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Mugabe more ruthless with age
By
Mary
Revesai
THE cruel measures Zimbabwean leader Robert Mugabe is resorting to in
his desperate bid to cling to power remind me of something that South
African political satirist, Pieter-Dirk Uys, has said about Archbishop
Desmond Tutu.
Contributing to the book, Tutu as I know him: On a personal Note, Uys
describes “The Arch” as Tutu is affectionately known, as
“a giant of a man who is not sacred to stand up and be regarded
as politically incorrect by his own comrades. He will say very loudly:
What is our relationship with that mad man in Harare all about?”
Uys cites Tutu’s courageous stance against the South African government’s denialist approach on the issue of HIV and AIDS and its failure to honour a pledge to help apartheid victims.
He sums up: “Desmond
Tutu has proved one thing: Practice makes perfect. You practice humanity
for long enough, you become a pretty perfect human being.”
It is sad to say that the same cannot be said of Zimbabwe’s head
of state. What can be said of Robert Mugabe is that the longer he has
practiced tyranny and cruelty with impunity, the more ruthless he has
become towards his own people.
Some admirers of the Zimbabwean leader have often accused the West of double standards in singling out Mugabe for what they perceive as demonisation and vilification when there are many other dictators on the African continent.
What these supporters
of the Zimbabwean president often forget is that while other heads of
state like Libya’s flamboyant Muammar Gaddafi are accused of authoritarianism,
they generally fall into the category of benevolent dictators in that
they devote national resources to taking care of their people’s
needs. They do not openly wage a war of attrition against the populace.
In contrast, instead of mellowing over the years into a compassionate
and wise leader, Mugabe has progressively turned into a “mad man”,
as Tutu describes him, by allowing himself to be consumed by a desire
for vengeance against political opponents and detractors, something
totally unbecoming of a head of state.
As evidenced by
the way he treated the late Joshua Nkomo, Ndabaningi Sithole, Edgar
Tekere and is dealing with Morgan Tsvangirai, Mugabe has never accepted
that any other Zimbabwean should aspire to ascend to the position of
leader of the country. His retributive approach against those listed
above and other dissenters shows he clearly believes he rules by divine
anointment and anyone challenging his authority is guilty of treason
or worse.
Over the years, Mugabe has pretended that he persecuted potential rivals
for the leadership of Zimbabwe in the “national interest”
and the name of the ruling Zanu PF. But the fact that his paranoid vendettas
stem from the need for personal preservation rather than national considerations
is proved by the fact that of late, when he has been facing opposition
and disgruntlement within his own party, he has not hesitated to use
the same vindictive methods.
He used the appointment of Joice Mujuru as vice president in 2004 to take a pre-emptive strike against Emmerson Mnangagwa by dealing ruthlessly with the “Tsholotsho” group of Zanu PF officials who were accused of plotting a palace coup. A number of provincial chairmen were suspended from the ruling party and Mnangagwa spent some time in the political wilderness until Mugabe was ready to use him against another challenger.
A few years down the line, after the pendulum turned and the Mujuru faction seemed a more serious threat to his incumbency, Mugabe did not hesitate to woo the Mnangagwa faction back into favour.
Joice Mujuru was
accused of having tried to campaign for the top job “through biographies”,
a reference to Tekere’s memoirs in which he praised Mujuru. Tekere
himself, who had applied to rejoin Zanu PF, was barred from doing so
at Mugabe’s behest.
To make sure he would be the only Zanu PF presidential candidate in
the forthcoming so-called harmonised elections, Mugabe resorted to crude
tactics by getting maverick war veteran Jabulani Sibanda to intimidate
potential opponents by staging solidarity marches to highlight support
for Mugabe’s candidacy. These culminated in the “million-
man march” in December, leading to Mugabe’s disputed endorsement
by acclamation during the Zanu PF special congress.
Mugabe once again
did not hesitate to rehabilitate the controversial Sibanda, who had
been suspended from the ruling party for his involvement with the Tsholotso
group, when he needed to use him to safeguard his position. And all
this from a man who regularly taunts others for not being principled!
The latest Machiavellian Mugabe antics pertain to his ruthless crushing
of a rebellious group within his party who have mooted the possibility
of forming a breakaway faction to challenge his ruinous leadership.
Mugabe is reported to have summoned those involved individually to harangue
and threaten them.
One of them, a former
army heavyweight, has been un-procedurally expelled from Zanu PF as
punishment. The only positive aspect of these bizarre actions is that
those within Zanu PF who have sung Mugabe’s praises when he has
ruthlessly persecuted people like Nkomo, Sithole, Tekere and Tsvangirai
now see that the man’s tyranny knows no bounds when his political
supremacy is challenged.
Leaders of opposition parties, civic groups, journalists, lawyers, businessmen,
trade unionists and anyone who has expressed concern about the state
of affairs in the country and has called for accountable and democratic
leadership has been labelled a malcontent or puppet of the West.
But now that Mugabe
has shown the same aversion to dissent and expression of views that
are at variance with his own by members of his own party, his determination
to hold Zimbabwe back from taking its place among the global family
of nations is seen clearly for what it is. Mugabe’s obduracy,
intransigence, inflexibility and tyranny have nothing to do with revolutionary
zeal and everything to do with an unquenchable appetite for power and
self-aggrandisement.
Mugabe is now a liability to the country because he is not serving national
interests but diverting resources that should benefit all Zimbabweans
towards propping his despotic one-man rule. His ruinous and self-serving
policies have pauperised the populace and reduced the masses to a primitive
existence in which they suffer worse indignities than they experienced
under colonial rule.
The tragedy is that after 28 years of honing these evil and cunning skills, Mugabe, who turns 84 on February 21, will, as surely as the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, be back for another six-year term after fraudulently claiming victory in the elections to be held on March 29.
While exemplary adherence to humane principles has created icons like Nelson Mandela and Tutu in South Africa, Mugabe who is in the twilight of his life, will leave a terrible legacy for Zimbabwe after compromising the army, the police force, the state media and other public institutions for the sole purpose of promoting his evil personal agenda at the expense of the people to whom he is supposed to be accountable and answerable.
Mary Revesai is a New Zimbabwe.com columnist and writes from Harare
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