Letter from America:
The madman from Ngomahuru who rules Zimbabwe
June 5, 2006

In Letter from America Dr. Stan Mukasa analyzes the apparent motive behind Mugabe’s appeals for talks with the West, particularly British Prime Minister Tony Blair, whom he once called a “Blair toilet.”
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Zimbabwe has now taken the wrong exit past the crossroads.

 It is increasingly becoming clear that Mugabe is now desperately seeking the help of British Prime Minister Tony Blair to help him out of the crisis situation he has created in Zimbabwe.

 Mugabe has now realized that, notwithstanding his so-called Look East policy, he desperately needs the help of the West to get out of the rat hole he has dug himself and is dragging the country along.

 This is the same Blair whom Mugabe a few years ago called a “Blair toilet.”  And this is same West that Mugabe once boastfully told to “go to Hell” after he had secured a $200-million unfulfilled promise from the Chinese.

 Mugabe’s campaign all the years has been to drum into Zimbabwean’s heads the propaganda that the problems of Zimbabwe had been caused mostly by Britain, specifically, Tony Blair.

 Now Mugabe has had a rude awakening. For the vast majority of Zimbabweans, the situation in Zimbabwe is getting worse. Nothing works in Zimbabwe. Nothing progressive or positive is happening in Zimbabwe. Things are falling apart in the country that was once the breadbasket of the region.

 And Mugabe knows that he has wrecked the country. He no longer calls Tony Blair a “Blair toilet.”  Instead, Mugabe is now making endless appeals to Blair for talks.  Some people say Mugabe is virtually on his knees begging Blair to such talks.

 It is reported that Mugabe has asked the former president of Tanzania, Ben Mkapa, to mediate the talks with Blair.  Mkapa is a life-time ally of Mugabe. His public statements when he was president of Tanzania were all fully supportive of whatever Mugabe had done and contemptuously dismissive of any criticism against Mugabe.  It is most likely that Mkapa will be more of a public relations man for Mugabe than an honest broker.

 According to some reports, Britain is willing to talk to Mugabe on condition that Mugabe and ZANU PF agree and implement substantial political reforms, including the return to the rule of law.  

 But Mkapa is hardly the “mediator” to persuade Mugabe to do this.   Mkapa is so irrevocably soiled with Mugabe propaganda that he is unlikely to contribute meaningfully to the resolution of the Zimbabwean crisis. 

 Mugabe, on the other hand, sees Mkapa, his friend, not as a mediator who will try to get both sides to make concessions but as his personal ambassador on a mission to try to persuade Tony Blair to see things Mugabe’s way.

 Mugabe has rejected genuine mediators from the United Nations, and even the African Union. He is prevaricating on the visit to Zimbabwe by Kofi Annan.

 The lesson for the rest of the world is that Mugabe, while desperate, is still stubborn. And there lies the problem.

 Several years ago, former US Secretary of State Colin Powell, warned that the Mugabe regime must be stopped now before there was nothing left to destroy in Zimbabwe.

 Powell noted that the destruction of Zimbabwe by Mugabe and ZANU PF was so systematic and so persistent that the country had virtually passed the last exit on the road to total catastrophe.

 Reports from Zimbabwe support the fact that Mugabe and ZANU PF have now gone wild in their unbridled and free-for-all   pillaging of the country with the savagery of barbarians.

 Zimbabweans are now being held hostage while Mugabe and his vipers’ nest of robbers, extortionists, killers, rapists and absolutely corrupt officials take liberties with the country. They have reduced Zimbabwe to a vassal state in which they feel they can do practically anything they want.

 The big question now is: What is the way out? Or, what forces or combination of forces will ultimately push Mugabe out and bring about democracy and the rule of law in Zimbabwe?

 It has, for a long time, been suspected that some negotiations were underway for a government of national unity in which ZANU PF would be a senior partner, leading to elections either in 2008 or in 2010.

 That plan appears to be bogged down by Mugabe’s intransigence because of additional demands he has reportedly been making, namely immunity from prosecution for his crimes against humanity, a hefty pension, the right to appoint his successor and ministers in several key ministries.  The very fact that Mugabe was demanding immunity shows that he knows that he has committed unspeakable crimes against the people of Zimbabwe.

 Mugabe is trying to have his political cake and eat it at the same time. He has all his life lived with this illusion that the world must see Zimbabwe his way. At the age of 82, Mugabe is too old and too mentally decadent to be educated or motivated to see reason. Mugabe is not only part of the problem. He is the problem. And this problem has generated a laundry list of new aspiring dictators in the ZANU PF camp.

