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Tinotenda zvikuru those who decided to put up this dinner for us near the end of our stay here. It’s an honour that goes right into our hearts; an honour you thought we deserved, to be treated in the manner in which you (Ambassador Kitikiti) and Mai Kitikiti and the whole mission have designed.

(It’s an honour) to come here to meet not only the members of the mission, but with our small group of students – it’s still a small group, who are pursuing studies in various universities in Iran.

We thank you for it. We are very happy to talk to each student and to get to know what each and every one of them are doing.

I notice that quite a big number are already graduates doing post-graduate studies. May I urge them to persist, study hard and ensure that they live up to the expectations of those who have sponsored them.

We want them back home; where they will, when they come back, be in the public service, civil service, or in the private sector, or even operate as individuals.

It’s a contribution that they will be making to the development of Zimbabwe. And I notice that most of the choices are technical and technological disciplines that at our stage of development at home we need badly.

We are short of them. Yes, we might pride ourselves in having lots of secondary schools, lots of universities, and sizeable numbers of graduates and engineers that we have produced.

But beyond that we now, with the technological development that has taken place in a world and which still regards our countries as former colonies, as countries that are backward, in some cases, illiteracy in their midst – the Europeans will not regard us as being that ambitious as to do what their own experts are doing and have done.

Yes, we’re part of Africa, yes we’ve been colonised; but we want to distinguish ourselves by being an African country that is very, very ambitious.

We are forward-looking and determined to prove that we are not inferior to those who colonised us yesterday. And we can only do that when our skills are up to their level.

In the area of politics we have proved that we are, in fact, not just above our erstwhile colonisers, but we are a determined nation that cannot stand colonialism anymore, cannot stand neo-colonialism anymore.

We continue forever to resist our country once again being subjected to outsiders. And that is the challenge that those of us who are young, who see the legendary tracks we have charted.

And follow them the same way as we saw the legends like Mbuya Nehanda, Kaguvi who had fought the white man because they had no right to usurp their right of possession and ownership of Zimbabwe, even the possession of the natural resources of Zimbabwe, let alone the right of sovereignty over their natural resources.

That is the environment we have created by booting out the British, the Afrikaners from our land.

And we have done that, yes, for our sake, but for your sake also, you who are our younger people; to have the clear environment in which you can operate and for future generations.

This is the Zimbabwe we have created and still are struggling to create. We shall always stand ready to defend it. To defend it we must be united.

We may have numerous parties but the one party that owes itself to the ancestors I have mentioned, because we have adopted the stance of the ancestors who did not want the white man to take the country – that’s where we derive our inspiration. And I hope you too will derive your inspiration (from them).

We may have bits and pieces, lots of bits and pieces that call themselves parties, trying to come together. And I have said in the past they don’t have any record, any record of their having been fighters anywhere.

Political zeroes. I have said it doesn’t matter how many zeroes you try to put together, they never constitute a unit; they remain zeroes.

But the party is there, the two parties (Zanu and Zapu) that can demonstrate by showing the graves, remains of those who perished in the struggle. This is what continues to bring the people to us.

Tinongotarisa tichitoi ah aha, ava vari kurwira chiiko? Kuti vajoinirane, kuti vazokwanisa kuita chii?

Havana kukwanisa patairwira nyika to put themselves together. Vamwe vakange vatokura, Tsvangirai, paienda vamwe kuhondo – rino nhasi ah, yarwirwa, yauya nyika, ta celebreta . . . zvino avava – ah, ngavahukure variko.

They will never ever succeed as long as the party continues to be united. And I’m glad that is the situation.

That’s why you can read, if you have any newspapers or listen to the radio or watch television, or you get some information from the embassy the huge rallies that we are holding.

The youth, our youth, very dynamic, are organising these rallies where we have thousands upon thousands of people coming. Some walking long distances to interface with the President and other leaders.

They call them interface meetings.

These started with that long march, the Million-Man March, and it is the birth of these interface provincial meetings.

Huge ones; your parents, fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, are the ones coming to stamp, to give a stamp, the people’s stamp, not to my name, but to the struggle I and others lead.

And I thank them for it.

You are here doing various courses. I’m happy that you were partly, those of you chosen and sponsored by universities, UZ especially, others with various sponsorships, you are all young people.

And you are studying, as I said, those sciences right up there which will elevate also the skills needed in that sector and add to the base that the universities themselves are doing.

So study hard, we don’t expect you to fail after you have done undergraduate degrees.

You now are mature students. Let the lecturers give you guidance, but the greatest guidance must come from the desire to do research, the desire to want to get to the end of your research, and get your degree and come back home.

We have good relations with Iran.

They are members, with us, in NAM (Non-Aligned Movement). We work together there as we work together with countries like India. Indonesia is another, the founders of NAM.

But we also have bilateral relations with others also, anaMalaysia. We have also have some frail, I would like to say contacts, they are not very strong ties, with the Arab world.

We don’t want – there are upheavals taking place there; there are Muslims, Shi’ites, Sunni, or just political – to influence us.

We ask you to be guarded, very strongly guarded against being influenced.

Don’t adopt these doctrines, the doctrines that have led them to this place.

At home we have doctrines; we have Catholics, and your Church of Christ, Lutherans, there are Methodists – Wesleyan, American, we have established churches.

We belong to them, we pray there, we were baptised in them.

Tasangana, tazivana, tadya pamwe chete, tanakidzwa nezvatadya.

Tasangana naPresident weIran. Hatisati taonana naSpiritual Leader (Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei). Akambouya kumusha, ndofunga mazuva acho aive ari president tikamupawo rukudzo asati ava Ayatollah.

Ava Ayatollah zvino, ndakauya last time ndikaenda kunomuona ndikamupawo respect as the new Spiritual Leader.

Tinoti ipai rukudzo kuvakuru wenyika, kuma ministers enyika, asi muchiziva kuti muri vana ve Zimbabwe.

Mune mukuru wenyu watakaisa kuno, kuti ndiye achakuchengetai.

Ndiye achachengetedza maitiro enyu, hukama nenyika yeIran; nevanhu vese vachauya kuzoshanda kuno, anokuchengetai.

All Zimbabweans (in Iran) tinoda kuti VaKitikiti vave neruzivo rwekuti vagere zvakadiii? Pane hurwere here huripo? Dzimwe nguva rufu rwunouya, vobatsirana kuti mutumbi uende kumusha.

But tinovimba kuti hatifirwe, tinovimba kuti vanokusesekedza dakara makunda fundo yenyu.

So I say to you, well done. I’m glad to have met you. Let us remain, as I go back home, joined in spirit and also in the determination to raise the level of skills development in our country.

Tiri pamwechete. Tiri pamwechete ipapo, tiri vanhu vanoda kuti tive pamusoro sezvandataura.

Hatingave pamusoro tisina vakaita semi, nyanzvi. You are going beyond what we have at present.

We wish you well in good health, well in mind – because your mind is absolutely necessary. Remain focused.

Thank you, and thank you, and thank you ever more.