US criticises Mugabe for comparing Libya deaths

Published on 28/09/2012 00:00

The United States has accused Zimbabwe’s president Robert Mugabe of sinking to a “new low” by comparing the death 
of US ambassador to Libya 
Christopher Stevens to that 
of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.

“[Mugabe] cynically chose to compare the best of us with the worst of us – a ridiculous and abhorrent comparison that we reject in the strongest terms,” said Erin Pelton, spokeswoman for the US mission to the United Nations said yesterday.

“Ambassador Stevens represented the finest of America and spent his life connecting people, not dividing them. Even for president Mugabe, this is a new low,” Pelton added.

Stevens and three other Americans were killed on 11 September in what the United States has called a “terrorist” attack on the US mission in Benghazi. Mugabe opened his address to the UN General Assembly on Wednesday night by comparing the death of Stevens to that of Gaddafi, killed by Libyan rebels a year ago.

“The death of Gaddafi must be seen in the same tragic manner as the death of Chris Stevens,” Mugabe said. “It was a loss, a great loss, to Africa, a tragic loss to 
Africa.”