The Sunday Mail
News Editor
A number of African leaders share President Mugabe’s candid views on exploitative Afro-Western relations, but will not dare speak their minds, Namibia’s President Hage Geingob has said. In a wide-ranging interview with Zimpapers Television Network in Harare last Thursday, President Geingob spoke of Africa’s “great respect” for President Mugabe and how the Zimbabwean leader “dirtied his hands” while claiming an enduring stake in global affairs.
He also gave a bold assessment of former liberation movements, asserting that “they are modern, and their popularity is going up” contrary to opposition claims.
President Geingob was in the country to open last week’s Zimbabwe International Trade Fair in Bulawayo.
He told ZTN: “(My relationship with President Mugabe) is excellent. President Mugabe was at the level of my predecessor, President (Sam) Nujoma, so I’m old, but we are smaller boys. I was regarding him as mentor who I cannot talk to at my level as ‘comrade, comrade’. But things have now happened; that I have to come and visit him and be with him.
“I have great respect for him; Africa has great respect for him. That was attested to by the fact that when we were at the AU last year, he spoke there to say farewell to the outgoing Secretary General. And I have never seen a person who got four or five ovations by Africans. Sometimes, the things he says, of course, many people will think it’s bad and so on, but many of you are dying to say it — some of us — (but) we cannot say it.”
On President Mugabe’s contribution to global politics, he said: “When you are lazy and you dress up and sit in your house, you will look clean. When you go to work and do things, you are dirty. So the fact that everybody renowns him means that he is somebody.
“Everybody in the world renowns President Mugabe’s name. That means he has been a factor in African politics, world politics. When he enters the United Nations General Assembly, you will see President Mugabe has entered.”
President Geingob said President Mugabe had during his AU Chairmanship (January 2015-January 2016) set the continent on a new trajectory of industrialisation and self-sustenance.
“He is a good Chairman. Decisions were taken. It was very good; he was calling meetings. I was the new President of Namibia at the time, and we were talking about industrialisation.
“. . .When President Mugabe was Chairman of Sadc (August 2014-August 2015), we came here when there was a Summit on industrialisation. Now, before we can fight over land, let’s talk about the resources we have and what value we can get from them.
“We have resources from the land, which we just send out to Europe; they add value there and send the finished product back at a high cost. So, we are saying as a region, since we have similar commodities, how do we trade? We are, therefore, saying if you can add value to our diamonds, for instance, and jewellery is out, then we can sell, we can trade.
“If we stop talking about leadership and start addressing the needs of Africa, we can do it. Africa realises that we have to unite, we have to pool our resources. Definitely, industrialisation is something whose time has come.”
Regarding the future of former liberation movements, he said: “Former liberation movements brought (democracy to) this part of the world. We are being elected. Are you going to tell me that I have been elected by 87 percent, I shouldn’t carry out my duties because I am a former liberation movement person while people want me and people have elected me?
“So, our popularity is not going down; it’s going up. These are free and fair elections. When I have been elected, must I feel guilty because I am a former liberation movement person? No. We have liberated the countries. We are governing, and if we have problems, it’s like any other politician.
“There are young people who are in power today, how are they doing? I don’t want to mention the countries, but there are younger Presidents who came, who were not in the liberation struggle. . .Are they doing better? . . .We are modern. We have been exposed to the world. We know the world. We know the poverty also.”
