Why Mugabe Must Go  by Chika Onyeani
 

"Yes, I told them he was beaten but he asked for it," AFP news agency quoted Mr Mugabe as saying. "We got full backing, not even one [other African leader] criticised our actions," boasted President Mugabe about the beating suffered by Mr. Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change. Mr. Tsvangirai suffered multiple injuries and was hospitalised for many days.

Mr. Mugabe is 83 years old, he has been in power for 27 years since 1980 when the former Rhodesia became the independent country as Zimbabwe. Mr. Mugabe is again coercing members of his party to allow him to run for another term in office in 2008, or, failing that, to postpone the elections until 2010 so that he could remain in office.

Mugabe epitomizes the autocratic and brutal leaderships that Africans have inherited from their former colonial masters, and the crisis in Zimbabwe itself epitomizes the impotent leadership of African leadership. It is patently incomprehensible that the SADC leaders saw the brutal beatings of the opposition, yet proceeded to endorse the action of Mugabe, as he claimed. If this is true, then the SADC leaders need to account to Africans the rational behind their endorsement of Mugabe’s actions, but if it is not, then they need to refute his boasts of not being challenged even by one leader.

The argument here is not against Mugabe’s age, it is not against his longevity in office. Rather, it is the brutal nature with which he has decided to abrogate the freedom of the people of Zimbabwe, the freedom and independence from their former colonial masters for which they fought very hard, with Mugabe as their leader. As I said, age is not the problem here, after all Mr. Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal is 81 years old, yet he just won a resounding reelection into office in what was seen to be a very credible free and fair elections. In an open democracy such as Senegal’s, and as practised by its President, during the elections members of the opposition parties were accorded the same rights by the government controlled media as was accorded the governing party’s.

Those who rule through brutality, which has come to be Mugabe’s stock in trade, will eventually reap the rewards of their stewardship. Africans have come to know such vagabond leaders like Field Marshal Idi Amin, Emperor Jean-Bedel Bokassa, General Sani Abacha, ‘King’ Mobutu Sese Seko and others. It is not how they died but what happened during their death. All their supposed accolades and ‘good deeds’ deserted them. Their countries are still in existence, they were not buried with these dictators, instead the dictators were buried in them. Again, if age were the problem here, we would not have the spurious AIDS-curing dictator in the Gambia, Jammeh, who has closed all independent media in the country, pretending to have won elections rather than using the barrel of a gun to coerce the Gambian citizens.

This becomes the crux of the question most Africans ask: Did we fight for independence only to become slaves to our fellow black man? This has been the experience of the average African who fought very hard for independence, only to have tin gods as leaders who then subject the citizens to intolerable conditions.

Okay, Southern African Development Community leaders met last Wednesday, March 28, in Tanzania, ostensibly to quell the crises which have been looming large in Zimbabwe. It was reported that before the meeting, the host President Jakaya Kikwete, had made it plain to President Mugabe that he would face harsh demands than he had been before from his southern African neighbors. He had insisted that the Zimbabwean crisis required urgent action and was no longer the internal affairs of Zimbabwe.

“The leaders have expressed great concern over the worsening political situation in Zimbabwe,” Mr Kikwete said after the meeting. “The situation is not good both ways and SADC has decided to act,” saying this was after complaints from both the opposition and Mugabe himself about the violence. Imagine Mugabe conplaining, about what? President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa, who has been quite reluctant in forcing Mugabe to change his ways, was said to have been appointed by the SADC leaders as mediator in the Zimbabwe crisis. Of course, we have to recognize the major role that Zimbabwe and in effect, Mugabe, played during the apartheid era, when he was urged by the then Organization of African Unity not to undertake any actions against the white settlers in his country in order not to jeopardize the pressure mounted against the apartheid South African regime, which is what people attribute to Mbeki’s reluctance when it comes to Mugabe.

Obviously, whatever harsh demands the SADC leaders made on Mugabe, they don’t seem to have any effect, as he has embarked on further crack-downs on the opposition, as well as re-arresting the opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai. This goes to prove the tacit endorsement Mugabe boasted of having received from his African colleagues, and it begs to question the so-called condemnation of Mugabe by his colleagues as alluded to in President Kikwete’s press conference after the meeting.

As I said earlier, President Robert Mugabe is 83 years old now; he was a great fighter and a hero to most of us during the fight against Ian Smith’s unilateral declaration of independence (UDI); he has been in power since 1980; we understand the wrong done to Zimbabwe by the hypocritical British government in withholding the £50 million promised the country for the repurchase of lands from the white settlers which Britain reneged on, and more over we understand the personal sacrices that Mugabe had to make during the apartheid era to ensure the independence of South Africa.

However, having acknowledged all the above, it still doesn’t give Mugabe the right to become the sadistic and dictatorial monster he has become to the people of Zimbabwe. Unfortunately, we are forced to come to the conclusion that it is time for President Mugabe to leave the scene. Mugabe must go: he has outlived his usefulness!!

About the author:

Chika Onyeani is the Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of the award-winning African Sun Times, as well as author of the internationally acclaimed and No.1 best selling book, "Capitalist Nigger: The Road to Success," and a new novel, "The Broederbond Conspiracy." Onyeani is the host of the AllAfricaRadio of "StraightTalk with Chika Onyeani on the AllAfricaRadio," the most powerful voice of Africa in America.