We don’t have to even delve very far back into history to find examples of where Zimbabwe is going - apart from down the toilet.

The genocide in Rwanda, the post-election violence in Kenya, the indomitable Idi Amin - and if we look beyond Africa, we have Adolf Hitler (someone who Mugabe aspires to emulate)…

But why does the democratic world not do something to put an end to this despotic rule?

The answer is relatively simple. It would not be ‘politically correct’ to make any move that might be viewed as supremacist, racialist, or just the plain ‘we know better’ department.

We must be aware that it was activities of the West that put Mugabe in the position he holds today. In the late 1970’s, the British government decided that it no longer wanted the ‘rebel’ country Rhodesia, and took steps to advance black rule in that country.

I would hasten to remind you that not only was Rhodesia the second-only country to declare unilateral independence from Britain (the USA being the first), but that in 1923, Rhodesia paid Britain two million pounds for the right to rule itself. Why then, did Britain feel the need to involve itself in Rhodesian politics in the late seventies?

Margaret Thatcher, Lord Soames, Sir Alec Douglas-Home, Jesse Jackson, Jimmy Carter and Henry Kissinger - all decided that they had more to offer the world than did the Ian Smith government.

So they orchestrated the Lancaster House Agreement, a document that Mugabe has subsequently all but ignored.

As I wrote in the preamble of my book, “Without Honour”: “History must show that the only people who kept their word, were the Rhodesians. And for their part, they were consigned to the pages of history.”

I have seen a video on YouTube that probably dates back to the early to mid-1970’s and in it there is a very young Mugabe stating: “We are ready to rule. Even right now!” And twenty eight years after he took power (‘took’ being the operative word), he is incapable of any rule, except destructive…

I could spend all day listing Mugabe’s failures and where he has cheated the people - or reneged on an agreement. I could spend all day listing the oppression that he places over the Zimbabwean people, and I could spend even more hours listing the number of times that he blames his country’s ills on the West - but I won’t as we all have heard it and seen it before.

Mugabe led his freedom fighters (a name that would suggest that they fought freedom) against the Smith ‘regime’ - as he said the black people wanted to be able to rule themselves and that the white man had no place in Africa.

Third and fourth parties ensured that the Smith regime was removed, and since that time, Mugabe has systematically stripped Zimbabwe of everything that was good and right, all things that were advantageous and profitable, and stolen everything that wasn’t bolted down.

He also ensured that the people of Zimbabwe - the very people that he ostensibly ‘led to freedom’ - remain cowed and frightened. Cowed at his continual threats, frightened that his previous acts may be repeated. The Gukurahundi, Operation Murambatsvina - just to name two.

The country has gone backwards under Mugabe’s rule. Returned to the dark ages (in more ways than one with the electric shortages). Returned to an age where people are starving, medical services absent, employment non-existent, law and order not worth talking about.

Robert Mugabe is the reason for the disaster that is Zimbabwe today, and no amount of deflecting the truth or ignoring the facts is going to change that statement.

“Those who ignore the lessons of history, are doomed to repeat them.”

Robb WJ Ellis
The Bearded Man

I am probably scathing in that statement, but I think that the mediator, South African President, Thabo Mbeki, should admit defeat, pack it all up and go home.

These talks have been ‘ongoing’ since March last year and have achieved nothing but a “Memorandum of Agreement” – which Mugabe signed, but ignores.

Mugabe plays to the watching world and to SADC as he believes that they will leave him alone if he is seen doing the correct thing. Remember it was SADC that gave the mandate to Mbeki to mediate the talks, and, ostensibly, it was SADC that gave Mugabe the green light to convene Parliament.

And although they no say they didn’t give him the authority, it is already done and Mugabe is back where he wants to be – in control.

The talks are a major waste of time, but play to Mugabe’s favour. Every day he is in power is a victory for him, and every day that he is in power, is another day he can shore up his defences, hold off the population, and help himself to whatever funds he can lay his hands on.

Much of this goes on behind closed doors, and I am of the belief that the country is being systematically asset-stripped with the assistance of his lapdog, Gideon Gono, Governor of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe.

If SADC are insistent that the power-sharing talks continue, then they should wipe away the secrecy order that Mbeki had put in place.

