HARARE, Nov. 25 (Xinhua) -- Zimbabwe's Secretary for
Information and Publicity George Charamba has accused the trio composed of
former UN chief Kofi Annan, former U.S. president Jimmy Carter and Graca Machel,
the wife of Nelson Mandela, of facilitating regime change in Zimbabwe.
Charamba said the "Elders" should not pretend to have
Zimbabweans at heart when, in fact, they were fronting a regime change agenda
being pushed by Britain and the United States, The Herald newspaper reported on
Tuesday.
"Annan has been in South Africa several times, Graca
lives in South Africa and are beginning now to find a Methodist church where
Zimbabwean refugees live. People should not seek to make big names for
themselves using Zimbabwe," he was quoted as saying.
"Annan has on no occasion denounced the illegal
Western sanctions against Zimbabwe despite repeated appeals by the Zimbabwean
President. Annan refused to his last day in office (as UN secretary-general) to
denounce the sanctions, but now pretends to be concerned about a humanitarian
crisis he knows can be traced to sanctions he condoned as UN secretary-general.
These (Elders) are glory seekers and we treat them as such," he added.
Charamba also dismissed the notion that Carter
supported Zimbabwe's liberation struggle, an argument being pushed to give
credence to his involvement with the "Elders" group in Zimbabwe, according to
the report.
"Carter never supported the Patriotic Front, no
American president could ever do that. What Carter did ¨D and we commend him for
that ¨D was to realize that the white settler community, which the United States
supported, was about to be overrun by the Patriotic Front forces and what was
needed was a rescue package for the embattled white community. That is why the
US stepped in to save the Lancaster House deal by offering funds to support land
reform in Zimbabwe," he said.
The United States never supported the sanctions
against the Rhodesian settler regime and the Carter administration defended
Rhodesia by ensuring the exclusion of chrome from the sanctions so the United
States could continue accessing the chrome, said Charamba.
