generalspeaking

Thursday, November 23, 2017

Beware The Crocodile

"Given the vitriol and hatred toward Grace Mugabe, I suspect she will move in and out [of her mansion in Harare] but spend more time out of Zimbabwe."
Welshman Neube, opposition leader, Zimbabwe

"I appeal to all genuine people of Zimbabwe to come together. We are all Zimbabweans ... we need peace in our country and jobs, jobs, jobs."
"He [Robert Mugabe] is now the former president of Zimbabwe."
Emmerson Mnangagwa, Zimbabwean President-elect

A supporter holds up a toy to welcome Emmerson Mnangagwa, known as "The Crocodile," back to the country on Wednesday in Harare. CNN

Mr. Mnangagwa, Robert Mugabe's former vice-president, is full of praise for the military with which he is closely aligned. He extended his praise to the speaker of parliament and the other party leaders who have all supported the dismissal of Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwean ruler-for-life-almost and their support for his return from exile after his summary dismissal as vice-president and heir to the presidential throne for which he considered himself to have been groomed.

At Mugabe's side for almost 40 years, one of the original freedom fighters who helped sovereignty succeed in independence from foreign rule when his country was Rhodesia, not Zimbabwe -- a British colony -- he is cut from the same cloth as Mugabe. Robert Mugabe may have made the decisions to brutally attack white Zimbabwean farmers and divest them of their holdings, in the process destroying the country's agricultural preeminence, but it was his enforcer, Mnangagwa, who enacted those decrees.

Known for vicious brutality, he was popularly referred to as the 'crocodile'. His own ambitions coincided in lock-step with that of Robert Mugabe's wife Grace -- who succeeded in persuading her doddering husband that she would far better carry on his priceless legacy that impoverished the country, sending it into hyperinflation, raising unemployment to impossible levels, creating food and medicine shortages while she burned through the state treasury on shopping sprees -- and she won.

When she persuaded her husband to dismiss his faithful colleague who had carried out all his destructive orders as the heavy of the team, neither she nor her husband imagined the reaction, which became a popular revolt in the guise of a military coup. While she fled the consequences, her husband remained in place to meet an African Union delegation to persuade him to step down, but he remained steadfast in his belief that he was beloved of his oppressed people until ZANU-PF dismissed him after the failure of diplomacy persuading a tyrant to depart.

Now Emmerson Mnangagwa is prepared to rule in the place of his former mentor. He will complete Mugabe's latest 'term' in office. And in taking his place he will without a doubt truly take his place. The people who believe that they have been delivered from the iron clutches of a tyrant are about to understand that Mugabe's replacement is a replica of the original. This is the fate of Africans; to be abused by one tyrant only to face similar abuse by another. The next 'election' will be held under the same conditions as all those which saw Mugabe 'elected' and re-elected.

As for the ambitions of Grace Mugabe, while they are shattered in the political-power sphere, she still has all the riches that she looted from the country that has reeled in a state of dysfunctional poverty for years. The agreement was reached that Mugabe and his family will remain in the country and permitted to retain possession of their 'assets'. The vast mansion in Harare that Grace Mugabe looted the treasury to build to house the nation's first lady will remain hers.

The farms she commandeered from other black Zimbabweans who had been allotted them after their divestiture from their white owners may be another thing, if anything remotely resembling justice and an effort to put Zimbabwe back on a working track is pursued. As for the vast wealth acquired by Grace Mugabe as the largest landholder and real estate portfolio in the history of the country, her personal adornments, designer clothing and jewellery, and the way she managed to acquire it all, who knows?

In continued deference to the elder statesman of African leadership post-colonialism -- a man whom even Nelson Mandela made no effort to reprimand for his ruination of a nation and his racial abuse -- for whatever few years left of his life Grace Mugabe will be safe. On his death she would be well advised to make her presence in Zimbabwe a mirage, taking with her into exile whatever she can spirit out of the country. The crocodile has a maw full of vengeful teeth.