adminFrom Mduduzi Mathuthu in Vienna, Austria
PRESIDENT Mugabe last night told of his “grief” and “sorrow” following the death of Zambian President Michael Sata, “one of our most outstanding leaders”. President Sata died aged 77 at a London hospital after a long illness. He will be laid to rest on November 11.
The President, speaking in Vienna, Austria, at a reception hosted by Zimbabwe’s ambassador here, Grace Mutandiro, said Zambia and Zimbabwe were “geographical twins” whose hearts beat together in both good and bad times.
“We’re meeting in very sorrowful circumstances,” the President told an audience which included Foreign Affairs Minister Simbarashe Mumbengegwi, African diplomats and Zimbabweans working and studying in Austria.
“As you’re aware, we’ve lost one of our outstanding leaders, President Michael Sata. Zambia and Zimbabwe are geographical twins, and what happens across the river — good news, bad news — we rejoice if it’s good news, we share sorrow on this bad news, and so there is that reciprocation, you know the twin relationship.
“We’re very sorry. I personally feel perhaps a little more sorrowful than others.”
Earlier, addressing the leaders and representatives of 32 Landlocked Developing Countries at a UN conference, President Mugabe prefaced his speech with a tribute to President Sata.
“May I begin by thanking all of you in this meeting for the tribute you’ve just paid to the recently departed comrade of ours, President Sata of Zambia. We remain in deep grief in Africa,” he said.
At the reception held at a local hotel later in the evening, the President spoke fondly of President Sata, with whom he had developed a keen friendship.
“Sata is of the stage of KK, we worked with Kenneth Kaunda, thank God he’s still alive,” he said. “In Sadc, he has been the only one I could talk to about the private little things we used to do when we were still boys. I can’t do that with the rest of the others, they’re too young for me to tell the secrets I never told you about.
“We hope he will rest in eternal peace. We shall go and bid him farewell (on November 11). That’s the nature of life, it has the good, sad, and this ugly side: we’re given and that which we’re given as a gift is then taken away by the giver. But we thank God for our lives.”
President Mugabe, who is also the Sadc chairperson, will address the UN conference again today before returning home.
Online Reporter