The sheer arrogance, contemptuous disregard for the
truth and heartless indifference to the suffering of the masses by the Zanu PF
thugs has never seize to amaze me. Never!
Zimbabwe’s former dictator and president for 37
years, Robert Gabriel Mugabe, died in Singapore last week after spending five
months in a five-star hospital at great expense to the nation. It is no secret
that Singapore was a favourite haunt of Mugabe and his whole family; they went
their every year for their holiday and all the health care needs.
In 2012 the then Minister of Finance, Tendai Biti
revealed that Mugabe’s health check trip to Singapore was costing the nation
US$3 million @ trip and Mugabe made no fewer than 8 such trips that year alone.
Mugabe’s daughter had her a baby in the Far East too and all told the birth
must have costed US$10 million, at least!
It has become the accepted norm for Zimbabwe’s filthy
rich ruling elite, not just Mugabe, to seek all their care needs outside the
country. The present Minister of Health admitted that Zimbabwe was spending a
staggering US$400 million a year on outside the country health care.
Zimbabwe’s health care service has all but completely
collapsed after decades of being starved of funds. It is a common occurrence for
even the country’s big hospitals to run out of something as basic as pain
killers and bandages. The situation is the country’s rural hospitals and
clinics is a lot worse.
The late dictator, Robert Mugabe, was in his
palatial five-star, no expense spared, Gleneagles Hospital, Singapore, for five
months and, as usual, the Zimbabwe taxpayer will pay the bill. No doubt the
country was probably spending more on Mugabe’s extravagant health needs than on
the most basic needs of ten million Zimbabweans. Given such a grotesque
disparity one would expect these callous Zanu PF thugs to at least acknowledge
the injustice of it all.
Former Zanu-PF national commissar Savior Kasukuwere,
told SABC listeners that Mugabe died in “exile” haunted out of the country by
his former Zanu PF colleagues.
“I think to an extent that the harassment, the
unfair behaviour by the comrades who have now taken over the country, we must
put it clearly that you can’t keep on doing this effectively Mugabe died in
exile,” said Kasukuwere
“To then caricature such a man just because you
want power is unacceptable. I think the time has come for us to be very blunt
with each other and say no Cdes we are going wrong, we are going astray, let’s
respect each other, let’s respect the founding fathers of our, President Mugabe
did not deserve to be treated in the manner he was.”
There are two things to say to Kasukuwere and his
fellow Zanu PF thugs:
1) Mugabe has been going
to Singapore for his health care needs at public expense for decades because
Zimbabwe’s health care collapsed years ago. The least you lot can do is show
some gratitude to the masses footing the bill at great cost to their own needs
2) It is rich for any Zanu
PF thug complain of the “unfair treatment” they received from their former Zanu
PF cronies when the party has ridden roughshod over the millions of ordinary Zimbabweans
these last 39 years, denying them their freedom, human rights and even the
right to life. Whilst Zanu PF thugs are fighting each other over political
power and the looted wealth, what wrong has the povo done!
3) Mugabe and the rest
of the Zanu PF thugs are not liberation heroes or heroines of the millions of
ordinary Zimbabwe still fighting for a meaningful vote and a fair share of the
nation’s wealth. Mugabe was a corrupt, incompetent, vote rigging and murderous
dictator; the truth of that is everywhere you look in Zimbabwe, we don’t need
to wait for history to tell us.
Zimbabwe's health care service has completely collapsed. Private hospitals and clinics have found it near impossible to get the latest equipment and drugs and to retain the best staff because like every other private business they were affected by the country's foreign currency shortages, declining customer base (those who could afford five-star health care were getting outside the country and the reminder could not afford it), etc.
ReplyDeleteThe Public health service has been starved of funds and the usual public service problems of corruption and mismanagement. The skeleton service there is manned by poorly paid staff and donors have supplied the medicine.
There is no doubt that decision by Mugabe and his fellow leaders to out source their health care need at public expense accelerated the collapse of the country's local health care delivery. They were getting all their needs and did not care that the local service used by the rest of the population went to the dogs.
Mugabe has often boasted of "My Zimbabwe!" and when one looks at how much he was being squandered on his health care needs compared to every one else it is easy to see why the country belong to him and we, povo, were no more than slaves. It is also clear why Mugabe and his Zanu PF cronies established and retained the de facto one-party dictatorship to guarantee their hold on power. The idea of Mugabe giving up his Gleneagles Hospital bed for one at Parerenyatwa Hospital if Zanu PF lost power was unthinkable! No wonder he and his fellow Zanu PF cronies have cheated, harassed, beaten, rape and even committed mass murder to make sure Zanu PF remains in power at all cost.
