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Mr George Charamba

Tendai Mugabe, Harare Bureau
THE Government has dismissed as shallow, attacks on President Mugabe by opposition functionaries following his weekend address at the airport where he said Africa might consider pulling out of the United Nations if the continent is not accorded two permanent seats in the world body’s Security Council.

President Mugabe’s Press Secretary Mr George Charamba said the opposition exposed its little understanding of world affairs adding that the position in question was a continental position adopted in Swaziland.

He said the agreement that was known as the Ezulwini Consensus was not an invention by President Mugabe and it was shocking that the opposition came to know of it through President Mugabe’s weekend address.

“There has been a very shallow response from the opposition to the President’s address at the airport,” he said.

“Firstly, the President was not developing a new idea. He was merely representing the position of Africa regarding changes we want to see happening in the Security Council. That position is now known as the Ezulwini Consensus. It was developed in Swaziland and we have spoken about it repeatedly.

“It’s a continental position and that is what is going to be Africa’s negotiation with the rest of the world in respect of the Security Council reforms.

“The Indians have their position, the Japanese have their own position, Latin America has its own position – similarly Africa has its own position, and it so happens that the President who was coming from the General Assembly reiterated, not invented, reiterated the position of Africa.”

He continued: “Our well-educated opposition people who seem pathetically ignorant of world affairs, discovered Africa’s position for the first time from the President’s airport address. And they dare present their own pathetic views on the matter.

“It’s not a domestic issue. It’s a continental issue, and Africa has taken a position on the matter. The President was talking about his peers – Presidents of Africa not about puny little opposition people here. Little politicians here are not his interlocutors at that level. He is talking continental, he is talking global. Before they open their mouths, they must just pass the test of relevance in terms of discourse.”

Mr Charamba said Africa’s position was that the continent should get two seats with veto if veto was kept, or two seats without veto if the veto was abolished.

“We are prepared to press very, very hard for that outcome and, ‘we’ means Africa,” he said.

“It does not mean Zimbabwe, except the fact that Zimbabwe is part of Africa. Really, the sub-text we are getting from the opposition is that they are the West’s skippers. They dare argue for the West. They dare argue for the P5 (five permanent members of the UN Security Council), as if the P5 has no capacity to answer for itself and it’s very much in character.

“They have never as opposition taken a national position let alone a continental one. They have always been pandering to a Western idea and they think the P5 needs their rescue. It doesn’t.”

Following President Mugabe’s address at the airport, members of various opposition political parties took turns attacking the Head of State and Government saying his views were not in order.

They interpreted his address as Zimbabwe’s lone position when it comes to the reforms of the UN Security Council.