Articles

Mugabe, Mandela named in Wikileaks secret cables

Category: International Published on Wednesday, 08 December 2010 10:45 Written by Courier Newsroom

(NNPA/GIN)—The publication of confidential diplomatic cables on the website Wikileaks gave ammunition to some African leaders who have complained, without previous proof, of U.S. interference in their country.

Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe for example, learned from the cables that the U.S. is leading efforts to remove him from power. In the leaked memos, former U.S. ambassador Christopher Dell wrote that the U.S. was taking a leading role to bring Mugabe down and that former colonizer Britain could not do the job because it was hamstrung by its colonial past.  “Thus it falls to the U.S., once again, to take the lead, to say and do the hard things and to set the agenda,” Dell said in a cable posted on the Wikileaks site.

Also, the secret cables revealed that former President Nelson Mandela was resolutely against the Iraq war, and that he believed President Bush ignored calls by the United Nations for restraint because the U.N.’s then-General Secretary Kofi Annan is Black.