Mugabe should shut up, he can not lecture AU on values

Charles Mabhena

Zimbabwe opposition party, People’s Democratic Party (PDP) leader Tendai Biti says President Robert Mugabe is least qualified to lecture the African Union on values, which he himself lacks at home.

Biti says Mugabe should know that just as self determination is a founding principle of AU so is democracy, and the old pilot need to understand that before trying point out fingers at others.

He believes it is ridiculous for a regime that has long abandoned the core values of democracy and rule of law to try to teach others of best practices in doing things. “The little tin pot regime presiding over the worst economic collapse of any country not at war thinks it can lecture AU on values,” he says.

Biti says it is self evident that the regime does not understand the fundamental rights to for citizens to hold opposing views on how they are being ruled, to demonstrate, and to differ as codified in the new Constitution.

The Zimbabwean constitution guarantees citizens the right to freely express themselves, which is being trampled by Mugabe’s regime who is known to torture anyone with opposing views to it.

The PDP boss’ comments come as a response to President Mugabe’s rants that the AU has lost its track, and moved away from the body’s founding values, when it readmitted Morocco into the grouping.

The 93 year old leader was furious and recently told scores of people at the Harare International Airport who welcomed him from AU Summit held in Ethiopia that the new crop of African leaders have lost track and are easily swayed.

Mugabe equated the current crop of African leaders to sell-outs who can easily throw away the struggle for money. “I think it is lack of ideology, they don’t hold the same revolutionary experiences as some of us. There is too much reliance on their erstwhile colonisers,” he told the press.

This displeasure by Mugabe follows the vote by 39 out of 54 AU countries who casted their ballots in favour of Morocco’s readmission who were expelled from the regional bloc after it colonised the Sahrawi Republic in 1975; in contravention of the body’s values and principles.

As the country is still said to be holding part of the Republic, Mugabe said it was lack of ideological grounding for the AU to readmitted Morocco. However, Biti says Mugabe is not the right person to preach the gospel as his own house lacks the same.