88-year-old Mugabe attacks African leaders

President Robert Mugabe has all but confirmed that he is increasingly getting isolated by Africa's new crop of leaders, whom he has described as "naive and weak", the Daily News reported on Monday.

Mugabe used his birthday celebrations, held at a packed Sakubva Stadium at the weekend to attack the African Union, which forced him into a coalition government with arch rival-Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai after the disputed 2008 election.

Signalling how he intends to take his fight with South African President Jacob Zuma to the very end, Mugabe used the occasion to pack punches on South Africa for legalising gay marriages and agreeing to a UN resolution that resulted in the bombing of Libya by Western countries.

At 88, Mugabe retreated to dead friends such as Tanzania's Julius Mwalimu Nyerere and Ghana's Kwameh Nkrumah, the founding fathers of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU).

New leaders who form the African Union (AU), the successor to the OAU, came in for a lashing, described by Mugabe as a lily-livered crop that is being easily manipulated by Western "imperialists".

"The Africa of today is full of cowards...The leaders are weak and naive," said Mugabe in the local Shona language.

"We are letting imperialists dictate terms to us. We are letting down founding fathers such as Nyerere. Whites have infiltrated Africa with impunity," he said in a defiant speech that marked his intention to remain on the political scene for longer in spite of old age and reports of ill-health.

"Kududza hatikuzive. Kana une chinangwa haudududze. Africa yatanga kududza (Retreating is not in our vocabulary. You don't retreat when you have set your mission. But Africa has started retreating. Africa is retreating). It has bowed down to imperialism," Mugabe said.

In power since independence from Britain in 1980, Mugabe is the oldest African president and has seen most of his peers retire or die.

This has left him in an awkward position of having to deal with an emerging group of young leaders who are increasingly democratising their countries and opening their economies to the broader world.

The attack on current African leaders is significant because the continent has remained Mugabe's last bastion of back up after being ditched by former friends in the West.

These are the same African leaders that in 2008 mandated regional organisation Sadc to ensure a negotiated coalition government in Zimbabwe after rejecting results of a presidential election runoff in which Mugabe ran as a solo candidate.

Winner of first round voting, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, had boycotted the runoff citing violence that he says left more than 200 of his supporters dead.

In Mutare, Mugabe took his war with Zuma, who voted for the UN resolution used to oust his old friend Muammar Gaddafi to new levels.

Describing homosexuality as unAfrican Mugabe said: "We won't accept it in Africa. But other African countries have put it in their constitutions." South Africa legalised gay marriages in 2009.

Relations between Mugabe and Zuma have been deteriorating since the South African President took over as mediator to Zimbabwe's political crisis.

Zuma took over from his predecessor Thabo Mbeki who helped broker the power sharing agreement that led to the formation of Zimbabwe's unity government in 2009.

He has used the position to push for credible reforms to ensure a free vote, a stance resented by Mugabe.
Mugabe last week said he would not hesitate to ask for the removal of Zuma as mediator.