The talks concern the people of Zimbabwe, more so than the very people that ‘negotiate’. This should be, at the very least, in the public domain and ZANU PF and the two MDC factions would soon find out just how highly concerned the Zimbabwean people are in their own futures.

It is wrong to shut the world out of the debate between possibly fifteen people, discussing the future of some 12 million-plus Zimbabweans!

We are fed with the crumbs from the negotiation table – some not authorised, and some water-down to keep our appetite at bay. But he mediator has seen his way clear to include the military JUNTA now largely running Zimbabwe.

What of the civic bodies? NCA, ZCTU and WOZA? Are they not entitled to have their say – after all, they do represent a better cross-section of the people, than those that the JUNTA represent.

Mugabe is a past master at negotiations – and equally a past master at ignoring to abide by the signature which he has affixed to those agreements.

Here, he is playing for time. Time is his friend – and the continued silence from the negotiation table helps no-one but Mugabe.

SADC has the ability to stop this stalemate, either by stopping the negotiations now and allowing the country’s ills to effect and long and lingering death – or they can remove the mandate from Mbeki and give it to someone who would be aware of the urgency of the situation, and someone who will be able to effect an agreement and ensure that the agreement is fulfilled, to the letter.

Think Ian Khama of Botswana – or former Ghanian leader, Jerry Rawlings.

The talks continue, and the people are restless. Let’s fix Zimbabwe now, and worry about the personalities of the main players later.

Robb WJ Ellis
The Bearded Man

These lists never fail to bring a smile to my face.

On reports that thousands homeless after government’s clean-up program:

“Nonsense!”Robert Mugabe said in an ABC News interview. “That’s nonsense... anyone who wants facts should come and see what’s happening. We removed them from slums and put them in new places.”

“Obviously when you destroy slums, even as you prepare new places for them, there is a dislocation, disorganization of the family for that moment.”

“Thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands. You go there now and see whether those thousands are there... Where are they? A figment of their imagination. They exaggerated.”

When questioned about Retirement:

Mugabe in an interview with ABC saying that he would remain in charge of the country, even after he leaves office.

“I’ll still be in the party,” he said. “The party is greater than government, by the way, and my being president of the party is similar to my being president of the country.”

Mugabe talking about efforts by international food agencies to get food to his starving population, in an interview with Sky TV:

“Why foist this food upon us? We do not want to be choked, we have enough.”

On dialogue between MDC and ZANU-PF:

2003 August: “Those who seek unity must not be our enemies. No, we say no to them, they must first repent... they must first be together with us, speak the same language with us, act like us, walk alike and dream alike.”

2003 June: “Let the MDC and its leadership be warned that those who play with fire will not only be burnt, but consumed by that fire.”

2004 February: “We cannot discuss with allies of the West. The devil is the devil and we have no idea of supping with the devil”

On cementing his Dictatorship:

2002 December: At the annual conference of his ruling party, ZANU PF, referring to white commercial farmers who resisted his land reform scheme:

“We saw who they were, what they were and we realised we had nurtured enemies among us, so we started treating them as enemies, enemies of our government, enemies of our party, enemies of our people.”

2002 December: At the annual conference of his ruling party, ZANU PF, referring to western countries (Bush and Blair)

“The more they work against us... the more negative we shall become to their kith and kin here.”

2003 March: In a speech at funeral of Dr Swithun Mombeshora
“This Hitler has only one objective: justice for his people, sovereignty for his people, recognition of the independence of his people and their rights over their resources… If that is Hitler, then let me be a Hitler tenfold.”

2003 December: At the ZANU PF annual conference: “If they (the MDC) want to violate the laws of the country, we can unleash legal force and legal violence, which we are permitted to do. [...] Some measures of force must be used to restrain them.”

2002 - Parlimentary Elections:

February: “We are in a war to defend our rights and the interests of our people. The British have decided to take us on through the MDC.”

March: “All of you gathered here can see that whites want us to be their slaves and they are now closing shops and factories to throw you blacks into the streets so that you can turn against the government.”

