Zimbabwe is not a basket case, says Mugabe

CNN’s Christiane Amanpour had an exclusive, in-depth interview with Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe — his first in five years. Excerpts:

Q: What are you going to ask?  Are you going to ask President Obama to lift the sanctions that are imposed?

A: Not really.  I haven’t come here for President Obama to address the United States alone.  I’ve come here to address the General Assembly, which is part of the United Nations’ structures.  And we are entitled to discuss matters that affect us in the global environment and the matters that affect us in a particular way as Zimbabwe.  And this is what I’m going to do.

 
But you obviously are calling for sanctions to be lifted.

Yes, that I will do, certainly.  The sanctions are unjustified, illegal, and they are meant for regime change, to address that illegal principle.

You say for regime change, but it all really is about trying to get the political situation stabilized.  And for the last year, you’ve been in so-called power-sharing agreement with the leader of the opposition, Morgan Tsvangirai.  What does power-sharing to you mean?  Many people say that it’s in name only right now.

No. It is really power-sharing.  And that power-sharing is encapsulated in an agreement we call the global political agreement. 

 
The problem, though, is, Mr President, that many people are saying that you’re still, and your party, is trying to sort of reduce the MDC majority or their officials in parliament. There are MPs who are being arrested. They’re being charged with alleged crimes to prevent them from being able to take office.  Why is this still happening?

First, may I make this quite clear, that the global political agreement was arrived at after a series of meetings which involved not just ZANU-PF, as represented by myself and our negotiators, and numbered also between ZANU-PF and the MDC, as represented by Tsvangirai and Professor Chambara and their negotiators.

And these provisions in the global agreement were reached after very strenuous discussions had taken place.

 
Right.  But the question really is...

And so they were not -- they were not forced upon us.  We -- we came to...

 
No, but the question really is...

We came to them deliberately.

 
All right.  So why then...