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Commenting on revelations by ex-British prime minister Tony Blair in his recent biography that he would have “loved” to attack Zimbabwe militarily, President Mugabe said the West did not respect the United Nations Charter guaranteeing the equality of peoples.

The Head of State and Government and Commander-in-Chief of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces said this in an interview with CCTV here on Tuesday.
President Mugabe said: “Because we have differed with him on the issue of land he must come to deploy forces?

“The stupidity of it all is that they assume that were it not for Robert Mugabe everything in Zimbabwe would be pro-British.
“The British must recognise us as an equal country. The Charter of the United Nations makes it clear that all nations are equal, no matter how small . . .
“They (the West) don’t recognise that. They think that because they have money, that they have big militaries, they can do whatever they like.
“We say, ‘you can’t do that’. We will put up a fight like indeed we did do. And look at the result, we won.”

Britain and its allies imposed sanctions on Zimbabwe at the turn of the millennium after Harare embarked on a revolutionary land reform programme that has seen nearly 300 000 black families benefiting from farms previously held by just 6 000 white farmers.

In his memoirs, titled “A Journey”, Blair claimed people asked him why he had not invaded Zimbabwe.
He said: “You need to ask if such action is feasible and practical. People often used to say to me: If you got rid of the gangsters in Sierra Leone, Milosevic, the Taliban and Saddam, why can’t you get rid of Mugabe?

“The answer is: I would have loved to; but it wasn’t practical (since in his case, and for reasons I never quite understood, the surrounding African nations maintained a lingering support for him and would have opposed any action strenuously).”

Blair added: “They (leaders of governments he does not like) may pose no outside or external threat; or it may be easily contained diplomatically.
“It may — as with (President) Mugabe — be impractical to intervene. If change will not come by evolution, should it be done by revolution? Should those who have the military power contemplate doing so? The leader has to decide whether the objective is worth the cost.

“What’s more, he or she must do so unsure of what the exact cost might be or the exact price of failing to meet the objective.”
This is not the first time that Blair has been associated with a planned military invasion of Zimbabwe. In 2007, former British armed forces chief, General Charles Guthrie, said he had discussed attacking Zimbabwe with Blair.

He said he had advised Blair not to pursue such a course of action.
Zimbabwe said a plan to repel any attacks or assassinations of political leaders had been operationalised.
Indications were that Blair was forced to shelve the invasion plan on the advice of former members of the British Military Advisory Training Team, who worked in Zimbabwe in the 1980s and 1990s who pointed out the ZDF’s capabilities.
After the 2008 elections, another ex-PM, Gordon Brown, reportedly contemplated sending troops to Zimbabwe, supposedly to “evacuate” British citizens resident in the country.