In a speech celebrating his re-inauguration and clarifying his policy towards the opposition MDC: “We will make them run. If they have not run before we will make them run now. We will not pander to them any longer. That is gone. It is finished. We are now entering a new chapter, and there will be firm government, very firm government.”

2001 - Land Reform Program Intensifies:

In a televised speech: “Violence is not just happening, it in fact has been deliberately hatched at the center of the MDC and by its patrons and principals overseas... This is a real physical fight and we have to prepare for it.”

In an interview marking his 77th birthday: “I would like to [retire], sure. As long as I am assured that those we fought yesterday are thoroughly beaten and that the carpet they now stand on, the economic carpet, has been removed from their feet and it has become our carpet.”

Talking about white farmers arrested for refusing to move from their farms: “They will not be treated like special creatures. Why should they be treated as if they are next to God? If anything, they are next to he who commands evil and resides in [the] inferno.”

2000 June - Elections Approach:

“The whites can be citizens in our country, or residents, but not our cousins. They are the greatest racists in the world.”

Typical references to Morgan Tsvangirai, the leader of the opposition.

“A white man masquerading as a black” and “A tea boy for his white boss.”

“Morgan Tsvangirai is an ambitious frog... as long as Morgan will be used by the British he will be a frog.”

BBC interview with David Dimbleby - 26th June 2000:

On whites in Zimbabwe:

“We have not stopped singing to the theme of unity and the theme of love. Even the whites are free to live here. But they must change. Your kind - the British kind - are very difficult to change. We rate them as the most conceited, the most arrogant, the most selfish and the most racist in our situation.”

“We ourselves should not ever... as government, as a party, as individuals within the party, be seen to be acting in a racist way, blacks against whites, we refuse to do that. The whites wouldn’t be here if I was like that... we can’t do things like that.”

On his governments failure to uphold the law:

“The law of the land must also work for moral justice - if I lead the people on the land and then get time to bring about law and order then it is a far better proposition, a better approach than one which will pit the forces against the masses of people now occupying the land and there would be greater death greater bloodshed - this is just a little row of trespass.”

“Elsewhere, those who commit murders are being arrested, those who commit robberies are being arrested, other crimes are being taken care of and there is greater law and order.

Only in the little area of trespass on the farms, where there has in fact been injustice all along by the farmers and if they suffer this very little - shall I say? - inconvenience of their land being occupied. And they suffer that very little inconvenience, against the inconvenience that we have suffered as a people for decades.”

On the possibility of an opposition election victory:

“That probability should never be entertained. I can never concede that they have the capacity to win , in dreamland perhaps, yes, I could see them in power but when I get up I say that is a dream, never a reality. Why do you want us to talk about dreams now?”

“If Zanu-PF loses, we will not accept the results. We fought and died for this country and you cannot expect us to hand the country on a silver plate to some new party backed by the white man.”

2000 - Land Reform Program:

March: “Those who try to cause disunity among our people must watch out because death will befall them...”

May: “They have expressed their concern. What concern? We just want our land and will take it the way we know how. What can they do?”

Independence Day: “Our present state of mind is that you [white commercial farmers] are now our enemies because you really have behaved as enemies of Zimbabwe.”

1999 April: In response to the IMF denying balance-of-payment support due to lack of transparency:

“Let that monstrous creature get out of our way. Unless I am prevailed upon to see things otherwise [...] I will lead my government in the direction where we dismiss the IMF as an institution that we can relate to, and that is coming very soon.”

1980 - Zimbabwean Independence:

“If yesterday I fought you as an enemy, today you have become a friend and an ally with the same national interest, loyalty, rights, and duties as myself.”

“It could never be a correct justification that, because the whites oppressed us yesterday when they had power, that the blacks must oppress them today because they have power.”

“If you were my enemy, you are now my friend. If you hated me, you cannot avoid the love that binds me to you and you to me.”

Robb WJ Ellis
The Bearded Man

This would fly directly in the face of the will of the people - and democracy.

Morgan Tsvangirai’s party won the majority on the Zimbabwean Parliament - albeit by one seat - and also won the original election for the office of President.

I have already alluded towards the contravention, by Mugabe, of the Constitution of Zimbabwe, in that the second round of the Presidential election was not required as Tsvangirai, in an election that fielded four candidates, was not in requirement of the said 50% plus one vote, bandied about by the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission. He only needed to poll more votes than anyone else - which he did.

