While you wait for the results of the Kenyan referendum, consider this article coming from the BBC today about Uncle Bob:
Zimbabwe has demanded apologies from three Western diplomats for walking out of a burial ceremony on Sunday for President Robert Mugabe’s sister.
German, US and EU envoys left after Mr Mugabe attacked Western nations, saying they should “go to hell” for interfering in his country’s affairs.
US Ambassador Charles Ray said he had left the ceremony because he was “very disappointed” in Mr Mugabe’s conduct.
He had, he added, nothing to apologise to Mr Mugabe for.
Sabina Mugabe, the president’s younger sister, died in the capital Harare at the age of 76, five years after suffering a stroke.
While she was declared a national heroine by the ruling party, others accused her of benefiting from Zimbabwe’s controversial land reform programme and encouraging the violent invasion of white-owned farms.
In his funeral oration on Sunday, her brother attacked international sanctions on Zimbabwe.
They say ‘remove so and so’ – of course, they mean ‘Mugabe must go before we can assist you’,” he said.
“To hell with them. Hell, hell, hell with them whoever told them they are above the people of Zimbabwe that they decide what Zimbabwe should be and by who it should be ruled.” (YIKES!)
Zimbabwean Foreign Minister Simbarashe Mumbengegwi said the envoys’ decision to walk out was “unacceptable”.
“Your conduct was therefore very disrespectful to our national heroes’ shrine, the heroine who was being honoured and his excellency the president,” he said in a statement.
Mr Ray told reporters: “When America is treated in the manner it was treated on Sunday, I will react.”
Ah, détente.
The Harare Financial Gazette has some interesting ideas to add to the discussion. (Before reading, it is worth noting that American aid to Zimbabwe has been substantial, amounting to over $629 million since FY2008). Read the full op-ed here, but below are a few quotes:
“…USAID finds itself apparently paralysed. Americans love kids. You can’t deny kids food and medicine…”
“Just to remind our readers that I do know some stuff, the experts say that there is no such disease called Aids. They say there is, however, a syndrome, called Acquired Immunity Deficiency Syndrome, which lowers a person’s ability to fight diseases and therefore allows parasitic diseases to hang on to that person longer than usual. I was almost run out of a conference by feminists for calling this syndrome the disease Aids.”
“Americana presence in Africa is aimed at influencing the direction of governments towards a democratic dispensation. This can be done through the 2 400 NGOs Brother T. Mahoso talks about in Zimbabwe. But with the Aids burden actually mushrooming, and seeing no end in sight, there is very little money towards anything else. That is the US dilemma. The governments which the US would like to influence the most, Ethiopia, Uganda and Zimbabwe, draw up their Aids budgets and leave them at US embassies. I see clearly the primitive mind at work here. “You want our children to die!” they shout at the ambassadors.”
