Mugabe's big 91 birthday bash

Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe, the oldest leader on the African continent, marks his 91st birthday - one week after the event - at a party this weekend. Some 20,000 people are expected to attend.

Africa's oldest leader, President Robert Mugabe, might have turned 91 last week, but his birthday party is set for February 28. It will be an extravagant celebration at a luxury hotel and golf course near the Victoria Falls.

"Victoria Falls is going to be a hive of activities – the place and the city," Innocent Hamandishe of the ruling ZANU-PF party said, referring to the falls and the nation's top tourism resort. Hamandishe is leading the organizers of the massive celebration.

An estimated 20,000 people are expected to attend the festivities at the five-star Elephant Hill Hotel and the 18-hole golf course near the falls, on the border with Zambia.

The hotel's website invites prospective guests to "play golf where the animals roam." Two elephants will be on the menu, along with about 100 other animals, which will be slaughtered for the event.

A youth group in Mugabe's ZANU-PF known as the 21 February Movement, which has been planning Mugabe's birthday party since 1986, said they would try to raise more than $1 million (888,300 euros) in donations to pay for this year's celebration.

Tendai Musasa, the chairman of Woodlands Conservancy in Victoria Falls, is one of many Zimbabweans who have made a donation. "We wish him many more years," he said.

On all state radio and television, hardly an hour passes before a song or a jingle reminds citizens of Mugabe's 91st birthday.

Criticism from opposition and conservationists

But the main opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), denounced the bash. "All the money that has been collected to bankroll this obscene jamboree should be immediately channeled towards rehabilitating the collapsed public hospitals, clinics and rural schools in Matabeleland North province," Obert Gutu, spokesman for the MDC, said in a statement. Victoria Falls is located in in that province.

Conservationists are not happy either. Johnny Rodrigues, chairman of the Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force, told AFP news agency that he was disgusted by the news of the planned slaughter of the elephants. "We claim to have the best conservationist policies in the world, but our president does not set a good example. How can he talk of anti-poaching when he is allowing this to happen?"

In the streets of Harare, there are mixed opinions on whether Mugabe deserves such lavish parties. Ramero Ngara certainly thinks so. "This must be done annually, because we are celebrating the birthday of an icon - not only in Zimbabwe but in Africa," he said.

Others think such generosity is misplaced. "To use national resources to celebrate the birth of a 91-year-old, whose future life lies in the cemetery, instead of addressing the economic problems this country is facing is absurd," said a passer-by, who declined to give his name.

The lavish birthday parties have become a sore point for some Zimbabweans, especially those fighting to survive a wave of company closures and successive food shortages.

"For me the celebrations are quite wasteful considering that millions of Zimbabweans are living in abject poverty," said another Harare resident, who also did not want his name published. "Zimbabweans cannot actually afford a decent meal," he added, "so to be told of the president spending one million dollars on celebrations is quite irresponsible and neglecting of the very people he is supposed to be representing."