President
Robert Mugabe turned 88 on Tuesday. The following is the transcript of an
interview with the state-run ZBC General Manager News and Current Affairs,
Tazzen Mandizvidza, broadcast on Monday night:
TM: Your
Excellency, thank you for being with us on this special
programme.
President Mugabe: Thank
you!
TM: Ndakamirira mhuri yeZBC ndingatange ndichiti
makorokoto, amhlope, congratulations.
President Mugabe:
Aiwa ndeedu tose. Kwete pamakore asi mufaro wacho.
TM: Your
Excellency, one issue that has been talked about for quite sometime is the issue
of the Constitution. It has taken longer than we all thought but are you really
happy with the progress?
President
Mugabe: Not really. It’s a process
that is puzzling us now. When we begun we thought it was a matter of 18 months
and we have an election. But as things look now, one doesn’t know what’s
happening and one doesn’t know which way people would want us to
go.
There is the
dragging of feet, so much delay in the process. I don’t know what the real
problem is but as others describe the problem, they think those who are charged
with the task of putting ideas together, examining what the people said during
the outreach programme are dragging their feet deliberately.
They want longer
time, longer time because it means more money. They are given allowances. They
are being paid and if the process comes to an end, so does naturally, the
payment. It comes to an end.
I don’t know it,
that is, the reason, whether it’s because the people who are at the top of it
want a longer period to earn money or there are some problems.
But, I would want
to believe that one problem is that some people or shall I say, one or two
parties to the constitution-making process might now have discovered that this
way of the constitution making is not in their favour and that the views that
were obtained during the outreach programme are not in their
favour.
They are not
supportive of their parties and so they are dragging and dragging and dragging
on, either to confound the process or to get the other side to tire and give up
the exercise and the exercise doesn’t happen at all.
So one wonders why
we abandoned, in the first place, the process that we had agreed on that this
was going to be based on the Kariba Draft, which was all ready, all agreed and
enunciating, you know, the process, which could have been completed in a short
period. But we listened to our counterparties that it was better to listen to
the people first.
To get a
comprehensive view from our nation and on the basis of the views that would have
been expressed, build a constitution.
But this is not
proving to be a success at all.
TM: Your
counterparts in the Global Political Agreement are actually accusing Zanu-PF.
They say Zanu-PF is causing the delays because it’s afraid of
elections.
President
Mugabe: No! We want elections, we
wanted them yesterday, we want them today, we want them any day, but others are
saying no, no, no, we can’t have elections.
First, they were
saying 2012, now they are saying in 2013. But perhaps when we get much further
without elections they will say no elections at all; let us remain in power
without elections.
TM: Your
Excellency, looking at this scenario, when are we likely to have
elections?
President Mugabe: Yes, sure; this
year! We just must have elections. They just must take place with or without a
new constitution.
And we will, on
our side as a party, we have made a decision, last year at our conference that
this year we definitely have an election exercise.
If others don’t want to
have an election then they are free not to participate.
Nobody is forced
to go to an election but definitely I will exercise my presidential powers in
accordance with the main principal law, the Constitution of our country and
announce when the election will take place. And I will do
this.
TM: But
looking at the process that we have been going through with the help of our
brothers from the Sadc region. If, for example, we have elections and the other
parties boycott, what will likely be the result? How would Sadc
react?
President
Mugabe: Well, we will tell Sadc
what the problem is and Sadc can’t compel us to continue an exercise which is
futile and I am sure there is greater wisdom on the part of Sadc. And anyway,
the GPA states that a party can resign, completely reject it and once a
rejection takes place, we revert back to our Constitution, which all these years
we have based ourselves and it becomes the basis of our election.
TM: Your
Excellency, are you telling us that Zanu-PF is likely to withdraw from the GPA
if this does come to an end?
President
Mugabe: No, no, no! All I am
saying is that Zanu-PF will withdraw from the GPA if others continue with these
dirty tricks. We can’t have them anymore. We can’t put up with them
anymore.
Anyway, what I
should say is, last week, the principals — that is the other two and myself —
Tsvangirai, Mutambara and myself decided that we be provided with the draft
constitution, that the management should present that to us.
We got the draft
(but) we haven’t looked at it yet and we would want to see what the draft says
but I am told the draft is not yet reviewed by the management committee and so
it’s a draft which we can’t base any definite views of our
own.
