I am there at the mercy of the people. If the people say no, go, I go. But if the people say no, we still want you, I stay on,” said Mugabe at a sports centre in Harare.

Thursday’s meeting came at a time of high tensions in Zanu PF as party officials position themselves for a post-Mugabe era.

Local media had reported the meeting could split Zanu PF, especially after Mugabe said last month the veterans had indicated they wanted him to retire.

Instead, veterans pledged their loyalty to Mugabe, but also presented a list of grievances and demands for top positions in government and state-owned firms, diplomatic posts and at least a fifth of all farmland and mining concessions.

The veterans, 30,000 in total, also want their monthly allowances increased from $260. But Mugabe said the government would only meet such demands if it had the resources.

The last time Mugabe caved into demands from veterans was on Nov. 14 1997 when the Zimbabwean dollar crashed by 72 percent after the government announced unbudgeted allowances for veterans. That day became known as ‘Black Friday’.

But without balance of payment support or foreign credit, Zimbabwe cannot afford such demands. It already runs its budget hand-to-mouth, leaving it with no money for infrastructure.

Mugabe has agreed to major reforms, such as compensation for evicted white farmers and a big reduction in public sector wages in a bid to woo back international lenders and to have part of its $8 billion in foreign debt cancelled.

Mugabe said Zimbabwe’s bad record with debtors was holding back potential funding from China, Japan and India.

“We have a disease in Zimbabwe where we just want to receive and forget that debts are supposed to be repaid. It’s a very bad culture,” said Mugabe in a monologue that lasted 90 minutes.

COMMENTS

WORDPRESS: 5
  • comment-avatar
    Piankhi 8 years ago

    Wow!!!! Whores? Really? I just look and observe the way my people treat each other. African people. We have no love for each other, no unity for each other, do not care about the next generate we bring to this earth. All my people do is act like animals of prey to each other. It seems the only thing that is important to my people is to acquire that green piece of paper call the dollar. The same dollar that has this pictures of slave owners on them, the same dollar that my people where sold into slavery over. The same piece of paper that your white oppressors have made you to become and worship in their image to mistreat each other and kill each other. We do nothing as African people but hurt each other, just as our former oppressors did. This is what the legacy of racism white supremacy has left us. And my people take that legacy and continue the madness amongst ourselves. My African people have become a willing participant in our own self destruction. It is sad how we have been taught to chase a piece of paper called the dollar. That at any moment the white man could cut it off from Zimbabwe using it. Then what? We have everything that white people came to this continent to take and go build their countries on our resources and the only thing my people learned was the way of their oppressor. We gave up our culture, our ancestors, our way of life, all too just to imitate the madness that white people left us. We have a jealousy to each other that has been embedded in our spirit, as we live the white man’s spirit and nature now. But it has only a black face on it now. All my people do is live in self made chaos now. From the leadership, down to the people. They have been taught to chase the white man’s way of life and disregard our culture and real way of life. And then you pray to the white man God that they forced on our people. His God will not hear you or help you no matter how long you pray on your knees. Only our Ancestors will hear us now. And the longer we ignore our ancestors and pray to our enemies ancestors my people will suffer. We talk about the leadership of this country and Africa which has been taught by our oppressors to keep them engaged and they keep our attention so we cannot do the work we need to rise as a people. The president of Zimbabwe is just a product of colonial teachings and he filters that down to his people not knowing his has been tricked. You see the fact is, a slave and a slave master cannot worship the same God. Because while you are praying to his God for freedom and equality. Your master is praying to the same God to keep you oppressed. And as you see his God has been answering him always. Because those are his ancestors, not yours. As I read all this madness that is going on in the country everyday about politics and who wants to be in charge for mostly their own selfish reasons, they keep trying to convince the people this is in their best interest. But the facts say different as you look at the suffering of the people and all they do is entrust their life to the same people elite that say they love their people. Which as you can see are all lies from the top down. White people have left African people a culture of madness to live by, while the white people sit back and watch our leaders self destruct, and then our leaders will get on their knees and ask the same white devils to come back in and assist them to survive. Just look at the current facts. White people stole our lands, and have mad untold fortunes over the past 100 years. Native Zimbabweans the government take back the land from the white thieves, and give it back to its people with no plans on how to make it work for the benefit of our people. This leadership then goes back to its own people that it distributed the land too, only to steal it back from its own people. The Elite blacks that is. This is including in high government also. And then continue to do nothing with the land. At the same time the whites that stole the land are now just waiting to see how much more time it will take for government to come back to them begging for help and considering paying them the whites compensation on land that their white forefathers stole in the first place as if they have some type of rights to receive anything for what they have done to the people of this country and in Africa. They steal Zimbabeans land, make the laws to keep it and create title deeds to say the stolen land is theirs, and now say native Zimbabweans took it from its rightful owner. You see the madness in their scheme that my people have fallen for. Now we have Cinamasa considering having conversations with the same thieves to give them monies on land they received from their forefathers that stole it from native Zimbabweans. And the question is why you would have a conversation with thieves unless you are stupid and weak, or both. The IMF comes here to say the only way they will give Zimbabwe more debt they cannot afford to pay, is to pay the IMF $1.8 billion in arrears and then the IMF will give Zimbabwe back $900 million in more debt. Which mean Zimbabwe will never be free of these blood suckers but they have no other alternative as Zimbabwe has a group of worthless people running its finances and do nothing but beg white people and the Asian countries for dollars, while they laugh at this country knowing all the trillions of dollars of resource they have in the ground in this country and are useless to do anything with these resources because you have ignorant and arrogant people that have been put in positions of power that are weak in all that they do. These are the facts. No one in government is willing to say. We need help, but not from our enemies because no deal you cut with your enemies will ever be better for you.

