Mugabe Welcomes US Envoy ...by Calling Him an Idiot

Zimbabwe pres: 'I hope he was not speaking for Obama'
By Caroline Miller,  Newser Staff
Posted Jul 6, 2009 11:21 AM CDT
Mugabe Welcomes US Envoy ...by Calling Him an Idiot
Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe attends the opening session of the 13th African Union summit of heads of state and government in Sirte, Libya, Wednesday, July 1, 2009.   (AP Photo / Nasser Nasser)

Robert Mugabe met with a US envoy for the first time in years last week, and promptly called him an "idiot," Bloomberg reports. The Zimbabwean president went on to say that nothing came out of talks with Johnnie Carson during a conference in Libya. “I hope he was not speaking for Obama,” Mugabe told a state newspaper today. “You wouldn’t speak to an idiot of that nature. He thinks he could dictate to us what to do.” He said he told Carson "he was a shame, a great shame being an African-American.”

Some speculated the meeting could signal a thaw—or maybe not: “We have the whole of the Southern African Development Community working with us, and you have the likes of little fellows like Carson wanting to say ‘you do this, you do that,'” Mugabe ranted. He added that Zimbabwe would look East for help, noting that unlike Chinese assistance, Western aid is delivered “in a crooked way to serve their own political objectives."
(More Robert Mugabe stories.)

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