 Mugabe can never be part of the solution to the Zimbabwean crisis. Some may argue that while Ian Smith was the problem in colonial Rhodesia, he became part of the solution that led to a free Zimbabwe.

 There is a world of a difference between Ian Smith and Mugabe. Smith tolerated democracy among the white Rhodesians. When Ian Smith’s Rhodesia Front was in power there were other white parties, like Pat Bashford’s Centre Party, that did not fully support Ian Smith. They campaigned and participated in the then whites-only elections without being harassed or threatened.

Except for white radicals like Bishop Lamont, Garfield Todd, Judith Todd and Guy Clutton- Brock who opposed him, Smith was, by and large, very tolerant of white opposition to his rule. Smith never jailed or tortured his fellow whites. He never dispossessed whites of land or property, nor forced them into exile.

 Now enter Mugabe.

 Within just two years of Zimbabwe’s independence Mugabe had shown far less tolerance of black opposition than Smith had shown among white opposition parties. Ironically, while Smith was intolerant of black political opposition, Mugabe was more conciliatory to the whites at the very same time he was intolerant of black opposition.

 While he was preaching peace and reconciliation in his first ever address to the nation shortly after his electoral victory in 1980 Mugabe was secretly training the notorious Fifth Brigade, reportedly made up of only Shona people. This brigade was to be separate from the rest of the army. Its commander, Parents Shiri, once boasted he was answerable to no one but Mugabe.

 The massacre of thousands of innocent civilians in Matabeleland under the pretext of hunting dissidents set the agenda for how Mugabe would rule Zimbabwe.

 And today, the 82-year-old geriatric has nothing to offer Zimbabweans by way of solutions towards democracy and the rule of law.  Even the proposal for a government of national unity which would have focused on regime reform rather than regime change is meeting with stiff opposition from Mugabe himself.

 And, like the Biblical Pharaoh, Mugabe is hardening his position even as Zimbabwe sinks to new depths every day. The strange thing, and this might have to do with his mental state, is Mugabe is desperately trying to engage in what he calls building bridges with Britain even as he maintains unabated his stranglehold of the country.

 The best explanation and psychiatric evaluation of Mugabe’s actins and mental state was given by a former member of ZANU PF.

 The late Edison Zvobgo once described Mugabe as a madman from Ngomahuru hospital for the mental patients, and who had been given a baton in a relay race to pass o to the next runner. Instead, argued Zvobgo, the madman decided to run away with the baton and was still running wild in the bushes and mountains!

 But there is   now emerging a backlash from several fronts to Mugabe’s ruthless dictatorship and reckless decimation of the country’s economy and social infrastructure.

 For a man supposedly with a degree in economics Mugabe’s dreams to have more money is to print more money. And now he has printed so much money that is has lost its value and sent inflation soaring to over 1,000 percent. While Mugabe may have thought the sky was the limit economic realities are now dictating just how much he can print money.

 It is reported there is not enough foreign currency to purchase the special paper and ink needed to print more money. Mugabe may have found a short- term solution by printing larger denominations of money, but that is not going to improve anything as inflation is now predicted to skyrocket to 2,000 percent.

 There is a very basic economic principle that measures wealth in terms of how much investment a nation makes.  Mugabe is printing trillions of dollars for social spending on fancy and luxurious vehicles, increasing salaries and payoffs to his sycophants none of whom has any capacity to generate wealth. 

 And like the Emperor Nero who played fiddle while Rome was burning Mugabe’s favourite pastime during these troubled times is frittering money rewarding his cronies. He is spending incredible sums of money to guarantee continued support for him from the army and reward his faithful fanatics...

 One reality that has sunk into Mugabe head is his days are now numbered. Like the old Biblical king Mugabe has now seen the writing on the wall. 

 But Mugabe knows he has everything to lose if democracy and the rule of law were to return to Zimbabwe.

 Mugabe also knows that there is nothing he can do to stop the return to constitutional democracy because Zimbabweans are now in an angry mood. And Zimbabweans are now more likely to go on mass protest than ever before. No one is more aware than Mugabe about what Zimbabwean mass protests will do to a captured Mugabe.

 On April 28, 1945, the fascist dictator of Italy, Mussolini, was found hanged upside down on meat hooks in a public square.

 Today, in 2006 Mugabe is very much aware of what happens to dictators once they lose power