Mugabe Offered UK Asylum

Yesterday, I read, with a mixture of amazement and laughter, that a former Conservative cabinet minister (a Lord - no less…) suggested that the solution to the Mugabe problem in Zimbabwe, was to offer Mugabe a house and solace in the United Kingdom.

Not only is the idea quite reprehensible, but could you really accept a failed dictator living in our midst in the UK?

There are probably tens of thousands of Zimbabweans, of varying immigration categories that live in the United Kingdom, and the vast predominance of these are here because they sought to get away from Mugabe, his destructive rule and policies and his violent party, ZANU PF.

Many of these people are struggling to maintain any standard of life in the United Kingdom and long for the freedom and weather of Africa.

But under what proviso could the immigration authorities possibly offer the Zimbabwean President asylum in the UK?

If many Zimbabwean subjects have failed to be given asylum in the United Kingdom, why should Mugabe be given some sort of solace here?

Yes, it may solve the problem in Zimbabwe - assuming, of course, that with the departure of Mugabe that many of his loyalist minions and apologists also leave the country for warmer climes. But we know that no ZANU PF zealot is going to run, and neither is Mugabe. So the suggestion is as academic as it is ridiculous and quite stupefying…

"ZANU PF says its ageing leader, Robert Mugabe does not need a home in the UK as suggested by a former British minister this week whom the revolutionary party accuses of being silly and naïve to think the 'warrior' would leave his territory.

ZANU PF spokesman Rugare Gumbo said suggestions by Lord Renton to give Mugabe a home in the UK as part of efforts to resolve the Zimbabwe economic and political situation were a joke.

"It’s silly. President Mugabe does not need a home anywhere other than Zimbabwe. He was born here, fought here and he is still fighting and from here the illegal sanctions imposed on the country," Gumbo told the Daily News. "You can’t expect a warrior like President Mugabe to leave his territory and accept a home in the UK. It’s a joke made in poor taste."

Gumbo said Mugabe would always be a Zimbabwean first and any suggestion that he be given a home in the UK was stupid."

I’ll tell you what IS silly… referring to Mugabe as a 'warrior'.

not rgm old african warrior LQZkg 16744

He is 86, going on 87, and I don’t think he has wielded a firearm in his life. Mugabe was always administration, logistics - never was he a weapon carrying ‘liberation’ fighter as many of his followers claim to be. (the War Veterans' Leader - one Joseph Chinotimba - never participated in the chimurenga, but maintains that Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai should salute the veterans!)

"Former British Minister for the Home Office and Foreign Office, Lord Renton, told the House of Lords during question time on Tuesday that offering Mugabe a home would be the best way for the British government to help the people of Zimbabwe.

Renton said: "Would you agree that the best way for us to help and assist the economic recovery of Zimbabwe would be to offer President Mugabe a safe, comfortable and well looked after home in Britain?"

Whilst I may see the humour in this chance comment – and I really cannot see it being much more than a tongue-in-cheek suggestion – I am not so sure that other Zimbabweans, who have been forced from their homeland to try another life on foreign shores, will find the idea quite so cheery.

I am glad that ZANU PF has shot the idea down in flames, because I rather think that had Mugabe jumped at the offer, he might have the wrath of a lot of Zimbabweans living in difficulty here in the United Kingdom to contend with first.

Robb WJ Ellis

The Bearded Man