Mugabe Makes Another Clinic Visit

SW Radio Africa (London)

Alex Bell

30 June 2011

Robert Mugabe did little to still the speculation about his apparent failing health this week, after making another stop-in at a clinic in Harare.

The visit to the Medical Chambers clinic on Tuesday is the second in as many weeks, and came ahead of his journey to Equatorial Guinea for an African Union (AU) meeting. Although Mugabe’s spokesman, George Charamba, has been silent on this latest medical mystery, sources quoted by the Daily News newspaper said Mugabe was being checked by specialists for an ‘undisclosed illness’.

The ageing dictator has spent much of this year traveling back and forth to Singapore for medical treatment and rumours are swirling that he is seeking treatment for prostate cancer. ZANU PF has vehemently denied this, insisting that his treatment in the Far East is all related to a minor problem with his eyes.

But ZANU PF’s denials have done nothing to quell the rumour mill, especially since Mugabe has looked visibly frail this year. Some observers have even questioned if he has been getting some kind of steroid treatment to keep him going.

Whatever the state of his health, it was likely a happy Mugabe who left for the AU meeting on Wednesday, knowing the luxury that would be waiting for him. The full AU summit is taking place in a specially built city near the capital of Equitorial Guinea, Malabo, and sounds more like an A-list holiday resort than a local city.

The country’s leader Teodoro Obiang Nguema, a fellow despot who has ruled Equatorial Guinea since 1979, over the weekend officially inaugurated ‘Sipopo’ city. He congratulated his government and the construction companies involved for completing “such an emblematic city in a record two years.”

Sipopo includes 52 luxury presidential villas, a conference hall, an artificial beach, a golf course and the French luxury hotel Sofitel.

The lavish city will stand in stark contrast to the rest of the country, still desperately poor despite the amazing oil wealth that will have funded the building of the city for the ruling elite.

AllAfrica – All the Time