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Cape Town – Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe claims the reason he is barred from attending international summits is because Western leaders are afraid of him.
Speaking at a gathering in his home area Zvimba, the veteran leader, who has become a pariah in the West, said his ability to instil fear into the likes of US President Barack Obama explained the reluctance by world powers to include him in summits, according to The Telegraph.
Mugabe said he wondered whether his exclusion was a misfortune, adding that in the past the western leaders would disappear once they knew he was around, a NewZimbabwe.com report said.
Mugabe was recently excluded from a high-profile US-Africa summit convened by Obama in Washington.
At the time, Zimbabwe dismissed Obama's decision to snub Mugabe as an indication that the summit was not about the US and Africa, but about the US and certain African countries.
In April this year, the European Union (EU) was forced to invite the 90-year-old leader after African countries threatened to boycott an EU-Africa summit if Mugabe was not allowed to attend.
Mugabe was then invited but opted not to travel to Brussels, protesting the refusal to grant his wife Grace a visa.
Mugabe is widely condemned for human rights abuses and rigged elections. He has ruled the southern African country since 1980 when it attained independence from Britain.
