A lot has been said about Robert Gabriel Mugabe’s legacy; some declared him a Pan-Africanist liberation hero per excellence, the founding father of Zimbabwe, etc. A picture speaks a thousand words and, sometimes, says all that needs be said.
This is the social media photograph that was widely circulated.
Those African leaders who graced Mugabe’s funeral service last Saturday at the National Sports Stadium in Harare and pontificated to no end about Mugabe’s heroic fight to end white colonial operation and liberate the black majority had only to look around to know what the liberated masses thought. The stadium was full of invited dignitaries and Zimbabwe’s ruling elite but eerily empty of the “liberated masses”.
The masses too had embraced Mugabe as a liberation hero in 1980 but they soon learned that he and his Zanu PF cronies had a more sinister agenda – to replace the white colonial regime with their own corrupt, incompetent and tyrannical regime.
Other nations like India considered the option of the armed struggle to end British colonial rule but discounted it. “What kind of leaders would the armed struggle throw up?” asked Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru. “Are those the men and women we would want to rule the country?”
Nehru was to go on to be the first Prime Minister of independent India – a democratic stable and progressive India.
Zimbabwe is one country that has provided the world the answer to the rhetorical questions Nehru asked. 39 years of corrupt, incompetent, vote rigging and murderous Zanu PF rule, the kind of leaders the armed struggle throws up, has all but destroyed the country’s once promising economy and the de facto one-party dictatorship has left the country in political paralysis.
Zimbabwe is a failed state.
Mugabe is a corrupt, incompetent and murderous dictator and not a hero at all. All those who insist in calling hero are focusing on the task of ending white colonial rule and ignoring that was means to an end and not the end in itself. The end the people were seeking was freedom, human rights, liberty, justice and a fair of the nation’s wealth.
Mugabe died in a hospital in Singapore; he was there for five months at an estimate cost to the nation of US$ 50 000 per day. He, his family and his Zanu PF cronies have long stopped using the local health care services because, like many other local services, it has all but collapsed for lack of funds.
Local doctors are on strike demanding better wages than the US$40 per month they are being paid. The poverty datum line in Zimbabwe has been drawn at US$650 per month.
If doctors earn a misery US$40 per month, what worse the 90% unemployed and worst of all the rural peasant in the mud and grass thatched hovel, “the voter” in the photo above!
Blue Roof mansion is one of the many properties, farms, businesses, posh cars, etc. Mugabe and his family have amassed. Other Zanu PF leaders too have an equally impressive fortune. It is little wonder Zanu PF not only blatantly cheated but used wanton violence to be absolutely certain the party never ever lost its iron grip on political power. Never ever!
Robert Mugabe and his fellow Zanu PF nations fought to end white colonial oppression but only as a means to an end – to establishing a de facto Zanu PF dictatorship, which has turned out to be corrupt, incompetent and even more oppressive than white colonial regime. Pan-Africanists like Uhuru Kenyatta can afford to be sentimental and call Mugabe a “liberation icon” the povo of Zimbabwe whose lives, after 39 years of Zanu PF tyrannical rule, is hell-on-earth can ill afford such foolishness. The empty national stadium was testimonial to what the masses think of Robert Mugabe.
Every Zimbabwean must hang his/her head in shame that a fellow Zimbabwean should live in a grass thatched hovel in this day and age. Worse still, that millions should be condemned to such miserable life all because of the insatiable, Sodom and Gomorrah, greed of a murderous dictator and his cronies.
The dictator is died but the dictatorship he spawned is alive and thriving. Our immediate challenge is to end the Zanu PF dictatorship a.s.a.p., recover as much of the looted wealth as we can, punish the looters and use the looted wealth to rebuild this great but broken nation.
Mugabe’s legacy is his Sodom and Gomorrah greed that left himself and a few ruling elite filthy rich, living in palatial Blue Roof mansions at the expense of the millions of Zimbabweans condemned to abject poverty, living in grass thatched mud hovels! There is nothing heroic in such unbridled selfishness and stupidity!
The southern African nation will probably run out of corn — its staple food — by January and about three out of five Zimbabweans won’t have enough to eat, according to the United Nations World Food Programme.
ReplyDeleteWhile Zimbabwe has experienced intermittent food shortages for the last two decades, the problem has mostly been limited to rural areas. This time, 3 million of the 8.5 million people at risk of food insecurity are in cities, said Eddie Rowe, the WFP’s country director in Zimbabwe.
Zimbabwe’s creaking infrastructure poses another challenge. The rail system has fallen apart and most imports will need to come by road. Shipments from overseas could take a month to get to ports in neighboring countries.
