Zimbabwe: President Robert Mugabe responds to unjustified vilification from the West

 

On Wednesday 26 September, Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe addressed the 62nd session of the General Assembly of the UN. The president delivered a fierce and robust defence of his much maligned nation, resulting from the implementation of the long overdue land reform programme. Britain, the United States and Australia have been at the forefront of the continuing economic and political onslaught against Zimbabwe, and thus received the harshest criticism.

"The West still negates our sovereignties by way of control of our resources, in the process making us mere chattels in our own lands, mere minders of its trans-national interests... That control largely persists, although it stands firmly challenged in Zimbabwe, thereby triggering the current stand-off between us and Britain, supported by her cousin states, most notably the United State and Australia. Mr. Bush, Mr. Blair and now Mr. Brown's sense of human rights precludes our people's rights to their God-given resources, which in their view must be controlled by their kith and kin. I am termed dictator because I have rejected this supremacist view and frustrated the neo-colonialists

"Let Mr. Bush read history correctly. Let him realise that both personally and in his representative capacity as the current President of the United States, he stands for this 'civilisation' which occupied, which colonised, which incarcerated, which killed.

"His hands drip with innocent blood of many nationalities. He still kills. He kills in Iraq. He kills in Afghanistan. And this is supposed to be our master on human rights?

"He imprisons and tortures at Guantanamo. He imprisoned and tortured at Abu Ghraib. He has secret torture chambers in Europe. Yes, he imprisons even here in the United States, with his jails carrying more blacks than his universities can ever enrol."