Obituary for Mugabe

In a few months it will be 28 years ( I know because I was pregnant with my eldest son at the time) since Mugabe was voted into power in the then Zimbabwe-Rhodesia, which soon dropped the Rhodesia part, and he stated his intention of building socialism on the ruins of capitalism. Well - the latter part of that intention he has achieved, but the former part is non-existent. So I guess that in 28 years he has failed to fully achieve his objectives. Perhaps that's why he is continuing to eradicate any kind of opposition!

The following is an proposed obituary which was sent to me by a friend. We need to remember that Mugabe is mortal - he will die.

Mugabe’s Obituary

During the liberation struggle he was conspicuous by his absence, protected by the regime he sought to overthrow.

After independence he consolidated his power by ruthless killing of tens of thousands. The blanket of fear has successfully suppressed opposition for decades afterwards.

With honeyed words he beguiled many at the start of his reign of terror, and he continued with his lies even when they became most implausible.

He pursued with unwavering determination the task of ruining the country while he enriched himself. In a shrewd appraisal of the effects of his policies, he stored up great wealth for himself in other people’s countries.

His racism was a driving force, to be more clearly seen as an obsession as the years went by. He became increasingly frustrated with the remnant of the white community who remained convinced of their role in developing and caring for the country. When he stole their farms to give to his cronies under the guise of helping the poor, the hundreds of thousands of farm workers were displaced to the towns in squatter camps, only to be bulldozed away in a cleansing ceremony of callous brutality.

He devalued the currency at an increasing rate according to a pre-determined plan, to make the financial commitments of the country meaningless. In order to protect himself and other privileged members of the party from the effects of this strategy, he instituted different currency exchange rates for different categories of people, with his own favourites at the top of the heap.

As the economy of the country imploded according to plan, he cut off the pensions and medical aid from those who had moved out of the country; and he accelerated the inflation within the country to make living an impossibility for the aged and infirm.

He made friends with the world’s outcasts and tyrants, pretending their sins were virtues, and even giving sanctuary and rewards to convicted murderers.

As a committed Marxist he was able to deny all authority but his own, achieved and rooted in lies, deceit, bullying and brutality.

As the decades went by and the situation was driven from one low level of despair to another, a quarter of the population voted with their feet, moving illegally to other countries where there was at least some food. This was a shrewd plan on his part to achieve two things: to remove opposition from the country, and then to ensure a flow of foreign currency sent home by the exiles to their starving relatives.

His epitaph:

“By his fruits you will know him: The father of lies.”

Speaking Out

Mugabe's supporters are claiming that his visit to Lisbon this past weekend was a triumph!

Note what the Archbishop of York says

Comment from The Daily Telegraph (UK), 11 December

John Sentamu once again made us sit up

By Liz Hunt

John Sentamu is a world-class showman who is divinely inspired. To mark his enthronement at York Minster two years ago, he updated the feeding of the 5,000 by holding a picnic for 3,000, courtesy of M&S. Eight months later, he shaved his head, pitched a tent inside the minster and spent seven high-profile days fasting and praying. Not quite 40 days and nights wandering in a desert, I grant you, but it was the best a busy 21st-century archbishop could do to protest at the West's refusal to intervene in the bombing of Lebanon. This weekend, Dr Sentamu had his "money-changers in the temple" moment when a guest on BBC1's Andrew Marr Show. The Archbishop of York is a long-standing critic of Robert Mugabe, whom he describes as the "worst kind of racist dictator". His angry frustration with other African leaders who persist in supporting the Zimbabwean president emerged during a discussion about the EU-Africa Summit in Lisbon and Mugabe's controversial presence at it.

Suddenly, Sentamu whipped off his clerical collar. "As an Anglican, this is what I wear to identify myself, that I am a clergyman," he announced. With a dramatic flourish, he started to cut the collar into pieces with a pair of scissors that just happened to be handy. "Do you know what Mugabe has done?" he continued. "He has taken people's identity and literally, if you don't mind, cut it to pieces. So, as far as I am concerned, from now on I am not going to wear a dog-collar until Mugabe has gone." Some have dismissed it as an organised stunt (although Marr certainly looked startled); others say it was typical of the flamboyant former Ugandan high court judge who now holds the second highest office in the Church of England. It matters not to Sentamu what others think. He got the headlines he wanted: he always does. Attention was once again focused on the horrors endured by his fellow Africans whose homeland has been turned, in his words, "from a bread basket to a basket case", and whose lives and livelihoods have been destroyed by a shameless despot.

As I watched Sentamu, I wondered if Gordon Brown was watching, too, and what he might be thinking. His decision to boycott the EU meeting because Mugabe - despite a Europe-wide travel ban against him - would be there had, to some, seemed admirable. But German Chancellor Angela Merkel's spirited attack on Mugabe's human rights record had left the absent PM looking a bit of a wimp. Now, here was further humiliation, albeit unintentional, at the hands of a clergyman who preferred to speak out against Mugabe rather than register a silent protest. Dr Sentamu certainly knows a tyrant when he sees one. He survived savage beatings under Idi Amin in the 1970s after defying him on several occasions, once jailing 10 suspects whom he knew to be innocent to save them from being murdered by the president's thugs. He quit Uganda in 1974 after gaining a place at Cambridge to read theology, and since his ordination in 1979 has risen through the church hierarchy, his ebullience, humour and tendency to speak his mind undiminished by the gravitas attached to his position. Sentamu is now an accomplished media performer who never wastes a sound-bite or photo-opportunity. It would be wrong to say that he acts or speaks first and thinks later - he is too clever for that. But he is a man of instinct. Those instincts are rooted in principle and when he speaks it is with the absolute moral authority of a leader. Many are wary of him - his charisma does not sit easily with the Church's preference for monochrome clergy - but in truth there could be no better ambassador.