Written by GLADYS MUTIMUKLU
Monday, 08 February 2010 15:52

The Zanu (PF) party congress recently elected President Robert Mugabe as party leader for yet another term and calls were made to even crown him the “supreme leader.” (Pictured: Pro-Mugabe youth militia who are accused of beating, torturing and murdering opposition supporters)
The Zanu (PF) party congress recently elected President Robert Mugabe as party leader for yet another term and calls were made to even crown him the “supreme leader.” The sad and pitiful part of the Zanu (PF) meeting is that they now believe their own lies. The Zanu (PF) circus only betrays desperate efforts by Robert Mugabe to stay in power by hook or crook. It lets out only one open secret. The man is afraid, very afraid of what will befall him once he is no longer under the protection of being a resident at State House.

It is highly probable that each night Mugabe goes to bed he thinks of what happened to Charles Taylor. The rebel Liberian dictator who is now languishing in a War Crimes Tribunal jail in some Dutch backyard far away from all the diamonds he used to loot and use to bribe those around him. Charles Taylor’s personality is a good comparison to Robert Mugabe’s disposition. Taylor’s exploits as a rebel leader and a murderous dictator matches very well with Mugabe’s history. It’s not a surprise if Mugabe’s imagination does not stop with Charles Taylor, he certainly remembers Slobodan Milosevic the Yugoslav leader who died in jail in March 2006. Slobodan was being tried by the United Nations for crimes against humanity, the same charges that await Baba vaChatunga.

Asylum seeker
Mugabe certainly weighs his options, languishing in prison like Charles Taylor or die in prison like Milosevic or seek refuge in State House? The answer is obvious; he would rather die in office than face the humiliation that awaits him away from State House. If it takes killing, murder, forgery, rigging and the use of diamonds to keep his gang together then, so be it. Robert is therefore officially an asylum seeker, hiding behind the Presidential chair, hounded by the wailing cries for justice from his numerous victims over the past 30 years. If he was to leave office today, within one hour somebody will be filing charges against him and these will include numerous counts of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and other serious violations of international humanitarian law.
Mugabe knows very well that if someone else was to replace him – whoever it is, will be unable to resist if an international warrant of arrest was issued against him. Therefore, Mugabe giving up power is technically turning himself into a jail bird , something he clearly is not going to do — not in a million years! All the hard core gangsters who surround him know the deal between them and their leader. It is one diamond for you and one diamond for me and together we can stay out of jail!

Car accident

However, it comes at a price with very little choice. Each one is compelled to be a docile boot licker or else they will be involved in a mysterious car accident in which they do not survive. Faced with such a lack of choice it is no surprise that educated people that form the multiple layers of gang membership around Bob behave and talk as if they take magic mushrooms for breakfast. Director of air force intelligence, Wing Commander Bramwell Katsvairo told villagers during a Zanu (PF) rally in Mutoko in mid January that they should tell constitutional reform outreach teams that the presidential tenure should be limited to a maximum of two five-year terms and that Mugabe should be eligible to stand because this will be under a new constitution.
It is clear to Bramwell that Mugabe has not done anything at all for the ordinary person in the street. Yet, as intelligent as Bramwell is, he would rather talk rubbish and have some diamonds for it, rather than talk the truth and die for it. Zimbabwe has a population of about 13 million, the same number of people as in the city of Los Angeles which is led by a simple mayor. By comparison therefore Zimbabwe is a very rich country if one compares the population to the land area ratio. How is it that after 30 years with Mugabe as leader, some children still attend school under a tree in the bush? How is it after all this time Zimbabwe still has no adequate housing, not enough tarred roads, not enough schools or even books?

No clue
The myopic boot lickers will quickly point to sanctions as the cause but please, give it up, sanctions have only come to play in the past six years. Mugabe has no clue how to develop the infrastructure of the nation and naturally he thinks that flexing his political and military muscles will compensate for his failures. The irony of it all is that the strong arm tactics that Robert has employed since 1980 are the very reason why he is now a hostage in the presidential office. Of-course his wife does not help the situation as she really enjoys being the First Lady and is prepared to kill to for it.
As the burden of age and guilt weigh down his fragile frame, Mugabe’s dim eyes look to the future and like a lost explorer he knows the end is nigh. In a last ditch effort for survival Mugabe knows too that all the diamonds in Zimbabwe will not save him. He knows too that all the guns and bullets in his back yard will not stop the cries for justice. As the squeaky door hinges of a jail cell at the United Nations Detention Unit on the premises of the Penitentiary Institution Haaglanden in The Netherlands slowly swing open, Robert Mugabe, like a pangolin is digging deeper into the annals of Zimbabwe’s State House to hide himself there. He is determined never to see the darkness of a jail cell in a far away land. The cost of his behaviour is grinding and dragging Zimbabwe’s people through the pits of hell on earth but does anyone in Zanu (PF) care?

Opinion: The Zimbabwean