The other part
which should look at the draft hasn’t done so and hasn’t presented it to us as a
reviewed draft. But it’s just a raw draft directly from the drafters. All we can
do is just look at and perhaps see what the drafters have put together and give
time to our management committee to look at it and present a reviewed version of
it.
Now we had decided
that once we have looked at the draft having been looked at, first, by the
management committee, we will then decide on the road map. We the principals and
I think none of us is for any undue postponement of elections. No!
TM: Your
Excellency, what is this roadmap? What should the nation
expect?
President
Mugabe: They should expect a
referendum, a referendum to get the people’s views, whether the people accept
the draft constitution or not.
If they reject it
then we revert to the old constitution, if they accept then the usual process
takes place. Parliament must also endorse it and then it becomes a legal
document after it has been passed by Parliament and we can go for an election.
If it’s rejected then of course, announce the process that should take
place.
TM: Your
Excellency, talking of the draft constitution, there have been reports that
there is a certain clause that has been put there in order to bar you from
contesting as a presidential candidate by limiting terms of
office.
President
Mugabe: Cowards, cowards, cowards!
Why are they afraid of me? Why should they ban anyone at all?
We haven’t come to
a position where political tricks or legal tricks, for that matter are put in
place to bar anyone, who normally has the right to participate in an
election.
TM: Still
on elections, is Zanu PF ready for elections? I am saying this in light of the
factionalism we hear about. Are you prepared as a party?
President
Mugabe: Well I don’t know anything
about factionalism. You always get differences in a party. I suppose this makes
the process. It’s always the fact of differences, we have contradictions. We
must resolve these contradictions, move forward and you move forward, you will
also encounter new contradictions, new differences and also have solutions and
that’s how progress is made, isn’t it?
It always comes
after such contradictions provided solutions do occur in regard to them. Yes,
yes, yes the party is always ready, ever ready. This means we are always ready
to fight.
TM: Your
Excellency, what calibre of a leader would you want to succeed you and at the
moment can you say you have found that successor?
President
Mugabe: NO! The party will find a
successor. It’s the people who can find a successor. I came from the people and
the people in their wisdom, our members of the party, will certainly select
someone once I say I am now retiring, but not yet.
At this age I can still go
some distance, can’t I?
TM: Zanu-PF has been in power for
the past 32 years, what do you offer the electorate?
President
Mugabe: What do we offer the
electorate? Goodness me! Independence gave us political freedom and we say that
political freedom can not be complete unless we have sovereignty over our
natural resources and we started by exercising the right, sovereign right, in
acquiring our land and apportioning it to our people and so the first step was
for us to feel that we are not just politically sovereign.
That we are also
economically sovereign and the first step as I said was that of acquiring the
ownership of our land and getting it from the British settlers and put it into
the hands of Zimbabweans. That sovereignty over the land resources! But that’s
not all. The land question is just one area. There are other areas which are
economic. We must exercise our sovereignty also in regard to, you know, the
economic sector.
And not that the agriculture sector is not part of the
economic sector, it is!
But you have also
mining, manufacturing sector. You have the infrastructure and that sovereignty
has not yet based itself. Therefore, now with our law on indigenisation and
empowerment, we will want to ensure that our people also have the ownership of
the resources that lie underneath.
That way the
mining sector is meaningful. It was not meaningful all along because there is a
process where it is owned by outsiders but we want the resources to remain in
our hands even though we are ready, we are prepared that those who will be
partners with us should have a share of our resources, not ownership, but of the
benefit that comes from our resources.
And that is why
the Indigenisation and Empowerment Act was passed and this requires that
whatever companies undertake mining in the country or any manufacturing exercise
or any other socio-economic activity; if these companies are foreign, they must
cede at least 51 percent.
This should belong
to the people of Zimbabwe either to the Government and Government acting on
behalf of the people and that’s part of indigenisation also and so this is an
exercise we are working on now.
The land has come,
now the minerals must also come and manufactured products must also belong to us
and of course we have the infrastructure, we have the telecommunication and
other communication activities.
The programmes
that are due to take place, we want our people and all those to participate as
owners and shareholders but particularly owners in that regard on their
own.
