SA Implicated In Mugabe’s Obsession For Power

By Correspondent

A VETERAN British Labour party politician, Kelvin Hopkins has described President Mugabe as a “very old man obsessed with power” and blamed South Africa for irrational loyalty to a “brutal dictator.

Hopkins spoke in an interview with The ZimDiaspora on Saturday in Luton, 30 miles outside London during an MDC-T fundraising party being hosted by the South Bedfordshire branch.

He said South Africa was too soft towards Mugabe and suggested that Pretoria’s loyalty comes from the struggle against apartheid in which Mugabe might have helped ANC revolutionaries to a certain extent.

“That is the problem,” he said.

Hopkins said the sympathies from South Africa were retrogressive in efforts to remove Mugabe from power. He said this was exacerbated by the fact that any action by Britain would be misinterpreted as a resurrection of colonialism bearing in mind that Britain is a former colonial master.

“It could be interpreted as white colonialists have gone back to Zimbabwe. In this context, South Africa should play an important role in democratising Zimbabwe which unfortunately doesn’t seem to be the case. Malawi and Zambia should also be seen to be contributing towards a democratic neighbour. These three countries should be united against Mugabe,” he said.

Asked if Britain was aware of the 1980s massacres in which it is estimated that 20 000 Ndebele speaking Zimbabweans were killed by President Mugabe’s North Korean-trained 5th Brigade, he responded “yes we know about it”.

“We know about the Gukurahundi massacres, and we know that violence still continues in Zimbabwe at different levels,” he said.

Asked why the international community has shown moral indifference, Hopkins said Zimbabwe is not a unique case.

“There have been also a number of terrible countries in the world where America has held back but has only intervened in others for their own benefit. You may know that the idea of intervening in other countries is also problematic,” he said.

When asked what he personally thought about President Mugabe, he said: “I think Robert Mugabe is an old man who is obsessed with power and perpetrates violence to secure and sustain that power,” he said.

“He has been in power for a long time and its sad that he still wants to stay in power. But this has happened before, they say power corrupts

“While I know from talking to Zimbabweans who have been intimidated and brutalised by ZANU-PF that there is violence, my wish now is that Morgan Tsvangirai wins the next elections and get rid of the violence and intimidation,” he said.

“I am a member of the Zimbabwe Group in the House of Commons which is headed by Kate Hoye. I will go along with what everyone wants because Mugabe ought to go one way or another. If Morgan Tsvangirai and the MDC are elected I believe they will be able to solve the problems,”

“I want to see a democratic, open and egalitarian society in Zimbabwe where everybody has democratic right, no fear and everyone has rights. However, at the moment we know that those rights are being abused. We need to put an end to that,” he said.

Asked if he thought Tsvangirai would be a good president for Zimbabwe, Hopkins said: “Yes I want to think so. I have met him so many times he looks like a good man. The important thing is that Zimbabwe must be a peaceful democratic country where everyone has human rights protection”.

Posted by Editor on June 18, 2013. Filed under WORLD. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry