newsBritish Foreign Office told Tony Blair not to use force to get rid of Robert Mugabe
Until his overthrow in November 2017 Zimbabweans were told to hang pictures of Mugabe in their offices and have pictures of him hanging from their walls at home and wear clothes with pictures of his face on them.(Picture by Trevor Grundy)
By TREVOR GRUNDY
The Foreign Office advised Tony Blair not to remove Mugabe by force in 2004.
Details released today of historic documents to the National Archives in Kew show that in a series of emails and memos from July 2004 military action against Mugabe was discussed but dismissed.
A report in today’s Daily Mail under a headline reading “Ministers told not to ‘remove’ Mugabe” says that one of the emails / memos listed policy options and stated that Mugabe was 80 years old and was “depressingly healthy.”
The report lacks further information.
People in Britain are told they lived in an open and transparent society.
Pity, then, that further details of Prince Andrew’s astronomical spending on foreign trips in 2004 have been withdrawn at the last minute from the public gaze.
A document giving details of expenditure was released to journalist and then withdrawn.
Says Graham Smith of the “Republic” (anti-Royal) campaign group: “The Royals have sought to keep everything under wraps when it comes to Andrew, not to protect him but to protect themselves.”
The ” Daily Mail” published a picture of the then Prince Andrew sitting next to Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad and Max Mosley who in 2004 was President of Formula One at the Bahrain Grand Prix.