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 PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe yesterday said Zimbabwe does not need Western funding to resuscitate its comatose economy.
Mugabe’s pronouncement flew in the face of the country’s attempts to lobby for the removal of sanctions and the provision of financial assistance.
A government delegation held a meeting with the European Union in Brussels last Friday where the two agreed to intensify the re-engagement dialogue in Harare.
Addressing an ordinary session of the Zanu PF central committee at the party headquarters in Harare, Mugabe said Zimbabwe should not waste time lobbying Western governments and donors for financial assistance.
He said the vegetative economy would be revived through agriculture and mineral resources.
“Zimbabwe shall recover by her wits and resources,” Mugabe said. “Zimbabwe will not be saved by any country or organisation, least of all Western. Let our partners in the inclusive government get that so we do not waste our efforts on useless initiatives.
“It is our mineral resources — all these helped by the ingenuity and entrepreneurship of our people which will turn this economy and country around.”
Mugabe said Zimbabwe will sell diamonds, with or without the Kimberley Certification Process.
“We have been put in the dock because these same countries have imposed illegal sanctions on us for our total ruin. Diamonds would thus blunt their sanctions by enabling us to offset and checkmate their disastrous effects on our people and on our economy,” he said.
Mugabe accused the Americans, Canadians and Australians of trying to constrain the country economically and politically by lobbying for the condemnation of Zimbabwean diamonds.
“Our diamonds are not only bright and clean, they are greatly demanded worldwide. We have the technology to polish them. Let no one doubt our resolve to sell them, with or without the KPCS, with or without the blessing of the USA, Canada, Australia or their NGO pawns,” he said.
“We do not need the blessings of anyone, least of all nations with chequered origins, and equally chequered profiles in spilling so much blood to lay their filthy hands on resources of other nations.”
Turning to the constitution outreach programme, Mugabe said his party would decide to either support or reject a draft constitution depending on whether their position has been incorporated.
“While today they are the points we proffer to those gathering views, tomorrow they become the test by which we measure the overall outcome, and therefore our response and disposition towards the document will be put to the nation in a referendum,” he said.
Mugabe said Zanu PF would not compromise on its fundamental principles and ideals as a nationalist revolutionary party.
“Once the process is defended and secure, we must ensure the product carries and consolidates our ideals…That coveted status must remain solid, secure and unshaken for all time. Zimbabwe ndeyeropa; yakauya nehondo. Haichadzokera kuvarungu zvakare. (blood was spilled to gain Independence and Independence came through an armed struggle. This country will never go back to the whites,” he said.
Mugabe said he was happy that his party’s voice has been dominant during the outreach programme.
He said Zimbabwe should never condone homosexuality and should ensure that gay rights are not included in the new constitution.
“These noble beasts do instinctively know male from female and mate accordingly. What more with man created in the divine image of God and accorded dominion status over all? We abhor homosexuality and firmly resist any attempts to defile our constitution with any recognition,” he said.
Today, Mugabe will address his party’s national consultative assembly in the capital.
Faith Zaba
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