Jerry Rawlings, the former president of Ghana, condemned the statement said to be written by a British Foreign Office official, which said that President Robert Mugabe would suffer a similar fate to Charles Taylor of Liberia, who is currently standing trial in the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

Rawlings said it was “disrespectful” for Britain to make such a statement about Mugabe.

“No British official, be he a politician or Royalty has the right to say those words about a Pan-Africanist like Robert Mugabe” Rawlings said in an exclusive interview with The Lens.

Whilst acknowledging that the Zimbabwean president might have made some mistakes in governance, Rawlings said Britain should recognise that the days of colonialism are over and as such must relate with former colonies in Africa in the light of what they are – sovereign and independent states.

“Do they think we are back to those primitive eras when the colonialists could arrest and exile leaders of Africa any time they felt like it?” he questioned.

During the past six years, Robert Mugabe has been severely criticised by Britain and the USA over alleged human rights abuses and over Zimbabwe’s land reform policy, which has ensured the return of land to the black majority seized during the colonial era by whites.

Zimbabwean Justice Minister, Patrick Chinamasa who is currently in Accra for the AU Summit said the western media, particularly BBC and VOA are exaggerating issues in Zimbabwe for the selfish interests of their owners. He said what Mugabe did with the land reform programme was to redress an injustice that was done several years ago and wondered why Britain “which claims to be in the vanguard of justice should be opposed to a course of justice.”