Why is it that when things don’t happen to Mugabe’s liking, his war veterans or militia or security force chiefs threaten that they will go to war over the matter? Mugabe and ZANU PF came to power through war the chimurenga against the Rhodesian security forces and he has ruled Zimbabwe ever since as a military State.

The Gukurahundi is a good example of Mugabe forcing the hand of his supposed enemies. The land grab, Operation Murambatsvina - all of them using force to exercise Mugabe’s wishes.

Now, as the MDC mount an appeal to SADC and the African Union to remove the governor of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe and the Attorney General (but posts being appointed unilaterally by Mugabe after the signing of the power-sharing agreement), we have his military people threatening to go back to the bush and fight the people Why?

Is force and violence the only way in which Mugabe can achieve his own ends? Up until last year, he had his own way in all things as ZANU PF had the majority in parliament and he ruled as if he was President for life. Then came the March 2008 election. Not only did ZANU PF lose their majority in parliament, but Mugabe found it necessary to beat the people into submission, to the point that his opponent in the Presidential election second round (who had won the first round - but not by the required 50% plus one vote - after ZANU PF had removed the ballots to an as yet undisclosed place for five weeks to re-engineer the result to a more palatable level) pulled out a week before the ballot.

So Mugabe had himself sworn in again as President of Zimbabwe with frightening alacrity - and since then he has worked against the unity accord negotiated with the MDC under the mediation of Thabo Mbeki, former President of neighbouring South Africa.

Mugabe has made unilateral changes in government that not only transgress the agreements, but go against the Constitution of Zimbabwe. Not that any of it will bother Mugabe - his word is law, his actions are law and should anyone disagree with him, then “there will be war”.

Mugabe constantly describes Zimbabwe as a “democracy”, and yet he threatens the population with war at the drop of a hat. That is not a democracy. That a political party doesn’t get its own way is one thing, but when it decides that the future safety within the country lies in the retention of one man (Gideon Gono) beggars belief.

I do wonder just how much information is held within the Reserve Bank, how much of the State coffers were robbed blind by the Mugabe regime and what a full audit would uncover. (The need for a full audit has been voiced, but has been blocked by none other than Mugabe himself. Why? Zimbabweans no longer want to be governed by Mugabe or ZANU PF but that isn’t going to stop him. He is ruler of Zimbabwe, neither by choice or election, but he remains in power thanks to threats of violence and acts of aggression.

Zimbabwe stands in the brink of going to war with itself.

Robb WJ Ellis
The Bearded Man