Gono disputes cable on Mugabe death
By Nkululeko Sibanda, Senior Writer
HARARE – Stung by the latest WikiLeaks explosion, Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) Governor Gideon Gono has described a cable linking him to disclosureGono disputes cable on Mugabe death about President Robert Mugabe’s ill health as fiction.
Gono, a close associate of Mugabe and adviser on business and economic issues, allegedly told former United States ambassador to Zimbabwe James MacGee five years ago that Mugabe would not last beyond 2013 due to a prostate cancer ailment. The cable released last week quoted Gono saying Mugabe was suffering from prostate cancer which he would succumb to by 2013.
In his response to the cable, Gono told the Daily News yesterday that he did not have the “power” to shorten or “elongate” people’s lives. He claimed he “wikileaked” the US ambassador first in his book “The Zimbabwe Casino Economy” and threatened to hit back at WikiLeaks with his own exposures. “My doctorate is in strategy (formulation) and not medicine,” Gono told the Daily News yesterday.
“Only God knows how long each one of us is going to live and not being endowed with Godly powers to extend or shorten life, it is crap to even waste time commenting on the rogue ambassador’s opinion, fictional mind, or what kind of grass he had smoked as he was penning his cables to his masters.”
Gono said he viewed the remarks attributed to him as part of a plan that would authenticate what the British and Americans thought about the scope and shape of Zimbabwe’s politics and Mugabe’s health. “By trying to quote me on awkward topics, these guys were trying to authenticate their pre-gathered, pre-conceived notions about a particular matter to add credibility to their imaginations.
“Fortunately for me, I revealed most of this man (former Ambassador James McGee)’s evil mind and misrepresentation about me in my book entitled The Zimbabwe Casino Economy. Chapter Two entitled The invisible Hand’s Dirty Politics’ devotes 27 pages that deal with McGee while on page 32, paragraphs 2 and 3 set the scene of my clashes with McGee.”
“Anything else contrary is fiction along the lines detailed in my book,” the central bank governor said. He decried the media’s decision not to carefully analyse the contents of his book, saying his views on McGee would have been picked then.
“Pity that the media did not take my book seriously when I made these revelations… I am the one who ‘WikiLeaked’ these guys and blew the whistle on what misrepresentations and mischief they were up to back in November 2008. Thus my conscience is clear,” he added. Gono, whose enemies in Zanu PF are reportedly ready to “slaughter” him for the meetings held with US officials.
He said he was in the middle of writing his second book in which two chapters are devoted to “unpacking” WikiLeaks in which he claims to be exposing what he called American ways of trying to police the world through divide and rule. He says the book will also analyse the performance of the unity government, debate on his quasi fiscal activities and US/Europe’s “debt overhangs.”
“He claims McGee tried to put a wedge between him and Mugabe by trying to persuade the Central bank boss to join the World Bank in 2008 so that “Zimbabwe could crash-land.”
“There are two chapters entitled Unpacking the WikiLeaks targeted at RBZ.” Asked when the book will be published Gono said: “A lot will depend on my publisher but you don’t have long to wait.”
Successive US ambassadors met among others Gono, Vice President Joice Mujuru, the late Retired General Solomon Mujuru, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and several ministers and officials from both the MDC and Zanu PF. Daily News