Yes we will
continue to produce people with skills in that they work, become workers, they
become labourers in some cases but they must be owners of their own resources,
owners of these enterprises. Be entrepreneurial, in attitude, in their
disposition, generally not expect that outsiders will come into the country and
develop the country for us and do it at our own expense.
When we get the
benefit of being workers and nothing more than workers and then at the end of
the day what comes to us is that which the State gets by way of taxation. That
must stop now!
TM: Just
out of curiosity, Your Excellency, draft constitution ikauya kwamuri mukaona ma
issues amusingafarire, do you have the authority ekubvisa?
President
Mugabe: Tinoramba. Ehe, tinobvisa.
Ko togoregererei? Nhai, nhai, nhai! It’s a draft constitution and we will say
this we do not want. If for example, you have in the constitution kuti
ngavatemwe makumbo, vanenge vaba, ngavatemwe makumbo. Aiwa zve tinoramba. Kana
homosexualism zvese tinobvisa.
TM: Let’s move away from elections and the
party. Let’s look at the GPA. Are you happy with the progress that you have
made?
President Mugabe:
I am happy with the fact that it has managed to at least get us together with
the other parties so they can participate in Government and have a feel of what
Government is and also be exposed to the public. Now that the public knows what
Zanu-PF stands for, MDC-T, M, N or whatever they call themselves; what these
stand for.
I am sure no one
can deceive the public anymore by hiding their own views and ideas because they
have not yet entered the arena but they are now in the arena and the people can
see who speaks sense and who speaks nonsense and who is better behaved. And who
is guilty of misbehaviour and so on and so forth.
So we are there
for the people. It has also enabled us, and it is one good thing it has done;
the GPA enabled us to work together, know each other. We are parties and perhaps
cease regarding ourselves as enemies but regard each other as
opponents.
People, yes, with
differences among themselves, ideological differences, political
differences.
Differences in
approach to definite issues and therefore people who can tolerate each other and
at the end of the day we are Zimbabweans. All of us so that is very important
and it’s important to our people that we may differ politically, religiously
even ethnically. Differ in various other ways but we are all Zimbabweans and
that is what counts much more than anything else.
It counts much
more than your ethnicity, it counts much more than your political affinity and
much more than any other — ism that you may have that you are a Zimbabwean
national, Zimbabwean citizen, mwana wevhu; singing one national anthem and
waving one flag. That is what must always guide us; that these differences are
really artificial.
But one thing that
we can never deny an individual, no matter what dress he is wearing, no matter
what religion he belongs to, what tribe he belongs to, is the
nationality.
The fact that he
is a Zimbabwean. That is the son or daughter of the soil. So that is very
important and that is also the source of the other principles that derive there;
the fact that we are one.
Must we hate each
other because we belong to different religions and bodies or because we are of
different tribes or different parties? No!
But yes, we may
oppose each other and oppose each other quite firmly. But must we unleash
violence to each other? That must stop of course. No violence.
That is what the
GPA has taught all of us and we are also very happy that our national healing
exercise, as there is an organ which is led by Vice President John Nkomo, and
each championing this, you know, campaign of getting people to understand each
other, appreciate each, one another, sons and daughters of
Zimbabwe.
But having said
that, there are great differences between us and the other parties — Zanu-PF and
the others. We believe ourselves in the people of Zimbabwe as a sovereign
people. We believe that they are endowed by the Almighty with the right to
sovereignty over their land. That no one from outside has the right, you know,
to acquire a piece of land or any national resource without their
permission.
In other words,
the outsiders must be entertained by us, accommodated by us, must be permitted
by us to live here and to make homes here, to enjoy themselves, to marry our
beautiful girls and also to eat our beef; to kill our deer, antelope, go to
Kariba and fish, catch our fish; in other words, to do things that we can do.
Yes!
We accommodate
people from outside, just as our people can be accommodated in other countries
as well. But no, they should never, never, never attempt to impose their power
over us. I am talking now of countries like Britain, of nationals like Britons
who once upon a time said the sun never sets in the British Empire. Priding
themselves on never, never, never being slaves; as they sang Britain, Britain,
Britain will never be slaves.
They never sang
Britain will never, never be slave masters. You see they will never be slaves
but how about being slave masters? So there is the difference between us. They
should never try to impose their culture on us and hence our abhorrence or
feeling of abhorrence. The feeling that if we are to get aid from Britain we
must first accept that man can marry man and woman can marry
woman.