Mugabe did not liberate the people of Zimbabwe; that is utter nonsense. He and his Zanu PF ended white colonial rule but only to be the new lords and masters. There are those who choose to ignore the economic and political reality in post independent Zimbabwe and insist in equating end of white rule with freedom for all Zimbabweans. The Zimbabwean on the coal face of the 90% unemployment rate, one of the 3/4 living on US$0.35 a day, who has been deny a meaningful vote these last 39 years, etc. KNOWS that he or she is not free!
They know the heavy boot that has held them down in the gutter was that of the late dictator Robert Mugabe and his Zanu PF thugs. Mugabe was a dictator and it is insulting to the millions of ordinary Zimbabweans whose lives he has made hell-on-earth and the over 30 000 he murdered in cold blood to tell them he was their hero!
@ Ezra Tshisa Sibanda
ReplyDelete“Morgan Tsvangirai must be turning in his grave to hear some MDC people saying Mugabe left an adorable legacy,” you said.
“Robert Mugabe was one of the most ruthless tyrants of modern times.”
You are 100% correct, that Mugabe was one of the most corrupt and ruthless tyrants of modern times.
However, you are wrong to suggest Morgan Tsvangirai would be turning in his grave with disapproval that MDC leaders like Nelson Chamisa, Tendai Biti, David Coltart are falling over each other to join the Zanu PF thugs and apologists singing Mugabe’s praise. Tsvangirai would have led the MDC leaders from the front in praising Mugabe.
Whatever pretentions of hating Mugabe and Zanu PF Tsvangirai had they all evaporated without trace on 9 February 2009, the day Tsvangarai was sworn in as Prime Minister. MDC leaders failed to implement even one democratic reform to dismantle the Zanu PF dictatorship in five years. That was no accident! MDC leaders, including Tsvangirai himself admired Mugabe especially after the dictator had granted them seats on the gravy-train confirmed they too were now members of the country’s very privileged ruling elite.
Don’t forget it was Mugabe who gave Tsvangirai the US$4 million Highlands mansion, Tsvangirai himself died in a SA hospital and all his bills were paid by taxpayer, etc. If Tsvangirai is turning in his grave, it is with approval that MDC leaders are nothing more than Zanu PF’s acolytes; it was his speciality.
Any pretentions Tsvangirai had of criticizing Mugabe and the Zanu PF dictatorship disappeared like the morning mist on 9 February when he was sworn in as Prime Minister of Zimbabwe. He had made it; he was now a member of Zimbabwe's privileged ruling elite and he was no going to implement any democratic reforms that threatened to ruling elite's position. And so, after five years in the GNU, not even one reform saw the light of day.
ReplyDeleteTsvangirai got his US$4 million Highlands mansion, limo, generous salary and allowances, globe-trotting privileges, etc., etc. He did not object that the local health care had collapsed now that his own needs were taken care of. He died with a smile on his face, knowing he was in a five-star hospital and not in one of the local hospitals. Visiting the sick in the local hospital was punishment enough!
VP Chiwenga and all the other Zanu PF and opposition ruling elite continue to seek health care outside Zimbabwe as a right! Even after the coup, Mnangagwa knew asking Mugabe to seek his medical care needs locally would have been the ultimate humiliation to the tyrant.
Mugabe died with a huge grin on his face that he was in a five-star plus hospital; he would not have wanted nothing less. If Mugabe could have extended his life just to add more zeros to his hospital bill, out of malice and spite, he would have done so!
THE quasi Zimbabwe currency this week weakened against the United States dollar as the authorities struggle to defend the value of the domestic currency. The local currency, which was trading at ZW$1111: US$1, lost 30% of its value.
ReplyDeleteWith gold deliveries declining due to side-marketing triggered by unfavourable prices, the depreciation of the domestic currency is seen continuing in the short to medium term.
Gold is the single largest foreign currency earner after overtaking tobacco last year. As the tobacco marketing season ends and mop-up sales are completed, Zimbabwe will transit to a cyclical period of low foreign currency reserves, weakening domestic currency and rising inflation.
With nearly a third of the population in need of food assistance, grain imports will compete with other critical requirements for the scarce foreign currency reserves.
In this all, one can argue that Zimbabwe's concentration of exports exposes the economy to both domestic and exogenous factors. Diversification of exports, value-addition is what government should be seriously working on to ensure that the economy manoeuvres turbulent cycles. These cycles are inflationary and may cause civil unrest, as the cost of living soars.
Zimbabwe is a pariah state, has been for the last 20 years at least, and anyone who thinks the country remain a pariah state and still register any meaningful economic recovery is naïve. No one was fooled by Mnangagwa’s “Zimbabwe is open for business!” nonsense. No one!
By blatantly rigging last year’s elections Mnangagwa proved, if anyone doubted, that Zimbabwe was still a pariah state ruled by corrupt, incompetent, vote rigging and murderous thugs. Who in their right mind would want to do business with such thugs!
