Robert Gabriel Mugabe has been in power for in excess of 28 years. I do not say that everything he has done in Zimbabwe has been wrong, but nine times out of ten his judgement has been… ‘impaired’ should we say.

I will only look at three of his inconsistencies, as I have no wish to clutter web pages with repetitive information.

Firstly, I thought that we would look at the Gukurahundi. After the Fifth Brigade had been withdrawn from Matabeleland, having slaughtered anything between twenty and thirty thousand people, he publicly stated that the operation in Matabeleland was a ‘moment of madness’.

To this day Mugabe has remained stalwart in his refusal to apologise to the Matabele people for the massacre. The atrocities committed by the Fifth Brigade were bad enough, but that Mugabe refuses to admit his mistake, is unforgivable.

The Gukurahundi was ‘resolved’ with the signing of a Peace Accord in 1987 by Mugabe and the man know as “Baba Zimbabwe” (Father of Zimbabwe), Joshua Nkomo, who was then given a Vice President posting, shifted sideways and left to twiddle his thumbs.

Nkomo died of cancer in 1999, and many a Matabele person believes that Nkomo sold them out, whilst even more believe that Mugabe can re-enact the massacre with a single order.

The inconsistency here is Mugabe’s reluctance to unite Zimbabwe.

The second inconsistency that I would focus upon is Mugabe, as a politician.

All politicians in democracies the world over, are civil servants.

And therein lie the clues. Civil. Servant.

Democratically elected politicians are elected to office through a private ballot system and once they take office they are to serve that public.

Mugabe does neither. He is never elected by public mandate. He relies on violence, oppression and brutalising the population to gain the necessary support - and then once he has taken office (and I use the word ‘taken’ in its true context), he does nothing for the people - preferring to help himself to whatever he can, with scant regard to the consequences.

An example? During the recent shambolic elections, Mugabe banned NGO involved with food distribution to the starving people. The elections finished - Mugabe had won - and still the NGOs remain banned. Why? No reason - it just suits Mugabe to keep the people starving… and this while he lives in the lap of luxury in his mansion in Borrowdale Brook in Harare.

Lastly, I want to look at something a little closer to Mugabe than massacres and food.

Let’s talk ethics. Mugabe ethics.

Mugabe and his defence force chiefs are as thick as thieves. Or perhaps I should say Mugabe and his defence force chiefs are thieves.

In the run up to the elections, the army chief and the police chief made no pretence of their disdain for Morgan Tsvangirai. They stated that because Tsvangirai holds no chimurenga credentials - Mugabe-talk for ‘did not participate in the liberation struggle’ - they would not recognise him and would not salute him either. (The fact that servicemen salute the uniform, not the man, seems to have escaped them.)

This last two weeks we have read much about the mediated talks and the breakdown of these as Mugabe and Tsvangirai cannot sort out and agree who will be what, and which office will hold the power - and the short version is that the talks have broken down.

And stopped.

Much internet space has been used to write about the possible alliance between Mugabe and the leader of the smaller of the two MDC factions, Arthur Mutambara.

Now, I am 45 and was too young to have participated in the Rhodesian bush war.

Mutambara is three years younger than me. So I would think it safe to say that he didn’t participate in the chimurenga either.

How come the defence force chiefs are not telling the world that they will not recognise Mutambara as a man with no chimurenga credentials? Why do they not tell the world that they will not salute Mutambara either, for the same reason?

Y’see, Mugabe and his loyalists are very inconsistent. I could spend all day writing about more inconsistencies, but I will not bore you.

Mugabe should stand up and be counted - be a real man and admit that he is beaten. Beaten by democracy and beaten by the will of the Zimbabwean people.

But he hangs on - because of the inconsistencies which he knows will result in him facing criminal, if not international or world court charges.

Robb WJ Ellis
The Bearded Man