More news from The Chronic and The Horrid
Apparently Blair and Howard swiftly swapped seats when they realised who they’d be sitting next to at the Pope’s funeral. I haven’t been able to find much reference to this, but Th
e Horrid (the state controlled Herald newspaper) have quoted unnamed sources saying they did, and Mugabe himself has been regailing all with the tale (again, reported in The Horrid).
President recounts Blair’s hasty retreatPRESIDENT Mugabe sparked laughter in the aisles at the 61st session of the Zanu-PF Central Committee yesterday when he narrated how British Prime Minister Tony Blair fled from his seat at Pope John II’s funeral in Rome last Friday and how subsequently a handshake with Prince Charles sent the British media livid.
“Pope John Paul II was a revered Pope,” he started off. “It was a very moving ceremony, quite long. I’ve never seen such a multitude of people.”
He told the Central Committee that the event had attracted a galaxy of world leaders and clerics from various denominations. Among them were United States President George W. Bush and his two predecessors – his father George Bush Snr and Bill Clinton.
Cde Mugabe had the delegates in stitches when he chronicled how he came face-to-face with a perplexed Mr Blair.
Sitting arrangements at the Pope’s funeral were made in an alphabetical order, regardless of the differences and similarities the world leaders might have, he said.
“It was P, R, S, T, U, V . . . X, Y, Z. Unfortunately ‘V’ was not there and ‘U’ was for United Kingdom. So the next for UK was Zi (for Zimbabwe).
“So ava vanoisa machairs vanongonyora zvavo,” he said, sending uproarious laughter in the Zanu-PF Hall at the ruling party’s headquarters.
“Blair left, then came the Prince (Charles) and (Acting Finance Minister Dr Herbert Murerwa) sat close to him. Seat yaMurerwa ndoyanga iri yaBlair (Dr Murerwa’s seat had been originally intended for Mr Blair).”
“Blair felt ‘I will not be comfortable sitting with these people’. So he decided to go and sit behind my aide Moses Chihuri. He was not aware that he, too, was my aide. He did not know,” the President said.
So the drama was now left for Prince Charles who made some courteous exchanges with Cde Mugabe.
“We were discussing, you know, naPrince nezvevasikana (about girls),” he said, jolting Central Committee members into another bout of laughter.
“He told me he was in Ghana and that they were nice women there. And I said to him: ‘I married in Ghana’ and he said: ‘Oh!’
“I congratulated him and I said we wish you well because on Saturday ainochata naCamilla wake (he was being wedded to his Camilla). I said I’m sorry I can’t invite you to have a honeymoon in Victoria Falls.
“I asked him to send my regards to the Queen. I’ve respect for the Queen and I asked him to convey my greetings to her,” he said.
“Chitarira uone zvaitwa nemaBritish Press. Kunobata munhu azere neropa? Handizivi kuti iropa ripi raitaurwa (The British Press went completely beserk, rounding on the Prince for merely shaking my hand. They said my hands are tainted with blood. I don’t know which blood they were referring to),” he said, commenting on the stinging media criticism Prince Charles received after he greeted him.
Relations between Britain and Zimbabwe turned sour after Mr Blair reneged on his country’s colonial obligation to support Zimbabwe’s land reforms.
He spoke about the Pope’s funeral, the Pope’s personality and the coming election of a new pontiff by cardinals.
“Isu tine ma archbishop maviri chete. Iri benzi redu iri kozoti vaNdlovu vaiva kuHwange (In Zimbabwe we only have two Catholic archbishops — the crazy one we all know and Harare Archbishop Robert Ndlovu who was previously at Hwange,” he said in pointing out that Zimbabwe had no cardinals and only a few countries in Africa
had them.In September last year, British Foreign Minister Mr Jack Straw shook hands with President Mugabe just moments after he had delivered a scathing attack on Mr Blair and Mr Bush at the 59th session of the United Nations General Assembly.
The handshake occurred at a reception hosted by South Africa’s President Thabo Mbeki.
Mr Straw came under fire from the main opposition Conservative Party and the media for merely greeting President Mugabe, something which the British media described as an “amusing embarrassment”.
I’ll bet that the British opposition regret the fact that they moved seats along with Mr Blair. They’ve missed a wonderful opportunity to gather material to use against Labour in the forthcoming British elections.
But in case they still don’t grasp it, this political insight from The Chronic should help:
The move was considered very childish because it is unheard of for adults to run away from their political foe at a funeral of a pontiff. It again exposed Mr Blair’s near-obsessive fear of President Mugabe [...] The fleeing has exposed Mr Blair’s inadequancy as a world leader”.
