Our view is that we would want to see the situation in Ireland resolved, but we do not intervene in that situation for tactical reasons. Our view is commonly known that imperialism wherever it is must be fought and that justice must be done in Ireland.

Certainly we must combine forces . South African troops are within the country.We raised this matter with Mrs [Margaret] Thatcher and Lord [Peter] Carrington when we met them and we wanted to get from them a definite commitment that they were going to get the South African troops out.

If you take men and lock them in a house for five years and tell them to come up with two children and they fail to do that, then we will chop off their heads.

In most recent times, as the West started being hostile to us, we deliberately declared a Look East policy.

The anti-imperialist, forces in the country [Zimbabwe] here, I think are not that strong. The capitalist forces, the reactionary forces are far more formidable, far better organised. But we would have wanted to hear the voice of the anti-imperialist forces, those who espouse the cause of freedom, the cause of independence, everywhere.

Some people are contriving ways and means of making us collapse.

Was it not enough punishment and suffering in history that we were uprooted and made helpless slaves not only in new colonial outposts but also domestically.