Mugabe feted at lavish 93rd birthday party

MATOBO, Zimbabwe: Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe celebrated his 93rd birthday with a lavish party on Saturday attended by thousands of loyalists outside the second city of Bulawayo.

The ruling ZANU-PF party hosted the event for Mugabe, who has held power since 1980 during a reign marked by repression of dissent, vote-rigging and the country´s economic collapse.

Now the world´s oldest national leader, his actual birthday on Tuesday has been honoured in a week-long extravaganza with state media filled with tributes and praise.

The party -- held in a large marquee decorated with portraits of a younger Mugabe -- included a feast and several vast birthday cakes, angering some Zimbabweans as the country endures severe food shortages.

One of cakes was shaped like Mugabe´s official Mercedes Benz limousine.

Holding the event at a school in Matobo has also riled locals as it is close to where many victims of Mugabe´s deadly crackdown on dissidents in the early 1980s are thought to be buried.

At least 20,000 people are believed to have been killed in the massacres by North Korean-trained Zimbabwean troops, according to rights groups.

"This should not be a place for celebration," Mbuso Fuzwayo, spokesman for the Bulawayo-based campaign group Ibhetshu Likazulu, told AFP.

"The whole area is a crime scene where the bones of victims of the massacres are buried."

Mugabe gave a faltering television interview this week, vowing to remain in power despite growing signs of frailty.

During the pre-recorded birthday broadcast, Mugabe paused at length between sentences and spoke with his eyes barely open.

The state-owned Herald newspaper on Tuesday published a 24-page supplement of congratulatory messages from government departments and regime loyalists.
ZANU-PF has endorsed Mugabe as its candidate for general elections next year, and he remains widely respected as a liberation hero by other African leaders.

Party guests -- some dressed in clothing that showed Mugabe´s image -- chanted "Long live the African icon" before the president´s speech expected later in the afternoon.

He has avoided naming a successor, but his wife, Grace, 51, is seen as a possible candidate along with vice-president Emmerson Mnangagwa.

A coalition of opposition activism group said in statement that the party was "a mockery and a direct insult to the concerns of the citizens", alleging that poor farmers had been forced to donate cattle to feed guests.

Born on February 21, 1924, Mugabe trained as a teacher and taught in what was then Rhodesia and Ghana before returning home to join the guerrilla war against white-minority rule.

He became prime minister on Zimbabwe´s independence from Britain in 1980 and then president in 1987.

All schools around Bulawayo were closed on Thursday and Friday to prepare for the celebrations.