Mugabe himself did not run around the bush with an AK47, but for the damage he caused during the Rhodesian bush war, also known as the chimurenga, he might have done. And Mugabe was happy to meld his reputation upon his friendship with Korea and China.

Following Zimbabwean independence in March 1980, Mugabe had a special brigade of foreign men trained by North Korea - the Fifth Brigade.

These men were taught to be even more vicious than the standard ZANLA fighter during the chimurenga.

Very quickly, after independence, was the advent of the dissidents - a disorganised and disheartened number of ZIPRA fighters (the armed wing of Joshua Nkomo’s ZAPU) had gone back to the bush as they were unimpressed with the manner in which ZANLA forces (the armed wing of Mugabe’s ZANU) were given the best jobs in the new integrated Zimbabwe National Army.

Dissidents existed of this much I am sure. Mugabe vamped the escapades of these few men and alienated them, before setting the Fifth Brigade upon the Matabele people in the Gukurahundi during which between twenty and thirty thousand people were slaughtered.

When the Gukurahundi came to an end in 1987 with the Peace Accord being signed between Mugabe and Nkomo, he admitted that the whole thing was a ‘moment of madness’ - but drew the line at making a formal apology to the people of Matabeleland. Some twenty years later we see Mugabe returning to his militaristic roots.

Last year he set his militia on the people of Zimbabwe as he bullied them into voting for him in the election. For almost ten years he has had his war veterans forcibly taking farms from the white commercial farmers.

This, he justifies by repeating ad infinitum that the land belongs to the people. And then gives the farms to his senior henchmen. Not only that, but the agricultural sector has now broken down to the point that the country is unable to feed itself - when not that many years ago, Zimbabwe was exporting its surplus food production.

Now we read: “Robert Mugabe on Monday met the President of the Democratic Republic of North Korea (DPRK), Kim Yong Nam, his military Generals and Intelligence chief in Harare today.

Political commentators on Monday said the meeting raised eyebrows considering that North Korea was in the middle of a nuclear dispute with Western nations. North Korea is well known in Zimbabwe for the training of 5 Brigade army regiment which killed so many people in the Matebeleland province in the 80s.”

Is Mugabe now intent on returning to his roots? Is he intent on holding the Zimbabwean people hostage yet again with his military antics?

Has Mugabe decided that the only way he can maintain control over the growing opposition to his leadership in Zimbabwe is to unleash yet another reign of violence, death and destruction?

Mugabe was decidedly a better terrorist leader than a world leader, and it is becoming apparent that even his is beginning to believe this, and is taking the necessary steps to revert to type.
(I was a serving police officer based within Matabeleland South during the Gukurahundi. I wrote “Without Honour” about my experiences during that time.)

Robb WJ Ellis
The Bearded Man