Mugabe was a ruthless dictator who never "work well" with anyone - boycotting his funeral makes sense N Garikai

David Coltart has proven to be a confused, corrupt and incompetent opposition politician; the kind very nation dreads. Coltart was a senior member of the MDC during the 2008 to 2013 GNU and they failed to implement the democratic reforms landing us in the political and economic mess we are in today. It is disappointing that his son, Doug Coltart is following in his father’s foot-steps, a confused young man.

“It is tempting to see Mugabe through our chosen lens and ignore the complexity of the character that he was. Some engage in an ahistorical narrative that he was a good guy who turned bad. That ignores both the evil he perpetrated during the early years and the good that he achieved even in his twilight years. In truth, Mugabe the educator, Mugabe the freedom fighter, and Mugabe the dictator were intermingled throughout his life,” he wrote.

This is nonsense, Mugabe was a corrupt, incompetent, vote rigging and murderous dictator; there is a mountain of evidence to prove this beyond all reasonable doubt. All this blubbering about Mugabe being a “complex character” is as foolish as pleading that a murderer should the let off the hook because once upon a time he helped an old lady cross the street! And we are talking here of a murderer who shed the blood of over 30 000 innocent Zimbabweans to establish and retain the de facto one-party, Zanu PF, dictatorship that has held this nation in the sewage gutter for 39 years and counting.   

“Mugabe started his career as a teacher and remained passionate about education until the end. The day I met Mugabe in Tsholostho, he delivered a speech telling the crowd that when my father had first joined the Government of National Unity as education minister he had been highly suspicious of him and how he would fit in as a white person. But that, over time, he'd seen my father's commitment to the education of all Zimbabwean children and they'd grown to work together well. (Coltart's father, David, is a Zimbabwean member of parliament for the MDC and a human rights activist - Editor.)” Continued young Coltart.

Coltart senior also goes to town in his book, The Struggle Continues 50 years of tyranny in Zimbabwe, about how he and Mugabe worked well together during the GNU.

What is shocking and disappointing is that Coltart the father did not have the common sense to realise at the time of the GNU the sheer stupidity of the notion that he could “work together well” with a seasoned and beyond the pale ruthless dictator like Mugabe. He wrote the book after the GNU and so had the benefit of hindsight and yet he still failed to the foolishness of that claim. And today, with even now evidence that MDC DID NOT work together well with Mugabe and Zanu PF during the GNU, Coltart the son still says otherwise.

The most important task David Coltart and his MDC friends were tasked to do during the GNU was to implement the democratic reforms. They failed to get even one reform implemented in five years. Not even one!

To suggest that MDC worked together well with Zanu PF during the GNU when they failed to implement even one reform is stupid. To suggest that Mugabe was anything other than a corrupt, incompetent, vote rigging and murderous dictator is equally stupid.

Mugabe and his Zanu PF dictatorship destroyed Zimbabwe’s economy, millions today are living in abject poverty and hundreds are dying of poverty induced suffering, and murdered over 30 000 innocent people. What else should he have done to finally convinced people that he was a ruthless dictator?

Worse still, Mugabe the dictator is dead but the dictatorship he helped create is alive and thriving under new management. And as long as the Zanu PF dictatorship remains in power the economic meltdown and the tyrannical oppression will continue.

The people’s failure to condemn Mugabe as the corrupt and ruthless dictator will only give the Zanu PF dictatorship and sitting dictator encouragement that the people love and adore him and the dictatorship regardless of the criminal waste of the human and material resources and the bloody oppression.

All the main opposition political leaders have all been falling over each other to be the first to praise Mugabe as a hero. The same troop of monkeys fall over each other in contesting elections they knew were flawed and illegal and thus giving the process the undeserved credibility.

If the people are not smart enough to distinguish what constitute free and fair elections from rigged elections, distinguish a hero from a ruthless dictator, etc. then they are stuck with this corrupt and tyrannical dictatorship and will never get rid of it. How can they ever get rid of a dictator when they consider him/her to be a hero/heroine!  

The people of Zimbabwe have a chance to demonstrate what they really feel about Mugabe and this Zanu PF dictatorship. By denouncing the dictator and boycotting his funeral set for this Saturday 14 September 2019 the people of Zimbabwe will send out a clear message to the world that they are seeking democratic change and are now smart enough to hold leaders to democratic account!