US $ 73 m aid to Zimbabwe

US President Barack Obama announced Friday 73 million dollars in aid for impoverished Zimbabwe following talks with Morgan Tsvangirai, the former opposition leader turned reform-seeking prime minister. Obama, citing concern “about consolidating democracy, human rights and rule of law,” cautioned the aid will go to the Zimbabwean people rather than a government where Tsvangirai shares power uneasily with President Robert Mugabe.

The US president hailed Tsvangirai and criticized Mugabe who he said “has not acted oftentimes in the best interest of the Zimbabwean people and has been resistant to the kinds of democratic changes that need to take place.”Standing next to Tsvangirai, Obama expressed his “extraordinary admiration for the courage, the tenacity that the prime minister has shown in navigating through some very difficult political times.”The power-sharing coalition in place since February, Obama added, shows promise and the United States wants to do everything it can “to encourage the kinds of improvement, not only on human rights and rule of law, freedom of the press, and democracy that is so necessary, but also on the economic front.”

-AFP