Mnangagwa shows CITES the ‘middle finger’

Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa says the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (Cites) can go to hang after it maintained a ban on the trade of elephants and its products. 

Botswana, Namibia and Zimbabwe had proposed being allowed to sell their stockpiles, but Kenya and several neighbouring states opposed the move in the CITES meeting in Switzerland last Thursday.

"There is this organisation called CITES, CITES is an organisation of people who ate their animals and those who have their animals/Europeans no longer have animals because they ate an finished them all but they have the nerve of coming to want and tell us what to do with ours yet they finished theirs. 

"They say, no, animals must not be killed or sold, as for elephant tusks or rhino horns, they don't want us to sell but say protect them from poachers. We have rangers that we pay, we ant fences to control these animals from human conflict, we want helicopters that fly on top monitoring everything and all that needs money," said Mnangagwa. 

"Our position is that those skins, tusks should be sold and we get money for conservation. As it is, our elephants are more than 80 000 but the area we prepared can only accommodate 56 000 meaning we have excess of elephants but we are told we mustn't sell. The day before yesterday, we were told not to sell and we said to hell."