President Robert Mugabe celebrates his 93rd birthday
Zimbabwean President, Robert Mugabe celebrated his 93rd birthday
with a lavish party on Saturday, addressing his own mortality in a
speech, but showing no signs of stepping down.
Wearing a black cowboy hat, Mugabe, who is increasingly frail,
paused for lengthy periods and mumbled at times as he spoke for more
than an hour.
"It's not always easy to predict that, although you are alive this year, you will be alive next year," he said.
"It does not matter how healthy you might feel. The decision
that you continue to live and enjoy life is that of one personality we
call the Almighty God.
"We should thank the Almighty God that I was able to live from
92 years last year to 93, but much more than that I was able to live
from childhood to this day -- that's a long, long journey."
The birthday party, held in a large marquee outside Zimbabwe's
second city Bulawayo, was attended by thousands of officials and ZANU-PF
party supporters.
Mugabe has held power since 1980 during a reign marked by
repression of dissent, vote-rigging and the country's sharp economic
decline.
Now the world's oldest national leader, his actual birthday on
Tuesday has been honoured in a week-long extravaganza with state media
filled with tributes and praise.
- Local criticism -
Saturday's party included a feast and several vast birthday cakes,
angering some Zimbabweans as the country endures severe food shortages.
One of the cakes was shaped like Mugabe's official Mercedes-Benz limousine.
Holding the event at a school in Matobo has also riled locals as it
is close to where many victims of Mugabe's crackdown on dissidents in
the early 1980s are thought to be buried.
At least 20,000 people are believed to have been killed in the
massacres by North Korean-trained Zimbabwean troops, according to rights
groups.
"This should not be a place for celebration," Mbuso Fuzwayo, spokesman for the Bulawayo-based campaign group Ibhetshu Likazulu, told AFP.
"The whole area is a crime scene where the bones of victims of the massacres are buried."
The state-owned Herald newspaper on Tuesday published a 24-page
supplement of gushing congratulatory messages from government
departments and regime loyalists.
"It’s written on earth and in heaven that our leader is R.G. Mugabe," ZANU-PF national youth leader Kudzai Chipanga told the president in his speech.
"We find it hard and impossible to talk about any other leader except yourself."
ZANU-PF has endorsed Mugabe as its candidate for general elections
next year, and he remains widely respected as a liberation hero by other
African leaders.
Mugabe has avoided naming a successor, but his wife, Grace, 51, is
seen as a possible candidate along with vice-president Emmerson
Mnangagwa.
A coalition of opposition activist groups said the event was "a mockery and a direct insult to the concerns of the citizens", alleging that poor farmers were forced to donate cattle to feed guests.
Mugabe cut the cakes with the help of Grace as the crowd sang Happy Birthday.
Born on February 21, 1924, Mugabe trained as a teacher and taught
in what was then Rhodesia and Ghana before returning home to join the
guerrilla war against white-minority rule.
Source: Yahoo! News
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