    You see Zimbabwe has a government built on greed and corruption that was the same as their oppressor where running before Zimbabwe so called independence. What is Zimbabwe independent from? There is still a corrupt government that has corrupted the people in the same thinking at the private sector as the government rules its own coffers. So it like the father and mother has taught their children to reflect their ways of life. And look at the country now. So thank your father and mother of the country, for the misbehaving children.

    My people here always say respect your elders no matter what they teach their children the wrong way to live. And when that father and mother tell their children they are never wrong in their thinking in what they teach their children. But the children are now living in chaos. Who do you blame? The child or the parents. Back to the start with the war vets. They can only ask for things because the father has not treated his children with love and respect. So now they have only become an extension of the father’s actions.

    Zimbabeans need to stop and look, listen, and learn. It is not about one person that says all is right as they command. The power is and always has been in the people. Zimbabweans people are humble and mostly have good hearts, and peaceful. In the Bible that my people believe in so much. There is a passage. CHILDREN HONOR YOUR MOTHER AND FATHER, SO THAT YOUR DAYS MAY BE LONG. BUT PARENTS DO NOT PROVOKE YOUR CHILDREN TO ANGER. Question is: Have the children honored the father and mother for the past 36 years? Or have the children been provoke into anger, by the father and mother that have misguided them?

    Point is, you can love and respect your parents their entire life. But are the children taught wrong behavior from their parents. What else would you expect from the children of the next generation?

    Zimbabwe, wrong is wrong, no matter who teaches you these things. Clear your thoughts of yesterday. And create for new change today. I love my people so dearly around the world. But now it is time over for blaming and bad behavior. Parents hold your children accountable for the bad things they do. But parent teach them better not to have bad behavior. Because at the end. Parents are still responsible for what their children do, by what they have taught them.

    Change is the only thing that is constant in our existence a human beings. And if you go against the natural order of change you will suffer. Love and respect each other my African people. We can blame anybody we like for our ills. But look in the mirror and you will see the problem and the solution at the same time. It is never too late to change. Peace

    • comment-avatar
      Jimminy Cricket 8 years ago

      Piankhi, Jesus, the one whom most Zimbabweans love is not “a white man’s God”, you are not talking the truth, my friend. Jesus is the God of the Yellow, Black, White, Pink, whatever colour you like, He is no respector of persons and made us ALL in his image. Evidence suggests that Christ was likely a tan shade, suggesting he represented a blend of all human colours, but whatever his skin hue was, that is completely irrelevant because he is first and foremost Spirit, he merely took on a human form. Even MLK, whom I assume you espouse as an icon of history was a follower of Jesus.

  • comment-avatar
    Joe Cool 8 years ago

    30 000 war vets? So it’s true that ‘old soldiers never die’. In Zimbabwe, they don’t even fade away.

  • comment-avatar
    IAN SMITH 8 years ago

    30,000 60 + year olds since the war of destruction started 36 years ago.
    The scuttling of the ship in it’s final stages pumberi ne zanu!!!

  • comment-avatar
    MikeH 8 years ago

    “foreign enemies he said wanted to destroy the Southern African nation”….. much laughter !!! mugabe has done a good job of this without any help.