HARARE – President Robert Mugabe on Monday flew to Singapore for medical check-ups. His spokesperson George Charamba confirmed that the 90-year-old Zanu PF leader would return on Saturday in time for his birthday celebrations.
“The president has gone to Singapore. He is going for the second eye procedure, one rekuright rakaitwa (the right eye was operated on), so he is now going for the second operation,” a Daily News report quotes Charamba saying.
According to the same report, Mugabe chaired a brief Cabinet meeting and then left the country in the morning on Monday.
Charamba persistently claims Mugabe’s Singapore trips are for a “routine eye checks”. But it’s widely known that the ‘eye check-up’ line is really a euphemism for cancer treatment in Singapore.
Three years ago the whistleblowing website WikiLeaks released a 2008 US diplomatic cable saying then central bank chief Gideon Gono had told then-US ambassador James McGee that Mugabe had prostate cancer and had been advised by doctors he had less than five years to live (which is up to 2013).
Grace Mugabe, the leader’s wife, also told Gono that her spouse was “out of it about 75% of the time”, according to one cable. “The governor confided that Mugabe appeared to be deteriorating mentally and losing his capacity to balance factional interests,” wrote the ambassador. “She wanted him to step down.”
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