via Shamed Mugabe calls off India trip – NewsDay Zimbabwe March 10, 2016
PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe has cancelled his participation at an Indian cultural festival reportedly over security concerns, NewsDay has learnt.
BY RICHARD CHIDZA
NewsDay yesterday reported that Mugabe would cut a forlorn figure because he would stick out as the only high-profile Head of State at the World Culture Festival (WCF) organised by Sri Sri Ravi Shankar of Art of Living.
Mugabe left for New Delhi on Monday evening to attend the low-key event, which was boycotted by Indian President Pranab Mukherjee and his African peers, who preferred sending former presidents and junior ministers or MPs.
Mukherjee had already indicated he would not attend the event hosted by his country over environmental concerns raised by a lobby group, arguing the masses of people who were expected posed a threat to the site, a protected flood plain east of the capital.
Mugabe’s Press secretary George Charamba, in a statement from New Delhi, said Mugabe was now expected home “in a couple of days”.
“His Excellency, the President Cde RG Mugabe, has called off his engagement in India where he was scheduled to be guest of honour at the World Culture Festival. The event, which is a celebration of peace in multiculturalism and ecumenicity, was scheduled to begin tomorrow (today) March 10, 2016,” Charamba said yesterday.
“The cancellation follows communication from organisers of the festival acknowledging substantial inadequacies in protocol and security arrangements around the event. A number of leaders slotted for participation, including those from the host country, have also withdrawn their participation. The President is expected home in a couple of days.”
Mugabe, who was scheduled to proceed to Singapore after the festival, took with him an entourage that includes Foreign Affairs minister Simbarashe Mumbengegwi and Charamba, among other government officials.
The President, who is famed for his love for foreign travel and has, in the past, attended a youth summit, where he was the only Head of State, curiously left behind Rural Development, Preservation and Promotion of Culture and Heritage minister Abednico Ncube.
Ncube on Tuesday confirmed he was not part of the presidential delegation to India.
While some countries were represented by Culture ministers and even legislators in the case of Japan and Germany, former presidents of Nigeria and Mozambique, Olusegun Obasanjo and Joachim Chissano, will respectively represent their countries.
Former French Premier Dominique de Villepin also makes up the list of former leaders in attendance.
The presidents of Sri Lanka and Nepal are among the few serving Heads of State at the festival.
India’s National Green Tribunal (NGT) went to court seeking an order to stop the event, raising concerns over the impact of thousands of “visitors and large structures on the fragile Yamuna bed and the flora and fauna that inhabit it”.
The Indian court yesterday ruled that “the event will proceed, but Sri Sri Ravi Shankar would have to pay for the damage to the environment. There will be no such permission in future,” reports from India said last night.
In an angry exchange on Indian channel NDTV last night, a representative of NGT told a Union minister: “You are stretching our patience.”
According to the Indian Business Standard, the Asian country’s military establishment had also raised concerns about the deployment of troops to help with preparations for a “private function”.
COMMENTS
Has Mugabe not made us the laughing stock of the real world for far too long.
He is a real idiot. He can’t wait to jump on a fast Boeing for any place far away from Zimbabwe. How could he have trailed all the way to India with his usual huge entourage only to find out that he was the only national President there. Not only that, but he then had a deep sulk because he was not getting the level of attention that he always demands and usually gets.
But on reflection perhaps Mugabe needs all these foreign trips. He must have a safe way to build up his offshore hidden booty of stolen raw Zimbabwe diamonds…part of that 17 billion dollars worth that he has been crying wolf about to pull the wool over our eyes.
What a real fool he is, he along with all of his ZANU PF bumbling sidekicks.
The only trips that Mugabe deserves …and the ones we “his people” also treasure…are the ones he gets when he is not supported by several of his dark suited henchmen!
How much money has that idiot lost for Zimbabwe in the last 36 years?
Back “in a couple of days?”
He will be back in Zimbabwe after his standard trip to Singapore – that being the real reason for his trip East. He must first off-load the loot and then go for his medical check-up and the impoverished people of Zimbabwe must pay for all of that.
What is a noted Dictatorial racist and homophobe doing at an event of “celebration of peace in multiculturalism and ecumenicity”? What a pathetic joke! and he doesn’t and will never get the irony!
Grace.
Robert?
Where am I?
India.
Oh.
Maybe ndiyo trip ine prophecy yendege iya.When they come back I will go ku Harare airport ndinozvionera ndega. Charamba anonyepa munozviziva he is paid to do exactly that. I wonder what he tells his kids. Shame
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