Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe has applauded China for unconditionally extending a 950 million U. S. dollars credit facility to help Zimbabwe's economic recovery program, The Herald said on Monday.

The president also blasted the West for insisting on condition seven as they render bits and pieces of aid to their agencies under the guise of assisting the people of Zimbabwe, the daily newspaper said.

Speaking to journalists in Libya, Mugabe said the Chinese package was negotiated long before the formation of the inclusive government and all those trying to credit it to MDC-T were merely politicking.

The newspaper said the 950 million dollars is the first tranche of an expected 5 billion dollars bridging package that was negotiated four years ago by teams from the ministries of foreign affairs, industry and international trade, and finance, and at onetime involved the presidency through Vice President Joice Mujuru.

The Zimbabwean inclusive government said it needs 8.3 billion dollars to bankroll the Short-Term Emergency Recovery Program, and the Chinese facility is the biggest package the government has received to date.

"Well, it's a fund that was negotiated long ago, and all that nonsense that it's the MDC and so on is just politicking, it's a fund also that is targeted, it will come variously," Mugabe said.

"There are amounts for the various sectors, for agriculture, for health, for mechanization etcetera and so on, and they will cover energy as well and so we are happy. But you don't get the political conditionalities from the West," he said.

The president took a swipe at Western nations for being mean to Prime Minister Tsvangirai when he embarked on a tour of Europe and the United States, with a brief from the president and cabinet to call for the removal of sanctions and seek a financial package for Zimbabwe.

The countries the prime minister visited, among them the Netherlands, United States, Germany, Norway, Sweden and the United Kingdom, only pledged about 202 million dollars to be channeled through their NGOs and lectured him on how the inclusive government should be implemented.

"Look at the fund, that 950 million dollars, and we know there is more, there will be more; is given in circumstances quite different from what the West prescribed for the mini-funds that attended, you know, all that venture that the Prime Minister went on from the Netherlands to the United States, the United States back to Europe," the president said.

"And they treated him in a mean way, very, very mean way even to the extent of trying to divide the inclusive Government as happened in America where they wanted just the non-Zanu-PF side, which meant the MDC side led by the Prime Minister to accompany him to a meeting with Obama," Mugabe said.

The Chinese package, the president said, was well meant as it was coming to the government not NGOs, to assist in national development and economic revival.

"That is the kind of help we would want to get, and not the Western dictates," he said.

The president said Western countries never give the developing world development funds that promote economic growth and prosperity as that would put them at par with the West and negate grounds for dominance.

"There is no funding with an investment capacity from the West that will enable us to move from primary agriculture to secondary stages of development. They do not want us, the West, to be that. They do not want us to be their equals, they enjoy being masters over us and this is what Zimbabwe rejects," he added.

Mugabe, however, expressed optimism that the developing world had seen through the West's designs and would strive to uphold the ideals of pan-Africanism that advocate economic independence.

Source:Xinhua