Friday, September 10, 2010

Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe Scoffs at Health Rumours

President scoffs at health rumours

Reuters

PRESIDENT Mugabe yesterday laughed off su-ggestions that he was dying of cancer and had recently suffered a stroke.

In an interview with Reuters news agency at his Zimbabwe House offices, the President said he was surprised by speculation over his health, saying this had become a perennial issue and he hardly paid any serious attention to it.

"I don’t know how many times I die, but no-body has ever talked about my resurrection," he said at the end of an hour-long interview.

"I suppose they don’t want to, because it would mean they would mention my resurrection several times and that would be quite divine, an achievement for an individual who is not divine.

"Jesus died once, and resurrected only once, and poor Mugabe several times," he said, clapping his hands loudly, laughing and rocking in his chair.

President Mugabe (86) — who appeared fit and lively for his age — said only God could decide issues of life and death.

Although there have been reports over the last 10 years on President Mugabe’s health, the veteran Zimbabwean leader has no publicly-known serious ailment.

"My time will come, but for now, ‘no’. I am still fit enough to fight the sanctions and knock out (my opponents)," he said in reference to sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe while former US president George W. Bush and British prime minister Tony Blair were in office.

"It is Bush who is out, Blair out, and the others are persons of no consequence any more. They are inheritors of a situation," he said in an interview in which he called for improved relations between Zimbabwe and Western powers.

"These (Bush and Blair) were the major arch enemies; they are the ones who brought this on us."

President Mugabe said Zimbabwe would continue to do its best even with sanctions in place.

"God is there. He showers his blessings on us. We continue to discover a number of resources — platinum, diamonds and gold and uranium.

"Those are recent ones, perhaps others will be coming, we don’t know. So God is not there for one nation, just for the Europeans, God is there for everybody, so God is great," Presi-dent Mugabe said. — Reuters.

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