|
Misanet.com / IPS, 22 April - For the love of money, Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade has sold out Zimbabwe to the West, according to President Robert Mugabe's top aides in Harare, the capital of Zimbabwe. The government hit out at Wade for criticising Mugabe's last month's controversial re-election. Nobody attacks Mugabe and gets away with it these days. And when the Zimbabwean government responded to the attack 10 days after Wade had given Mugabe's hotly disputed victory a thumbs down sign, it was not too polite, but expected. In comments published by the 'New York Times' on 10 April, the Senegalese leader was quoted as saying that Mugabe had not respected the election rules and that the opposition had not been free to campaign. "There were many deaths. Electoral laws were changed days before the election. We can't call that an election. Mugabe or not Mugabe is not my concern. My concern was what the people of Zimbabwe wanted," Wade was quoted as saying. But in a statement carried by the state-run 'The Sunday Mail' over the weekend, Zimbabwe's foreign affairs minister, Stan Mudenge, suggested Wade had betrayed Mugabe for Western aid. In big black bold letters, the Sunday Mail's lead headline said: 'Wade betrays Zimbabwe for Western Aid'. Wade said he had refused to join the trade union of African presidents who have supported Mugabe's re-election. The Zimbabwean government, Mudenge said, was disappointed that Wade had joined the "chorus led by Britain to discredit Zimbabwe." Mudenge said Wade wants western money for his New Economic Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD). The government, Mudenge said, has observed that Wade had made his comments in an interview whose focus was primarily to promote the NEPAD ahead of the forthcoming G-8 meeting to be held in Canada in June. G-8, or Group of Eight, comprises Canada, Japan, Britain, Italy, the United States, Germany, France and Russia. Mudenge said Britain, which ruled Zimbabwe until independence in 1980, and its partners in the G-8 have been using NEPAD to try and blackmail African countries in a "futile attempt to reverse the popular will of the Zimbabwe electorate." The Senegalese leader, he said, should be the last person to judge Zimbabwe's elections as his country refused an invitation to observe the 9-11 March elections. Mudenge said Zimbabwe would resist efforts to drag NEPAD into its on-going colonial fight with Britain and stressed that "for NEPAD to enjoy full African support, it must never be perceived as a new tool for controlling and dividing Africa."
NEPAD is a call for a new partnership between Africa and the international community, based on mutual respect. It is a regional initiative with poverty reduction as its main objective. It is an African strategy for achieving sustainable development in the 21st century. The programme is premised on African governments committing themselves to good governance, democracy and human rights, while endeavouring to prevent and resolve situations of conflicts and instability on the Continent. Despite the government's criticism of the Senegalese president, Zimbabwe's main opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), has fully embraced Wade's remarks. MDC's information secretary, Learnmore Jongwe, described Wade's statement as a "refreshing departure from other African leaders, who have offered mindless solidarity with Mugabe when in their hearts of hearts, they know Zimbabwe's presidential elections were not free and fair." - President Wade is the light at the end of the African tunnel, said Jongwe. "We hope many more leaders will emulate him." Wade has been the lone voice in Africa against Mugabe's victory, which has been greeted with a mixed response. African countries said the poll was free and fair. But international observers, including the Commonwealth and the SADC Parliamentary Forum described the elections as not reflecting the true will of the voters. SADC is the 14-nation Southern African Development Community. At least 120 people, mainly opposition supporters, had been killed in the run-up to, and during, the 9-11 March elections, according to human rights groups. Many more were injured and millions of dollars worth of property destroyed. Millions of Zimbabweans living abroad were also denied the right to vote. Many young people failed to get identity cards (IDs) which would have enabled them to cast their votes.
|
