Durban – Zimbabwe is not a fragile state, nor is it poor,
but it is a well-resourced country, President Robert Mugabe said on Thursday on
the second day of the World Economic Forum Africa in Durban.
“We are not a poor country and we can't be a fragile
country, I can call America fragile, they went with their knees to China,” he
said.
Speaking at the session themed Eye on Africa's Failing
States, the statesman said the Southern African country was one of the most
well-resourced countries on the continent. Zimbabwe has 14 universities and literacy rate at more
than 90 percent, Mugabe said.
However, Oxfam's executive director Winnie Byanyima, in a
veiled rebuke at Mugabe, said the problem is that African leaders were
dictatorial.
"Our leaders say we are rich, they say we are developed,
they say we have resources but the people do not see that. They clamp down on
freedom of the media and the rights of people," she said.
Byanyima said communities with strong governance
structures at a local level could not be fooled by gun-yielding leaders ruling
societies with weak institutions who spoke on the radio from the capital.
In Byanyima's parting shot to Mugabe, who appeared to
have fallen asleep during the session, she said: "Let us give others a
chance, it is important that we have elections that are free and fair - that
reflect the will of the people, that is at the heart of governance".
INDEPENDENT MEDIA
WEF TEAM