Mugabe calls Obama’s envoy ‘an idiot’

In a transcript of an interview published on the website of the state-controlled Herald newspaper yesterday, Mugabe said of Carson, “Who is he? I hope he was not speaking for’’ President Obama.

“You wouldn’t speak to an idiot of that nature,’’ Mugabe said of the diplomat. “I was very angry with him, and he thinks he could dictate to us what to do.’’

The meeting was the first between Mugabe and a US official in several years. It took place on the sidelines of an African Union summit in Sirte, Libya. “I told him he was a shame, a great shame being an African-American,’’ the newspaper quoted Mugabe as saying.

State Department spokesman Ian Kelly described Carson as the US’s “most experienced diplomat in African affairs.’’

“He’s one of the most talented people we have, and I don’t see why anybody could use those kinds of characterizations,’’ Kelly told reporters in Washington.

Relations between Zimbabwe and the United States have been strained for a decade, with the United States accusing Mugabe’s government of human-rights abuses and economic mismanagement.