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President Mugabe

From Caesar Zvayi in ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia
AFRICAN Union chairman President Mugabe says he is not worried about what the West will think or do about his chairmanship as his business is to deliver on the mandate given to him by the continent.

The US government which, along with Britain, has led the Western onslaught on Zimbabwe, is on record saying “the actions and policies of the government of Zimbabwe pose an unusual and extra-ordinary threat to the foreign policy of the United States”.

The congruence between Zimbabwe’s economic blueprint Zim-Asset and the AU’s 50-year development roadmap, Agenda 2063, means the West’s worst nightmare – the spread of resource nationalism beyond Zimbabwe’s borders – has come true.

Fielding questions during a press conference that followed the official closing of the 24th Ordinary Summit of the African Union General Assembly here on Saturday, and in response to a question on whether Zimbabwe’s frosty relations with the West would not impact on his continental duties, the President said that was for the West to worry about.

“I don’t know what the West will say or do, that isn’t my business. My business is to ensure that the decisions that we’ve arrived at here are implemented and they’re all decisions which have to do with the development of Africa; that is my concern, concentrating on bettering the lives of the people, giving them something that will raise their standard of living.

“This can only come from us working together, taking advantage of the resources we have in Africa and ensuring that we add value to them, beneficiate them and the earnings there from go into the development of Africa,’’ he said.

President Mugabe, who is also Sadc chairman, was unanimously elected AU chairman on Friday despite spirited opposition from some western countries that sought to use the illegal sanctions regime they imposed on Zimbabwe and President Mugabe as an issue of his electability.

This was despite the fact that the AU, and other progressive groups worldwide, are on record condemning the same sanctions and calling for their immediate removal.

“As for the West, they can do whatever they want after all my country has been under sanctions for over 10 years. If they want to continue then it is their business but we say sanctions are wrong, they’ve not added any value to anybody,’’ President Mugabe said.

Though it severely contracted the Zimbabwean economy by bleeding it of over $42billion in lost revenue over the past 15 years, the West’s illegal sanctions regime has failed to achieve its intended objective of facilitating illegal regime change in Zimbabwe.

The proxy opposition, that the sanctions were meant to assist, is in disarray having been soundly rejected by Zimbabweans in the July 31, 2013 harmonised elections that delivered a resounding mandate to President Mugabe and Zanu-PF, a mandate far bigger than their 1980 landslide.

In the wake of the elections, President Mugabe’s star has been on the rise regionally and continentally as he went on to be elected Sadc deputy chair in August 2013, Sadc chair and AU first vice chairman in 2014 and now AU chairman in 2015, all despite spirited western propaganda that sought to cast him as a national and continental pariah.

President Mugabe told the media that the West was in fact coming around to normalising relations, saying Zimbabwe had been receiving several delegations keen on investing, the latest having come from France just before he left for the AU Summit.

Zim-Asset and Agenda 2063 have striking similarities as both seek to harness domestic resources for the betterment of the lives of Africans by promoting value-addition, beneficiation and the development of infrastructure and utilities to facilitate industrialisation.

AU Commission chairperson Dr Nkosazana Dhlamini-Zuma said the overall vision was that all African countries should domesticate Agenda 2063.