Mugabe spokesman: UK plotting to invade Zimbabwe

Videos
Photos

(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-12-08 14:51

HARARE -- Zimbabwe's government has accused former colonial ruler Britain of using a cholera epidemic to rally Western support for an invasion of the collapsing southern African nation, a state-run newspaper said on Sunday.

Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe is seen at the UN Conference on Financing for Development in Doha in this November 29, 2008 file photo. [Agencies]

President Robert Mugabe is under mounting pressure from the international community, especially Western nations which accuse him of ruining the once prosperous country and exposing its people to famine and disease.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has branded Mugabe's government a "blood-stained regime" and said it was responsible for the cholera epidemic that has killed at least 575 people. The world must tell Mugabe "enough is enough", he said.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Friday the veteran leader's departure from office was long overdue.

The growing Western criticism signalled a plot to oust Mugabe's government militarily, Mugabe's spokesman George Charamba said.

"I don't know what this mad prime minister (Brown) is talking about. He is asking for an invasion of Zimbabwe ... but he will come unstuck," Charamba told the state-controlled Sunday Mail.

The government often blames Britain and other Western nations for Zimbabwe's meltdown, saying sanctions against Mugabe and his inner circle have sabotaged the economy.

African nations are also growing more uncomfortable with Mugabe, though some still view the 84-year-old as a hero of Africa's liberation era.

Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga on Sunday repeated a previous call for Mugabe to step down and urged the African Union to hold an emergency summit to formulate a resolution to send troops into Zimbabwe to deal with the crisis.

"We must not fail the dying people of Zimbabwe in this hour of their greatest need ... we must assist them to end this vile dictatorship, we must beg them not to despair," Odinga told a news conference in Nairobi.

Botswanan Foreign Minister Phandu Skelemani and South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu, a Nobel laureate, have also called for Mugabe's removal.

"There is bitter disappointment in the current leadership," former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, a Ghanaian, said in a statement issued by the Elders, a group of prominent figures that includes ex-US President Jimmy Carter and Tutu.

"This government has not demonstrated the ability to lead the country out of its current crisis," said Annan, who along with Carter and Graca Machel, the wife of Nelson Mandela, was denied entry to Zimbabwe last month on a humanitarian visit.

Previous page 1 2 Next Page