Five months after the parliamentary election, Mugabe has finally had the elected representatives sworn into office. Why was it that Mugabe had himself sworn into office just 48 hours after the unneeded second round in the Presidential election - yet the Electoral Commission had the ballot boxes removed to an unknown place by ZANU PF representative, and five weeks after the election, a diluted and re-engineered result was released?

The Mugabe regime has also instituted treason proceedings against the MDC’s Secretary General, Tendai Biti. The charges spring from the public announcement made by Biti, in the five week period that the ballot boxes were in the charge of ZANU PF, in which he gave the MDC figures of the ballot in a press conference. These figures showed Tsvangarai as the outright winner.

Those figures had been gleaned from the various polling stations, insofar as it was part of the law provisions that the initial count be displayed on each and every station following the count.

I question how that can be treason.

According to WordWeb, the act of treason is a “crime that undermines the offender’s government”, “disloyalty by virtue of subversive behaviour”, or “an act of deliberate betrayal”.

If convicted, Biti could possible receive the death sentence.

For releasing information to the press that was readily available at every polling station? I struggle to see how his press release can be seen as “treasonous”.

Mugabe’s intention to go ahead without Tsvangirai falls in line with the suggestion that he will form a government with the leader of the smaller faction of the MDC, Arthur Mutambara.

An alliance of this nature would bring with it the ten parliamentary seats that the faction hold, thereby giving that alliance the majority in that house. But the flaw lies with the fact that seven of the elected MP’s have indicated that they would return to the fold of Tsvangirai (thereby triggering by-elections which would be inviting a return of the ZANU PF-instigated violence that we saw in the run up to the ‘harmonised’ elections, and in the aftermath of the Tsvangirai victory.

I personally do not believe that the people of Zimbabwe can sustain hit after hit after hit by the ZANU PF when they are in a position which is threatened.

But I also believe that the people will not tolerate the violence again. The people have discovered that it is possible to stand against Mugabe, and whilst there is a certain amount of collateral damage, the end justifies the means.

Whilst Mugabe’s end is not justified - nor do his means approach anything approaching legitimate.

Will the people of Zimbabwe once again allow Mugabe to establish his powerbase and with it exclude Tsvangirai, the winner of the Presidential election, and the leader of the party that holds the majority in Parliament?

That remains to be seen.

Robb WJ Ellis
The Bearded Man

Not only has he decided that there will be no more ‘mediated’ talks, but Mugabe is intent on appointing a government/cabinet that does not reflect the will of the people.

Let us just roll back the façade of information available, and concentrate on the facts.

There were 4 candidates in the Presidential election of March 29.

The Constitution of Zimbabwe states:

“Electoral Act, Ch 2:13, subparagraph 3(1) of the Second Schedule, which states as follows:

Determination, declaration and notification of result of Presidential poll:

3 (1) after the number of votes received by each candidate as shown in each constituency return has been added together in terms of subparagraph (3) of paragraph 3 (2) the Chief Elections Officer shall forthwith declare the candidate who has received:

(a) where there are two candidates, the greater number of votes;

(b) where there are more than two candidates, the greatest number of votes;

to be duly elected as President of the Republic of Zimbabwe with effect from the day of such declaration.”

It says nothing about the ‘magical’ 50% plus 1 vote.

But Mugabe’s lot took five weeks to come out with the re-engineered ‘results’ and although they freely admit that Tsvangirai beat Mugabe, the need for a run-off was because neither had got the required 50%...

So the second round was run and Tsvangirai dropped out less than a week to election day because of the violence being visited on his party.

Mugabe may have ‘won’ the sham one man election in June, but there was no need to go to a second round. Tsvangirai won – and therefore, in my mind, and probably the minds of many others, he is the duly elected democratic President of Zimbabwe.

Look at the alacrity that Mugabe had himself sworn in, but five months after the election, he has just had the MPs sworn in.

And any cabinet that he appoints will not only be illegal because he has not the authority to appoint them – seeing as he is not really the President of Zimbabwe – and any cabinet that he does appoint will not be in line with the will of the people.

