Mugabe turns his back on the West

CHINESE-MADE jet fighters flew over independence celebrations at which President Robert Mugabe declared he had no need for Western help or Western-style democracy.

“We have turned east, where the sun rises, and given our back to the west, where the sun sets,” Mugabe told a crowd of 8,000 gathered at the Chinese-built national sports stadium, referring to efforts to seek new economic partners among the “Asian tigers.”

Mugabe delivered a 35-minute, nationally-televised address marking the 25th anniversary of independence from Britain.

The 81-year-old Mugabe, who has ruled since independence, spoke emotionally of the legacy of British rule.

“To this day, we bear the lasting scars of that dark encounter with colonialism, often described in the West as civilising,” Mugabe said referring to a bush war that claimed 30,000 lives and preceded independence in 1980, when what was then known as Rhodesia became Zimbabwe.

Mugabe thanked friendly African states for endorsing the election results and awarded state honours to past presidents of Angola, Botswana, Mozambique, Tanzania and Zambia.

Conspicuously absent from the honours’ list was former South Africa President Nelson Mandela who has repeatedly criticised Mugabe’s human rights record.

In his speech he listed a recent redistribution of 5,000 white-owned farms to black Zimbabweans as among his major achievements.

Only some 20,000 of Rhodesia’s 1974 peak white population of 293,000 remain in Zimbabwe.