That’s what David
Cameron said. You don’t say those things to other nations. So there it
is.
The GPA emphasises
that, but we differ with the other parties. Zanu-PF is of the strong view that
we are sovereign but we still have these other parties still going to the
Europeans, you know, Europeans, when we have problems,
Europeans.
They must get to
Britain; they must go to France, German etc to get ideas. No! We have ideas
here.
Fortunately, now we have well educated people. Very, very highly
educated people and nobody can boss us intellectually.
TM: Yes,
Your Excellency and we also read of alleged clashes between yourself and the
Prime Minister. How do you describe your working relationship with the Prime
Minister?
President
Mugabe: I read of the clashes in
the papers. In the Standard and what are the others? The little papers!
(TM: Daily News?) Dustbin things, Yah!
This is where the
fights are and I wonder where they get the information from.
But because they
must create these fights it’s Tsvangirai going for Mugabe. So and so and I am
always at the receiving end, you see. Even when people come to my State House
where I am the resident, they have come to fight me. No, no,
no!
It has always been
very peaceful. We were very suspicious of each other at the beginning but as
time went on, we got to know each other.
Now Tsvangirai can drink a cup of
tea which I make and I have no objections drinking a cup of tea which he
makes.
TM: Your
Excellency, from what you have said this might become a tricky situation where
it has been alleged that the Prime Minister was involved in some fraudulent
activity which involves the purchase of the Prime Minister’s residence and it is
said the police have done their work and are waiting for the go ahead to arrest
him. Is he going to be arrested?
President
Mugabe: I am not a policeman. The
President is not a policeman. When crimes are committed, the police do not come
to the President to ask permission to arrest an individual.
They just proceed
on the basis that they derive their power from the law and arrest
individuals.
I have read also
in the papers that there has been some fraudulent behaviour but it if this is
so, well, it’s the Prime Minister who should answer and if he does not get to
you, you don’t have to get him to answer via the President.
If there is really
a case that requires him to answer, I am sure he will be able to explain what
happened, himself.
What we don’t want
is people getting arrested on the basis of evidence which is not clear and on
the basis of facts which have not been thoroughly
investigated.
The police must
investigate these cases thoroughly so that by the time they get to the stage of
building a case and taking it to the court they are quite sure that they have a
case against the particular individual to whom it relates. But just rushing to
build a case against somebody doesn’t do us good at all.
If anything, it
harms our reputation and I hope they have investigated the matter thoroughly not
just rush to make up things against the Prime Minister.
TM: Your
Excellency, from there we take you to the state of the economy. You spoke about
mining, you spoke about indigenisation, are you happy with the contribution that
mining has done to the economy in totality?
President
Mugabe: There is mining taking
place. Just now our eyes are fixed on diamond mining. Not much has come from
that mining yet because the sales are not many and there are hindrances being
put along the way.
Put in the way of
selling and marketing diamonds by the United States. They go to our main
markets, to main buyers of diamonds and threaten them. (The go) to ask them not
to buy Zimbabwean diamonds. It is alleged that these are blood diamonds but I
haven’t seen any blood flowing on the diamonds. I have visited Chiadzwa, I have
done so twice, but they are very clean.
We know that the
US, Britain and other Western countries do not want to see us succeed. They want
their sanctions to pull us down and ruin us economically but we refuse to be
ruined.
We are a resilient
nation and we know what our rights are and we will not be subjugated by anyone.
But they try their best and this is the reason why not much has come from the
diamond sector. But with more companies being licenced, we hope that the State
will get a greater benefit. I can assure you I have my eyes
there.
We know of the
talk about diamonds being smuggled, but no really, there is strict security; but
it’s a case of selling the diamonds. The mining is taking place but the
marketing is what is so limited when it takes place.
But other areas of
the mining sector are also important. We have platinum, but there is very little
contribution being made by platinum to our development.
If anything
really, our platinum is developing other countries much more than it is
developing Zimbabwe. Then there is gold, gold is the main, I would want to
believe, the main mineral and you get it practically in every province in the
country.
And you have small
miners, makorokoza, vanamai nanababa, along the rivers, digging everywhere. We
have nothing against them but we want them to be better organized, taught how to
do their gold mining.
