According to the latest Wiki Leaks cable, the 88-year old Zimbabwe leader is known to hold in high esteem, Queen Elizabeth, despite being stripped of his Knighthood conferred on him in 1994.The Queen stripped Mugabe of his ceremonial knighthood to express Britain's revulsion over human rights abuses.
Four years ago Mugabe told a campaign rally in Chitungwiza that he still respected the Queen and heaped the blame for the loss of his knighthood on former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
"We continue to respect the queen," Mugabe told a crowd at the campaign rally. "It's the demons at Downing Street that need to be exorcised."
Suggestions that The Queen of England was the best person to persuade Mugabe to soften his political positions emerged after the US indicated it needed to send an eminent person like its former ambassador to the United Nations Andrew Young to meet the former guerrilla leader. The US hoped Young would encourage Mugabe to moderate his policies, but it was suggested that the only person Mugabe was likely to listen to was The Queen of England.
This was said by the former US Charge de’ Affaires in Harare, Earl Irving in a diplomatic cable made available this week.
Irving said this surfaced during a meeting between Morgan Tsvangirai, David Coltart and Welshman Ncube with former US acting principal deputy Assistant Secretary Mark Bellamy in March 2001.
This was before the MDC’s infamous split in 2005.
The MDC leaders met Bellamy to discuss the worsening political crisis in Zimbabwe. President Mugabe and Zanu PF had just won the 2000 elections which were marred by violence and intimidation.
The MDC leaders were complaining about the violence and intimidation that was pervading the country and the former US top official asked what role Washington could play in “these trying times”.
In response Ncube suggested to Bellamy that a visit by the former US ambassador to the United Nations Andrew Young to meet President Mugabe would bear fruits.
But other MDC leaders, Tsvangirai and Coltart shot Ncube’s suggestion down saying said there was no really international figure other than the Queen of England, who could influence Mugabe in any meaningful way.
The other leaders at the meeting included Morgan Tsvangirai and David Coltart.
But the problem, the leaders said, was that it was unlikely to bring the Queen to meet Mugabe to discuss the political problems facing the former British colony.
Post published in: Africa News