Mugabe forced to deny feud with Mandela

By Staff Reporter

President Robert Mugabe has been forced to deny the existence of a quiet but long running feud with the late former South African President Nelson Mandela who passed away last week Thursday. 

After a series of articles and videos exposing the frosty relationship between the two leaders, Mugabe on Wednesday decided to address the issue when he arrived back in Harare from the funeral in South Africa, telling journalists Mandela was a “great friend” and there was no feud.

“I don’t know about any feud. If anything, there was an alliance. We worked very well with him when he came out of prison. We gave him support.

“We established the principle of national reconciliation (at independence in 1980), they took it over and used it as a basis to create what they have now as the Rainbow Nation. There was no feud, where was the feud, what feud?”

Mugabe however cannot blame anyone but himself.

In July last year Mugabe brought his quiet feud with Mandela into the open, jealously claiming his coalition partner Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai had nothing to celebrate from being likened to the anti-apartheid icon.

Only this year the Zanu PF leader slammed Mandela’s reconciliation policies, and labeled him “too much of a saint” in a television interview.

“Mandela has gone a bit too far in doing good to the non-black communities, really in some cases at the expense of [blacks]. That is being too saintly, too good, too much of a saint,” Mugabe told talk show host Dali Tambo in an interview.

There is also video footage in which Mandela in a meeting with French President Nicolas Sarkozy said that an increasingly unpopular President Robert Mugabe did not want him (Mandela) released from prison.

On Tuesday we also published another video in which Mandela made fun of Mugabe’s huge and noisy motorcade.

When Mandela passed away last week, it took Mugabe’s office over 24 hours to issue a statement, generating unnecessary headlines.

Mugabe’s spokesman George Charamba is meanwhile blaming the media saying they had an agenda to create a rift between Zimbabwe and South Africa.

Watch the clip to hear Mandela’s hilarious response.