UN offered lucrative retirement package to Mugabe: Wikileaks

Kuala Lumpur, Dec 19 (ANI): Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe turned down a lucrative retirement package offered by the former United Nations (UN) Secretary General, Kofi Annan, according to secret US diplomatic cables resealed by Wikileaks.

According to The Guardian, Annan allegedly made an extraordinary offer to Mugabe at the millennium summit of world leaders in New York.

The memo, written in September 2000, records a meeting between a US embassy official in Harare and a senior source in the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), the party opposed to Mugabe's Zanu-PF.

The cable reveals that Zanu-PF itself had put out "feelers" to see whether the MDC would be willing to allow Mugabe a "graceful exit" that was "in Zimbabwe's national interest".

"Kofi Annan, in the recent meeting in New York during the millennium summit offered Mugabe a deal to step down. Although the MDC source said the MDC was not privy to the details, he surmised that Annan's supposed deal probably included provision of safe haven and a financial package from Libyan president [Gaddafi]," the paper quoted the leaked cables, as saying.

The opposition party heard that Mugabe turned down the offer the following day after discussing it with the first lady," it added. (ANI)