But they are
making a contribution, where they are doing it properly; to the development of
the country but these are areas that should be better organized. However,
because of sanctions there has been a sagging of the sector and it needs to be
revamped, needs quite some capital to go into it. You know, machinery wears out
and there is need for some spare parts or new machinery. We need to see much
more production.
Gold is fetching
higher prices. US$1 755 per ounce, that’s the international price at the moment
and it is lots of money and we need now to improve and get the process which
will see our gold mining recover very much. So we want to get to about 30 tonnes
that we used to produce in the past. About that and even exceed
that.
Platinum also must
be managed. I hope the Indigenisation and Empowerment Act will now enable us to
get greater benefit from all this mining exercise which has been taking place in
the past by doing so at our expense, national expense that is.
Now that we must
go into all these companies with at least 51 percent, that is least, it can be
more than that. Fifty-one percent shareholding in a company! The reward to
Zimbabwe must be greater but what is required is revamping, improving the
performance and greater productivity taking place in the mining
sector.
Manufacturing also
requires the same exercise; injecting more capital and I think companies, as you
see, had actually gone down miserably to about 10 percent. And now we want to
see this production capacity rise but we must inject more capital, more capital
into them and this has been the problem.
TM: Do you
have this capital?
President
Mugabe: We thought we had SDRs.
The IMF gave us but they were used otherwise. Yes, we create capital. We can
borrow from international institutions but the World Bank and IMF must obey the
dictates of the West and impose sanctions on us. Even if they don’t say so but
in practice that is what happens and we can’t rely on those
ones.
But we have the
Afrrexim bank which has been there and the regional banks and reliance on the
eastern bloc, China, India and their financial institutions.
We can borrow
from them and use our resources as security and get loans.
They are prepared
to give us loans. They are also prepared to bring their companies here and
partner us and that way get us rejuvenated and increase the production of our
companies.
TM: Your
Excellency, you mention the issue of sanctions, how are you going to handle that
within the GPA as your partners are constantly failing to sing from the same
hymn book?
President
Mugabe: That is what baffles us.
Surely, if you are a Zimbabwean and Zimbabwe is being attacked by outsiders and
it doesn’t matter what differences between the MDC and ourselves, when outsiders
attack us, we must unite against the outsiders and try to drive the outsiders
out of Zimbabwe, get his hand off us.
His intervention
bids us to be together but, no, the MDC decides to side with the Americans, with
the Europeans in supporting sanctions against its own people. We do not
understand that. They fail to, they find it very difficult, to say sanctions are
hurting us.
They try to avoid
using the word sanctions; they want to call them restrictions. I do not
understand, perhaps, it’s the lack of political consciousness, national
consciousness, which characterize them. You see, they have not gone through the
grill like us. But one doesn’t have to have been a member of the ANC, National
Democratic Party, Zapu, Zanu in order to have national
consciousness.
Just a feeling
that Zimbabwe is your country and you will countenance, you will not accept any
attack from outside, whether this attack is physical or it’s economic by way of
sanctions.
That’s what a real party that stands for the people, that operates
in the interest of the people, should do.
But if you are for
the people, how can you then at the same time turn against the people by
supporting sanctions, which hurt them.
TM: Pamunosangana hamumbobvunza here
kuti zvii zvinorema?
President
Mugabe: Vanoti tiritose asi kuti
vaenda kunze uku vanoudza varungu vavo kuti ah, chimboregai ma sanctions aripo,
vanhu vaye, vanaMugabe havasati vavakuda regime change, havasati vanzwa. Hatife
takanzwa!
Imperialism is
imperialism. An imperialist is just an imperialist. I often repeat the words of
Nkurumah: Only a dead imperialist is a good one.
TM: One of
the issues to do with the economy inyaya yemari. We have serious cash shortages.
Are we likely to see the return of the Zimbabwean dollar? What solutions do you
have as a Government to deal with the shortages seeing that the money we are
using doesn’t come from Zimbabwe?
President
Mugabe: I agree, the US dollars
did help a bit but the dollars are not minted by us, we don’t manufacture them,
we don’t print them. They are American. You can’t expect to develop an economy
using foreign currency, American foreign currency. You got to have your own
foreign currency.