The MDC won the majority in Parliament, and Tsvangirai won the Presidentials.

Tsvangirai has not been appointed as anything. He is not an MP or a senator – nothing.

Tsvangirai is probably one of a few select people on the face of the earth that has won so many elections, but has yet to hold the relevant office.

Mugabe will never respect and accede to the will of the people, because he is aware that should the will of the people be accepted, he will not only find himself out of a job – together with many of his senior loyalists and minions alike – but he will probably be taking up residence in a very small cell in Chikurubi Maximum Security Prison.

These are not the idle words of an anti-Mugabe activist. (I am distinctly ant-Mugabe, but I not an activist.)

These are the words of someone who has seen the ferocious nature of Mugabe’s rule first hand, and would like, more than anything, to return to my adopted home country, free from persecution and hatred, free from the shackles that Mugabe places on anyone who would speak against him, assured of my place within the population of a much maligned and misunderstood country – Zimbabwe.

Robb WJ Ellis
The Bearded Man

Yesterday morning, against the run of play, Tsvangirai’s faction nailed down and won the nomination of Lovemore Moyo as Speaker of the House – a position that carries a lot more clout that people realise.

Mugabe’s party did not field a candidate, preferring to back the MDC Mutambara candidate, Paul Themba-Nyathi.

The vote split was:

99 MDC Tsvangirai MPs

7 MDC Mutambara MPs
4 ZANU PF MPs

The split indicates that even members of Mugabe’s party are prepared to go against the run of play – and even before Parliament is convened, they have shown their unhappiness with Mugabe.

This may be a huge win for the MDC – the party that won the popular mandate in Parliament, even if that majority is by one seat – but ZANU PF showed its hand a few minutes before the vote, arresting two MDC MP-elects.

One was released soon after, whilst the other remains in custody, reportedly being answerable to charges of rape. If you look at the numbers above, you will see the missing MP in that only 99 of the 100 seats held voted.

This morning, Mugabe opened Parliament, with the recognisable Western influence apparent – Mugabe arrived in a vintage motor vehicle and the street was turned into a parade ground as bodies of soldiers in their number one gear all stood to attention as their beloved leader inspected the turnout.

Mugabe’s inaugural speech (he has made so many speeches in the past that it was easy to know the content before he opened his mouth) was laced with the usual anti-West accusations and suggestions that the country’s economy was being driven deliberately by outside influence that was seeking regime change in Zimbabwe.

Blah, blah, blah… but it was interesting to hear that Mugabe had to raise his voice above the heckling that he received from the MDC ranks.

“You killed people – we won’t forget that.”

“ZANU PF is rotten.”

Reports said that Mugabe became annoyed and fairly ran through the last few sentences of his speech, before taking refuge on his seat.
Mugabe is not used to this sort of treatment – anywhere – and will no doubt return to his office or mansion wondering just what it will take to stop the MDC advance.

I believe that the momentum being built by the MDC will soon be unstoppable, and, hopefully without bloodshed, or the minimum thereof, Grace Mugabe’s words will come back to haunt her, when Morgan Richard Tsvangirai takes an oath of office within the hallowed halls of power – somewhere she intimated Tsvangirai would never even enter…

The opening salvos of government have been fired, and Mugabe’s party scored early with the arrest of two MDC parliamentarians, whilst the MDC were able to equalise very quickly.

Mugabe believes himself to be in a position of power, having appointed Ministers without constituencies on Sunday – and we half expect him to appoint a cabinet, which will consist of stalwart ZANU PF loyalists.

Then the real work starts, as the MDC seek fair representation not only in the house, but a say in the legislation passing through the house, knowing full well that Mugabe can shortcut the process and can issue Presidential decrees.

I expect the score to change rather quickly from hereon in…

Robb WJ Ellis
The Bearded Man

There are 210 seats in Parliament in Zimbabwe (worked on a population of 12,5 million Zimbabweans, this means an average of 59500 people per constituency) and the current in-fighting is for an absolute majority.

