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Mugabe’s rule evil: Mufuka

Politics
PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe has presided over a wicked administration that has wrought evil on his people in the past three-and-a-half decades, United States-based Zimbabwean scholar Ken Mufuka said yesterday.

PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe has presided over a wicked administration that has wrought evil on his people in the past three-and-a-half decades, United States-based Zimbabwean scholar Ken Mufuka said yesterday.

BY RICHARD CHIDZA

Mufuka said this on Thursday during the launch of his book, The Life and Times of Robert Mugabe, History of Zimbabwe 1980-2015 – Dream Betrayed.

“Mugabe’s behaviour over the last 36 years is an aberration. It is like evil, which is committed just for the sake of it. Nobody can explain the rationale behind Gukurahundi, Operation Murambatsvina and other atrocities,” he said.

“We can draw comparison between the President’s behaviour and that of Zulu King Tshaka. Tshaka was asked by his aunt what he would do since he had destroyed all the Zulu Kingdom’s enemies. To this Tshaka answered: ‘I will find more’. Asked when there are no more, Tshaka is said to have retorted. ‘I will make more enemies’.”

Mufuka described his book, launched at the Southern African Political and Economic Series (Sapes) Trust, as an “honest approach on who this man who has affected our lives is, 36 years is a long time”.

“People of conscience cannot be silenced and we think we have not been as vocal as we should have been. A great leader enhances the lives of his people, but for us, Gukurahundi was the mother of all our problems. Matabeleland and Midlands are yet to recover and their spirit is broken. It was a war declared not by Parliament, but by one man.

We must face our skeletons with truth because there will not be justice without truth,” Mufuka said.

“While hunting down dissidents who had killed 200 people in one year, the 5th Brigade killed 3 000 people in six weeks. The machinery to kill was already there when the so-called arms were discovered. And we argue against that because these arms were known to all even those of us who were in the USA. These weapons had actually become virtually useless because of rust anyway.”

Mufuka, however, admitted Mugabe was a complex human being to understand.

“Nobody knows Mugabe’s mind even after 10 years of study. He has an uncanny ability to interview people and know a lot about them without exposing himself of what he knows already,” he added.

Academic and Sapes boss Ibbo Mandaza said there was need to study the behaviour of African leaders.

“To lead an African country one must have some level of insanity. There is need to write about that subject given the problem one faces. Most of those who stay in power for long seem to have a very peculiar behavioural streak,” Mandaza said.