Yes, sure, we had
that inflation that rendered our Zim dollar worthless but these things happen to
economies when they have the burden of sanctions, the burden of bearing lots of
debts and so on and so forth.
We cannot improve
the situation in the GPA very much. That’s why we would want to have an election
and we know as Zanu-PF government we would certainly bring about a far, far much
better situation to the economy in respect of getting capital injection into
it.
We are persons who
look east and at the moment if you look west, Europe and America are looking
east, what you encounter are eyes that are looking east and your eye is looking
west.
In other words, they have nothing to offer at all and it’s futile to
hope that the West can redeem us.
Even if we were in
good books with Europe, Europe will never ever help you to the extent of your
being able to transform your economy from being, you know, a primary producer to
being a producer of secondary products.
In other words,
that adding of value to our raw products, qualitative improvement, which Europe
did when they started industrializing as much as possible, moving dependence on
agriculture to dependence of manufactured food.
That is yet to
occur in Africa, in South Africa it is okay, here it had started okay a bit but
we are now handicapped and that is what we must do, ensure that we raise the
level of our economy. Take it from primary to secondary and that’s get it to the
manufacturing stage where now you beneficiate your products.
And you produce
products of greater value. Then, of course, you can have your own currency that
is backed by an economy which is viable. We have gold, we have diamonds, we have
platinum, valuable minerals and very precious minerals and these can back our
economy.
But I believe that
if we can go back to the use of gold as the basis of our currency, that will
ensure that our currency will become viable and will not be doubted
internationally at all.
And it cannot be
assailed by the American dollar, which is just a paper and America has been
printing and printing. Because then you can only print money if it’s based on
the value of gold that you have. This is based on purely the effectiveness of
your economy. How much level of volume of production of your GDP, Gross Domestic
Product and then you print money according to the level of development in that
regard.
So I believe
personally that we have a very great future and thank God we still have lots of
wealth underground. Thank God the British settlers did not scoop all and in some
cases didn’t discover some of the minerals like platinum. But perhaps, diamonds
for one reason they were discovered but they did not want to reveal to the
world. De beers I understand were carrying; they said they were carrying out
tests, year in, year out, getting lots of soil to South
Africa.
Filling lorries
from Chiadzwa there and when you ask they say we are still doing tests then we
discovered later that, no, there were diamonds, ah, then they stopped; the tests
didn’t continue.
And then we had
that company called the ACR, born out of De Beers. They tried to put Africans,
you know, into it. We resisted it, remember. We said no, and it was then that we
took some action and said only the State can operate in that
area.
We were fencing it
because we wanted time to arrange and gear ourselves and prepare ourselves for
proper mining in the area. Well, I have great hope that, in the GPA, they will
be real, real development in gallops rather than in slow strides as at
present.
Well, we have done
something with the GPA but very little. The companies are still down.
Manufacturing factories, main factories in Bulawayo, down, down, down! And the
mining ones too, even gold, some closed and we are having to open some of them
now, you see, but we will do so with our friends.
They are not the
Chinese only, there are lots of other friends in the East there who are prepared
to partner us properly and not on a horse and rider partnership which was what
(Roy) Wellensky and (Godfrey) Huggins during the Federation talked about that
the partnership with an African was a horse and rider
partnership.
And we asked who
was the rider and who was the horse and they didn’t provide the answers. Then
they talked about the two-pyramid system, that’s Huggins now, who became Lord
Malvern later. Two pyramids, the European pyramid is up there, the African
pyramid is down here. But when will it ever rise and grow in order to get their
height.
But look at the
strides we have made since independence, education and socially. Look at our
people, we have almost eradicated illiteracy and almost everybody can read and
write and this is it. And not the skills, we have now been able to export
skills, you see, South Africa, most of our young people.
Even in Australia,
Britain, they are proud to have young Zimbabweans with skills to operate in
their factories or in their banks etc. That’s Zimbabwe.
But we put
ourselves much more together; get our people in the Diaspora to come and join us
and we sail together. Our young people must feel that they have a stake in their
country and that’s very important because the future is more theirs than
ours.
They are the ones
we want to equip, they are the ones we feel must have the necessary skills,
intellectually and physically, that will enable them now, to run the country and
undertake the various operations that are necessary in order to bring about
greater development and transformation of the socio-economic
system.
