Mugabe: Britain should “extinguish their fire”

This article was written by Nancy Pasipanodya on 9 August, at 19 : 10 PM

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PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe has urged Britain to pay attention to the wave of riots raging in its cities and leave Zimbabwe alone.

In an address marking the country’s defence forces day, President Mugabe said that Britain’s focus should be on their internal problems and not Zimbabwe.

He said: “Britain I understand is on fire, London especially, and we hope they can extinguish their fire, pay attention to their internal problems and to that fire which is now blazing all over, and leave us alone.”

President Mugabe added: “We do not have any fire here and we do not want them to continue to create unnecessary problems in our country.

“We want peace, and the people of Zimbabwe want peace.”

He also referred to recent financial upheavals in the United States as “problems” the country should attend to.

He insisted illegal sanctions imposed by Western nations have stalled training and modernization programmes in the Zimbabwean military.

The president called on political parties, local authorities, churches and civic organizations to engage with the population to foster a culture of peace and tolerance – but said military reforms that the MDC-T party is pushing for are not part of the all-party negotiations currently taking place in Zimbabwe.

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INTERNATIONAL REACTION TO LONDON RIOTS

Meanwhile, the riots in London have sparked shock around the world, with some countries issuing travel advisories for Britain and China blaming the UK’s “human rights violations”.

Chinese state media on Tuesday, raised questions over whether London could be trusted to stage a safe 2012 Olympic Games.

“The West have been talking about supporting internet freedom, and oppose other countries’ government to control this kind of websites, now we can say they are tasting the bitter fruit [of their complacency] and they can’t complain about it,” wrote one commentator in official Communist Party publication, People’s Daily.

China is proud of its smooth staging of the 2008 Olympic Games. It questioned if London was still a safe bet to hold the Games.

“The three consecutive days of rioting has spread to east London area where the main sports stadium of London Olympic is located,” observed a report on the state-run Xinhua news agency.

“After the riots, the image of London has been severely damaged, leaving the people sceptical and worried about the public security situation during the London Olympics.”

Iranian conservative Resalat newspaper, in a commentary headlined “unrest spreads from Tottenham to Brixton”, called the protests the “worst possible news for David Cameron’s coalition government” and blamed “human rights abuses”.

“The violence and continued chaos in the UK are the result of factors like human rights violations in the country, prejudice against immigrants and coloured people, incidents like the Murdoch scandals and the country’s critical economic conditions,” the newspaper concluded.

The newspaper also claimed that the violence was carried out by students who were forced to drop out of university because of the rise in university tuition fees.

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Libyan state-run Al-Jamahiriyah TV showed a programme called “Homeland’s Desire”. The presenter, Yusuf Shakir, midway into the programme, began to address the British people in English, urging them to “defeat this British regime” which “killed their brothers”.

He said the Libyan people and their leader supported “black power in America and Britain” and always defended blacks who “suffered racial discrimination” in the UK.

He said blacks and the poor took to the streets in London to demonstrate against the British “fascist” government. He added that Libyans would hold demonstrations holding up pictures of Mark Duggan, the man shot by police in Tottenham.

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