Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe has a tendency to use funeral speeches to attack some target or other, typically The West. There is even a name for this. Type in a Google search for “Mugabe funeral rant” and you’ll be amazed with what you find – for example, the Sabina Mugabe rant (“‘To hell’ with Europe and America) and the Joseph Msika rant ([The West] are not the people to deal with).

Yesterday, he gave the Menard Muzariri rant. According to AFP:

Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe on Thursday condemned gay “filth” in Europe, as he lambasted Western powers for maintaining their asset freeze and travel ban on him and his inner circle. “We don’t worry ourselves about the goings-on in Europe,” he told thousands at the burial of deputy intelligence chief Menard Muzariri, who died Monday. “About the unnatural things happening there, where they turn man-to-man and woman-to-woman. We say, well, it’s their country. If they want to call their country British Gaydom, it’s up to them. That’s not our culture. We condemn that filth.”

I haven’t heard about the upcoming referendum to change the name of the United Kingdom to British Gaydom, but clearly when you’re in the diplomatic circles you have more inside information on these sorts of things.

Read the Gays and Lesbians of Zimbabwe (GALZ) statement about the Muzariri rant:

Statement on President Robert Mugabe’s threats at the burial of Menard Muzariri

Statements by President Robert Mugabe castigating gays and lesbians at the burial of Menard Muzariri at the National Heroes Acre on Thursday 14 April are nothing new and only serve to reinforce our call for constitutional protection of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgendered and Intersex people that has been met with state sponsored homophobia of alarming levels.

It is time for the Zimbabwean government to reflect seriously on its thinking around human rights including those of its lesbian and gay citizens and Government should be implementing measures which proactively encourage a culture of meaningful human rights protection in this country.

Statements by the President are a contradiction of article VII of the Global Political agreement in which the President pledges to promote equality, national healing, cohesion and unity. The President should strive to “create an environment of tolerance and respect among Zimbabweans and that all citizens are treated with dignity and decency.”

Activists in Zimbabwe are not puppets of foreign forces, as government would have everyone believe: we want a responsible government that is responsive to the needs of all Zimbabweans and we are fighting for our own good and for our own benefit as citizens of Zimbabwe.

The President needs to provide leadership in overcoming Zimbabwe’s challenges in areas such as violence, unemployment, education and health rather than fostering antipathy and intolerance.

This entry was posted on April 15th, 2011 at 8:28 am by Amanda Atwood and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.