WikiLeaks cables: UN offered Robert Mugabe a lucrative retirement overseas

The head of the United Nations offered Robert Mugabe a lucrative retirement
package in an overseas haven if he stood down as Zimbabwe's president,
according to claims quoted in leaked diplomatic cables.

The extraordinary offer was allegedly made by Kofi Annan, who was then the
UN secretary general, at the millennium summit of world leaders in New York,
according to a memo drawn up by American officials which was obtained by the
WikiLeaks website.

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.

According to the MDC source, whose name the Observer has redacted, "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 opposition party heard that Mugabe turned
down the offer the following day after discussing it with the first lady."

The offer, which many Zimbabwean experts may simply dismiss as wishful
thinking on the part of a frustrated MDC, was not the only one rumoured to
have been made to Mugabe at that time. 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".