Why Has China Bought Mugabe a Mansion?
In an opinion piece in the Telegraph, columnist Christopher Booker writes:
It may not be surprising that, as befits any mad dictator, President Mugabe is now the proud owner of a palatial £4.5 million mansion in Harare and a similarly lavish country hideaway, each fitted with the latest electronic security systems, including anti-aircraft missiles.
But why should all this have been provided for him by the People’s Republic of China?
The explanation lies in a deal struck in 2005 whereby Mr Mugabe handed over to China his country’s mineral rights, including the world’s second largest reserves of platinum, worth £250 billion.
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All over Africa we see a similar story. The ruthless but canny Chinese dictatorship props up equally ruthless and corrupt governments, as in Angola, in return for that continent’s fabulous mineral reserves. Britain, which once ruled much of Africa, has handed over its policy-making to the EU, which does little but make sanctimonious and irrelevant gestures.
Yet this is the continent which, in 2005, both Tony Blair and Gordon Brown proclaimed was “at the top” of their international agenda. It was in the same year that, as the EU’s acting president, Tony Blair flew to Beijing to sign an agreement making the EU and China “strategic partners”. It is only too obvious which “partner’s” strategy is proving the more successful.
POSTED COMMENTS: 3 Responses
Why did the Queen crown Mugabe the honory knighthood?
The ugly Brits have really gone ‘banana’ over this Mugabe ‘thing’ ~ I have bothered to browse all their so-called mainstream & ‘gossip’ junk-rated press & articles & they appear surprisingly
/singularly uniform in their utter desires to ‘eat-up’ & ‘tear-away’ Mugabe in totally unassuming fashion! This frency has gotten into their heads/souls/nerves so much so that they have totally lost their famous (some would say notorious) British high-society/royal/aloof gentlemanly composure/balance/cool in smacking at whoever who appears to come in their ways! They were utterly driven nuts by this Afican patriot (never mind about his economic mismanagement just for a while)!
I had previously heard of this famous anti West crusader, Dr Ma(d)hathir of Malaysia who helped Mugabe build his ‘palace’ with Sarawak’s indigenous tropical rainforest hardwood about 5 years ago & now the Chinese with another ‘palace’ ~ God knows how many ‘palaces’ Mugabe has or it may be just mere fantasy like ‘Alice-in-wonderland’ in the disturbed British frame of minds!
This silly insinuation should therefore be treated with a pinch of salt by all right-minded people. Hey, good-old-Brits, can you come up with better-configured lies?
Mugabe was stripped of his knighthood due to ethical considerations.