As things lie right now, the split in seats is like this:

MDC Tsvangirai - 100 seats
ZANU PF - 99 seats
MDC Mutambara - 10 seats
Independent - 1 seat

The independent seat can confidently be allied with ZANU PF as the holder, Jonathan Moyo, is a former cabinet member of Mugabe’s government, and his sympathies easily lie with ZANU PF, so for the purposes of this editorial the seats can be rearranged like this:

MDC Tsvangirai - 100 seats
ZANU PF - 100 seats
MDC Mutambara - 10 seats

Making the rest of the story quite easy.

But it isn’t…

One would assume that the MDC faction holding 10 seats would ally itself with the larger MDC faction, which would mean that the mix would be:

MDC Tsvangirai/Mutambara - 110 seats
ZANU PF - 100 seats

But we know that Mugabe has been romancing Mutambara for his seats, and if that were to happen, and all of the faction’s elected MPs were to agree, then the split is reversed:

MDC Tsvangirai - 100 seats
ZANU PF/MDC Mutambara - 110 seats

But, once again, the smaller faction of the MDC is split again - seven of their MPs stating that in the event that Mutambara does ally his faction with Mugabe’s ZANU PF, then they would cross the floor to rejoin the Tsvangirai faction. This would then mean that the parliamentary split would look like this:

MDC Tsvangirai - 107 seats
ZANU PF/MDC Mutambara - 103 seats

Rather confusing, I think you will all agree…

But there is yet another fact that we need to be aware of. If MDC Mutambara representatives to the House of Assembly leave their party, through which they were elected, and join ZANU PF or rejoin MDC Tsvangirai (or refuse to vote with their party leader and are subsequently expelled), there would probably have to be by-elections, as elected members lose their seats if they cease to belong to the party they represented when elected, and that party notifies the Speaker in writing that they have ceased to represent its interests in Parliament.

The same would apply to MDC Tsvangirai representatives who are disowned by their party. An MDC Tsvangirai news release dated 14th August has stated that ZANU PF government ministers and functionaries have approached an extensive number of MDC Tsvangirai members of parliament asking them to submit their CVs and asking them to be part of a Mugabe government.

Which throws much of the numbers above back into the mix.

It is interesting to note that should Parliament not be convened, then the men who are in the (what I believe to be illegally) reappointed cabinet can continue in that position. Once Parliament is convened, those without seats fall away.

On paper, the numbers are very confusing and the different permutations open themselves up to some major discussion and possibilities.

I am of the belief that should Mutambara ally himself with Mugabe and seven of his MPs abandon his faction for the other, Mugabe will either disinherit the faction - thereby losing the remaining 3 MPs - or, more than likely, his party would absorb the smaller faction of the MDC, just as they did to ZAPU in 1987.

Then the MDC would be a simple one party/faction set-up, which in itself would ease the confusion we have with the mix.

Mutambara is reportedly going to be appointed as a Senator (Mugabe has Presidential power to appoint 5 Senators…), by way of reward for his alliance.

Much more confusing than we ever realised.

Robb WJ Ellis
The Bearded Man

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

I remain convinced that Mutambara’s speech style resembles that of Mugabe some years back as a younger man. Mutambara’s speech overflows with vitriol and a hatred for anything and anybody that dares to question any part of his faction’s moves or decisions - and it sadly echoes the noise that Mugabe makes.

In this interview, Mutambara actually makes the claim that Zimbabwean are better educated and cleverer than people in the United States, Australia and in England.

Whilst I perhaps agree with him that the educational standards in Zimbabwe WERE very good at one stage, I find it very questionable that he should make such a sweeping statement, ostensibly speaking for the people of Zimbabwe.

The educational standards and the IQ of Zimbabweans is not what is in question. The aims, ideals and aspirations of one Arthur Mutambara ARE…

This is the leader of the smaller faction of the Movement for Democratic Change who holds just ten seats in opposition to ZANU PF, and in third place to Morgan Tsvangirai’s larger faction of the MDC.

Quite correctly, the interviewer asked Mutambara about the reports that he had signed an alliance with Mugabe’s ZANU PF and had, by that agreement, allied himself with the party that has ruined Zimbabwe in the past 28 years.

Mutambara then began to have a hissy fit, demanding that another question be asked as he felt no need to answer the question. He stated that a bilateral agreement cannot come out of tripartite talks. He certainly didn’t like being buttonholed and his reaction would indicate to me that he was hiding the facts.