“If they don’t begin importing now, logistics will remain a concern,” Sihlobo said. “There might be too much pressure.”
The chickens of Zimbabwe’s 39 years of gross mismanagement and rampant corruption have been reproducing and multiplying and they are now coming home to roost in their hundreds of millions, like red-billed quelea.
The country used to be the breadbasket of the region now it relies on imported food aid – so poor it cannot even afford to pay for it. We used to have a booming economy; it is now in ruins sending unemployment rate soaring to 90%. The road and railway networks are in very poor condition. The country is facing shortages of fuel, bread, medicine, power clean running water, everything.
Zimbabwe is a pariah state ruled by corrupt, incompetent and vote rigging thugs. As long as the country retains its pariah state tag there will be no meaningful economic recovery because no one wants to do business with thugs!
Mnangagwa and his Zanu PF cronies rigged last year’s elections, the regime is illegitimate and it must step down. How else can one end this pariah state curse!!!!
“Zimbabweans will be forever humbly grateful that the world of Africa is helping them to see with clarity the depth of his contribution to the Continent and the International Community who also offer another perspective about his contribution,” you say.
ReplyDelete“That Brave Hero who could dare slap the superpowers of this world with uncomfortable truth was more than equally a monstrous bully who would cow us his people into our crevices to such an extent that we learnt firsthand that education, rights, freedom, human life or dignity were nothing to him and international community could not do anything to rescue us.”
This is just nonsense! You talk of Mugabe’s “contribution to the Continent” but fail to name what that contribution was. You claim that he “dare slap the superpower of this world” but fail to name whom he slapped. Mugabe was good at shadow boxing and loved international forums like the UN General Assembly to show off his anti-western jabs. The shadow boxing was all to draw attention away from the harassment, beating, rape and even coldblooded murders he had carried on ordinary Zimbabweans.
Indeed, he even blamed his political critics and opponents of being puppets of the west to justify his brutal repression but never produced any evidence of their wrongdoing.
Mugabe knew there are a lot of shallow minded individuals out there whose hatred of the white runs so deep he used as the smokescreen to cover his brutal oppression of the ordinary Zimbabweans. Even with the mountain of evidence of what a corrupt and ruthless dictator Mugabe was – it is shocking that there are still some naïve and gullible idiots who still consider him a hero!
Mugabe has a corrupt and murderous tyrant; he was not a hero! He destroyed many people’s lives and murdered over 30 000. For once consider his victims and stop being stupid!
Revealed the Chairman of the Public Accounts parliamentary committee, Tendai Biti: “On the 27th December 2017 one month after the coup, USD2.7billion suddenly came direct from the ministry of finance; where it went is not known and there is neither a voucher for it, there is not a single statement for it.
ReplyDelete” 3 months later, in March 2018, USD3.2 billion was siphoned from the ministry of finance, there is no voucher, there is no invoice, neither is there any paper trail, there is nothing you can put a finger to show where it went.
Mnangagwa and his Zanu PF cronies have been sucking the live-blood out of the Zimbabwe economy for decades which explains why the economy collapsed and why the thugs will never hold free, fair and credible elections and risk lose power.
It was clear that Mnangagwa was going to rig the July 2018 elections just as Zanu PF had rigged the 2013 elections. The question Tendai Biti must answer is why did he and his MDC friends participate in the elections regardless?
MDC leaders are the ones keeping Zanu PF in power and then want to make a big song and dance about Zanu PF being corrupt, incompetent, etc. just to make a name for themselves. We are only going to stop Zanu PF looting by removing them from office and not by complaining of Zanu PF looting after we have allowed them to rig elections!
“MDC irikuita jema newadya!” as one would say in Shona. The English equivalent will be; “MDC are hunting with the hounds and running with the hare!” And Zimbabweans must wake up to this double crossing if the country is ever to get out of this mess!
Sweden has pledged to support Zimbabwe’s re-engagement agenda only if President Emmerson Mnangagwa and opposition MDC leader, Nelson Chamisa, had engaged for a dialogue.
ReplyDeleteIn a report written by former MDC Secretary General, Douglas Mwonzora, the Swedish government and Speaker of Parliament told the five-member delegation led by Speaker of Parliament, Advocate Jacob Mudenda, that Zimbabwe also needed to implement intended reforms.
We welcome outside help but only if it is going to solve our problems and not just kick the can down the road. What reforms can Zanu PF implement now that would reverse the rigged 2018 elections? The solution is for Zanu PF to step down and allow the nation to finally implement the bloody reforms and hold free and fair elections. We are ready to grasp the thorn bush and please do not offer us another false solution!