Mnangagwa and his Zanu PF thugs are illegitimate and the only way to get the country out of this pariah state curse is for the regime to step down to allow the appointment of an interim admin that will be tasked to implement the reforms and then hold fresh free, fair and credible elections.
This has not happened because the MDC and the rest of the opposition gave Zanu PF some modicum of credibility by participating in the flawed and illegal elections. Right now MDC are demanding ministerial seats in the Mnangagwa regime as a condition for giving the regime their full legitimacy endorsement.
The National Transition Authority in which MDC and Zanu PF share power is a watered-down version of the 2008 GNU which failed to implement even one meaningful democratic reform. This NTA will be nothing but an excuse to allow the illegitimate Zanu PF regime to remain in office till 2023. The NTA will not implement any reforms and Zanu PF will go on to rig that year’s elections and so the pariah state will live on!
During his 37 years in power, he presided over the brutal repression of political opponents and established a culture of impunity for himself and his cronies, while his government implemented a series of policies that have had disastrous consequences.
ReplyDelete"While casting himself as the saviour of Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe inflicted lasting damage upon its people and its reputation," Muleya Mwananyanda, Amnesty International's deputy regional director for Southern Africa, said.
AI's calls for the prosecution of suspected crimes committed by his supporters and by the security services went unheeded. In a warning that would prove prophetic, the human rights organisation said at the time that a failure to hold anyone accountable for the Matabeleland and Midlands violations would set a dangerous precedent.
Though he came to office on a wave of popular support, Mugabe's tenure as prime minister, and then as president, was defined by a stubborn determination to hold on to power — an end to which he sacrificed Zimbabwe's economy, institutions, and society.
Throughout his presidency, general elections were marred by spikes in serious human rights violations and abuses by state security agents and Zanu-PF activists. Opposition supporters suffered torture, harassment, intimidation and even death. Some were disappeared without a trace.
In 2008, following his first-round ballot loss to the MDC candidate Morgan Tsvangirai, the army unleashed a wave of violence in which more than 300 people were killed and thousands injured or tortured on suspicion of having voted for the opposition. The response saw opposition MDC leader, Tsvangirai withdrawing from the second round of voting.
In 2000, Mugabe sanctioned a violent land reform programme, ostensibly to redress skewed land distribution resulting from 90 years of colonial rule. While the need for land reform was legitimate, Mugabe used the redistribution programme as a system of patronage, rewarding his supporters with land while denying those considered political opponents. The programme was also used as a front to disguise the violent targeting of farm workers who had supported the opposition.
In 2005, Mugabe presided over one of the most disastrous forced eviction campaigns in African history. Known as Operation Murambatsvina (clean-up) it targeted urban shack dwellers.
The United Nations estimated that 700 000 people had their homes, livelihoods, or both, destroyed. The evictions drove most of the affected people deeper into poverty, with many continuing to live without access to health, education and other basic services.
An increasing reliance on his security services to suppress dissenting voices within and outside his party became a hallmark of the latter years of his rule.
With such a checked history of corruption and brutal oppression it is shocking that anyone, of their own free will, would consider Mugabe a hero! There is no doubt that most of the people at Mugabe’s funeral had no choice but to attend, the party is renowned for its hired crowds!
There have been many opportunities to dismantle the Zanu PF dictatorship with the best of these coming during the 2008 to 2013 GNU. Sadly, these opportunities have all been wasted because our opposition political leaders have all proven to be breathtakingly corrupt and incompetent. The country is desperate for competent opposition leaders, if there is ever going to be any meaningful political change in Zimbabwe.
And Mr. Mugabe, partly by virtue of his longevity, must rank among the most spectacular failures, driving a rich, well-educated and promising country to the point where the central bank was printing 100-trillion-dollar bills — that's $100,000,000,000,000 — that barely covered a bus fare.
ReplyDeleteMr. Mugabe was sufficiently different from the caricature of the revolutionary dictator in other ways to ensure that historians will study him closely. He was a revolutionary who didn't wear camouflage fatigues; a ruthless and murderous dictator who spent evenings in his earlier years in the State House curled up with his wife and a Graham Greene novel; an ascetic loner with a passion for learning and an insatiable hunger for power.
Mugabe was a corrupt and murderous tyrant. The real tragedy is that justice failed to catchup with him before death claimed him. Justice would have caught up with him was it not for the treasonous betrayal of the corrupt and incompetent opposition MDC leaders who failed to implement the democratic reforms during the 2008 to 2013 GNU.
Still, one hopes there will be real political change soon and Mugabe's cronies will have the chance to face justice and to recover the looted wealth before it all disappear!
Mugabe was a tyrant who cared about no one else but number one - himself. The nation is now to build a mausoleum in honour of the dictator! This is one dictator who stay in the mausoleum must not be allowed to last. Like Joseph Stalin, he must be removed a.s.a.p.
ReplyDelete