Mutambara, if he wanted the world to listen to his tirade, should never have begun the short interview by laying into the West. The fact that the radio broadcaster that he was talking to is established in the West should have been his first clue.

Why come out with anti-West comments when you are on air in the West? People are hardly likely to give any support or time to Mutambara’s efforts within the negotiations, if he insists on echoing Mugabe’s speeches, repeating Mugabe’s feelings and making wild statements that fall in line with Mugabe’s policies…

The negotiations, which right now are stalled and we have no date of their recommencement, show the true colours of the likes of Mutambara, who is no longer interested in what he and his party can do for the people of Zimbabwe, but is more interested in what he can gain as a political personality.

When the personal aims of a political leader begin to outweigh and outrun the people that his MDC faction supposedly represent, then I can no longer put any trust or hope in that party or that leader, and I am embittered at the manner in which Mutambara seeks to pacify his own wants ahead of the people of Zimbabwe.

These negotiations have stripped bare the true nature of the parties participating, and the Zimbabwean people need to be aware that the likes of Mutambara, the man who leads the party that came third in the elections, has realised that his personal stock value is higher in ZANU PF eyes than in the eyes of the people.

He has truly been proved wanting when his political survival is only guaranteed by the man that put the Zimbabwean economy and its country in the toilet – Robert Gabriel Mugabe…

Robb WJ Ellis
The Bearded Man

Negotiations have been intermittent - rather like the ability Mugabe has to run the much-damaged country and its economy - and have been ongoing since March last year.

Mugabe has proved himself a shrewd negotiator and when he thought that the talks were not going his way, initially he pulled the rug out from under the opposition by declaring March 29 as election day, and then subjecting the Zimbabwean population to horrendous violence, murder and mayhem, resulting in Tsvangirai being obliged to withdraw from the election’s second round.

Even with Mugabe then winning the one man sham election, the violence did not stop and many people have been beaten and imprisoned, whilst Mugabe’s party attempted to institute frivolous laws which they themselves now disregard. (You cannot, in all consciousness, put a law in place that has some sort of expiry date. An example is the declaring of satellite dishes ‘illegal’ in the run-up to the election, and just weeks later, Mugabe showers the judiciary with gifts for their loyalty - including satellite dishes!)

In the just finished SADC summit held in South Africa, we were all primed by Thabo Mbeki, the man given the SADC mandate to seek an agreement in the Zimbabwean crisis, to expect both parties to finally reach an accord and sign on the dotted line.

By Sunday it was apparent that no such deal was in the offing.

Reports tell us that Tsvangirai had been offered a third Vice Presidential post - which the MDC rejected. They want Tsvangirai to be Prime Minister with executive power, while Mugabe would retain the Presidency on a more ceremonial role, but would also control the defence forces and the central bank (who have bankrolled Mugabe for at least the past five years…).

It emerged today that Mugabe was even offered the position of Prime Minister with Tsvangirai as Executive President - which was rejected by ZANU PF negotiators.

Whilst the negotiating continues, with neither party prepared to give very much ground at all, it emerges also that SADC have given Mugabe the green light to convene Parliament!

This would be entirely wrong, as Parliament would include a cabinet – and any cabinet selected and appointed by Mugabe will not reflect the ‘will of the people’ seeing as Tsvangirai’s party have the majority in Parliament.

I would be very interested in the people that Mugabe appoints to any cabinet because at this time he rules with an illegally re-appointed cabinet, including at least two men who have lost their Parliamentary seats in the March 29 elections.

And all the while, the people of Zimbabwe are still under the cosh. Mugabe’s party continues to exert much pressure on the MDC and any sympathetic civic body, whilst the population strives to survive with nothing in the shops and very little money to buy it – even if there was something.

On the financial front, I see that the black market exchange rate has increased more than fourfold in the last week - such is the catastrophe within Zimbabwe.

Whilst Mugabe and Tsvangirai continue to vie for control, the brave people of Zimbabwe continue to eke out a living in the ruins of Mugabe’s almost 3-decade (decayed?) reign.

Robb WJ Ellis
The Bearded Man