TM: Thank
you Your Excellency, let me take you to issues facing Africa as a continent.
Recently you came back from the AU summit and you came back a disappointed man.
Do you feel betrayed by your African brothers when it comes to decision-making;
decisions that affect Africa?
President
Mugabe: I think the crop of
leaders we have now is quite different, quite different from the older crop,
from their elders. Those of them who came together to form the Organisation of
African Unity and vowed that Africa would be freed from imperialism and
colonialism and you had them like Nkrumah, you know, pledging that Ghana would
not regard itself as free if any part of Africa was still under the yoke of
colonialism and imperialism.
Then they were bidding that Africa must unite
and Nkrumah wrote a book to that effect.
You see, they
formed the Organisation of African Unity in 1963 and formed also the liberation
committee and taught us how to fight for our countries, organised us and showed
us how unity could enable us to fight and fight successfully in redeeming our
countries and liberating them.
TM: 88 years makore akawanda. Ndaapi mashoko
amungape vechidiki kuti varame hupenyu hwakanaka?
President Mugabe:
Life is what you make it, they say. But it’s not always what you make it. You
have a part of it which is inherited. The physical entity which we are we
inherit from our parents so the genetic system is inherited from what your
parents gave you.
But there are
things that you must do for yourself. Don’t drink. Ahhm or if you want to drink
don’t drink too much but I would say don’t drink at all. Yeah, don’t smoke at
all. When you smoke the nicotine goes to your lungs; it’s a sure case that your
lungs are inhaling... Look after yourself...girlfriends...when you are young you
want two or three girlfriends, but you finally make a choice...little houses,
some little houses are dangerous these days.
And then
nechirwere chedu ichi. I have seen youngsters in the extended families just
going one after another. Kune vakasiiwa...We are having to look after them.
Havasisina vanoriritira. And i have said to myself if this is what has happened
around me, what about the extended family of Tazzen, my neighbour
there?
This is what has
happened to our nation, young people going in their 30s, 40s - so that is the
part that we take care of. The other part we inherit from our
parents.
Otherwise if you don’t take to drinking, take to smoking and
exercising of course...
TM: You are still
exercising?
President
Mugabe: Every morning. I have my
one hour and ensure I exercise. That’s the way we grow but some live longer than
others. My brother Raphael I never saw him. He was born before me, 1922 and when
he was six months, mother said he suffered from dysentery. But Michael, who was
born before him ... takatamba tese naMichael. He was very bright, a footballer -
everything, an athlete.
I wasn’t bright, I
was much more conservative, much more inward thinking, but bookish... my mother
at one time was worried kuti mwana wangu anogona kunyengawo asikana
imi?
Mike was clever;
he was also bright, perhaps much brighter than myself. Ah he was really bright,
but poorly (in) 1934 he drank poison achibva afa aine 10 years. It was a sad sad
death my father couldn’t take it vakati ah mwana wangu apuwa poison kwasekuru
vachibva varamwa kuenda kuBulawayo from 1934 only to come back 1944 atova
nemumwe mudzimai, 1945 achibva afa muna June, ini ndatova teacher
zvangu.
Ndini
ndakazodzidzisawo vakanditevedzera, so i was lucky that way. ndikazogona
kunyenga ndikati amai ndauya nomuroora ndabva naye kuGhana.
So God looks after
us but there is a portion we must play. You must eat well, you take some
vegetables, don’t over-eat beef, it’s dangerous, eventually unoita gout. Taida
kudya nyama zvakakomba tiri mafreedom fighters. Vose vatakadya navo vaida nyama
ah, as for Joshua Nkomo ndiye aive mukuru weduzve, aida nyama maningi, Ndebele
style. Kana tikapihwa chicken aitora yose, but then akazoita gout, then the
doctor said no...Ah. VaMuzenda gout; VaMusika gout...
TM: Well
thank you so much Your Excellency for giving us your time to talk to us about
your family, the state of the economy and the country at large. We wish you many
more.
President
Mugabe: Thank you thank you, you
are doing a good work, continue doing that good work. Most of you are on the
younger side so we hope that you continue to be revolutionary, if you are, if
you are not then read, read mabhuku avana Nkrumah, read a lot, even go out to
read.
