The world and our organization, the 1893 Mthwakazi Human Rights Restoration Movement (1893 MHRRM), woke up to the news that Robert Gabriel Mugabe, the former President of Zimbabwe, who ruled Zimbabwe with an iron fist from 1980 to 2017, has died.
Mugabe was one of the most barbaric, bloodthirsty and brute leaders Africa has ever produced. He ranks alongside Idi Amin Dada of Uganda, Mobuto Sese Seko of DRC formerly Zaire, Kamuzu Banda of Malawi, Mengistu Haile Mariam of Ethopia, Hissene Habre of Chad, Omar Al-bashir of Sudan, Siad Barre of Somalia, Macias Nguena of Guinea, Sekou Toure of Guinea, General Sani Abacha of Nigeria and Paul Biya of Cameron. Mugabe, like his mentioned odious peers, did not bless Africa. He ruined Africa. He destroyed the lives of many Africans in Zimbabwe.
For those not in the know, Robert Gabriel Mugabe and his brute disciple followers have a terrible human rights violations record that has bastardized and desecrated Africa’s ubuntu values, a quality that has essential values of compassion and humanity, with reckless abandon since Zimbabwe got independence in 1980.
He and his gang of crime lovers committed one of the most heinous or hideous crimes against humanity in Africa, a genocide against the people of Matebeleland found in the southern-western parts of Zimbabwe.
Mugabe code-named the above mentioned genocide “Gukurahundi”, a Shona word meaning an early storm that washes away the chuff in its way. He enlisted the services of North Koreans in 1981, when he made a state visit there with his cdes including Mujuru, to train and arm a specialist brigade specifically for the purpose of committing a genocide against the Matebele. He named this storm-trooper brigade, the 5th Brigade of Zimbabwe and subsequently unleashed it to the unsuspecting Matebeles in 1983 to 1987, long after he already started killings and abductions of Matebele leaders and former Zipra and uMkhonto weSizwe war liberation fighters. 50 000 to 100 000 Matebeles died. Millions of the surviving victims of his senseless terror were displaced to neighbouring countries including South Africa and some to overseas countries.
It must be noted that the Matebele genocide was meticulously planned and implemented to the letter by Robert Gabriel Mugabe and his accomplices. As part of that meticulous planning, Robert Gabriel Mugabe and his brute and thuggish disciples, crafted a document they called The 1979 Shona Grand Plan before Zimbabwe gained independence in 1980. This well written and genocide blueprint document meticulously identified the Matebele and the Whites in Zimbabwe as foreigners and enemies of the state of Zimbabwe. They had to be gotten rid of violently so as to create a Shona ethnic monolithic super and one party state of Zimbabwe.
It must be said without equivocation or any form of fretting that Mugabe’s Grand Plan has become a political culture and a way of life for many in Zimbabwe particularly those in Mashonaland. It forms the basis of the way of thinking for Mugabe’s disciples and followers. Their world-view, which is often upside down, is informed by the 1979 Grand Plan and its distasteful and harmful teachings against the Matebele and indeed the whites in Zimbabwe. It is no wonder why the current Deputy Minister of Information in Zimbabwe, Energy Mutodi, issued a warped and twisted hate speech statement against the Matebele a few days ago stating that the Matebele are foreigners in Zimbabwe. He arrogantly warned and reminded South Africa that it has its own refugees in Zimbabwe in the form of the Matebele and therefore it should stop xenophobic attacks on its people. The unfit Minister gave an implied view that failure for South Africa to deal with xenophobic attacks might trigger xenophobic attacks against the Matebele as they are viewed as foreigners in Zimbabwe.
The said statement from this bumbling Minister, who is unfit to hold office in a normal and progressive state, emanates from the teachings of one Robert Gabriel Mugabe and his 1979 Shona Grand Plan teachings that regard the Matebele as not owners of Matebeleland but refugees in Zimbabwe and enemies of the state of Zimbabwe.
The kingpin and role model of such twisted teachings and statements is none other than Mugabe, a callous, hateful and genocidal figure in Africa who conquered and retained power for 37 years through hate speech. His rule was characterised by hate speech, brutality and shedding of blood wantonly. He elevated hate speech and rule by brutality to perfection, all centred on tribe and race to maintain his grip on power until the coup of 2017 when he turned on his most trusted lieutenants to annihilate them in an effort to prolong his rule.
Leading up to the coup in 2017, Mugabe turned his party, Zanu PF, into a night of long knives and a long day of poisoned ice creams as he sought to cordon off threats against his rule. He was eventually overthrown and whenever he appeared in the public, he showed signs of having lost the zest to live. None of his comrades in Africa came to his rescue. He was a lonely and discarded figure whose power had crumbled like a deck of cards.
It is regrettable that Robert Gabriel Mugabe has died without facing the long arm of the law for his gross crimes against humanity and for his genocide against the Matebeleland Nation in particular. He deserved to be stand in the dock and answer for his crimes.
Just in case some may forget. Robert Gabriel Mugabe is a man who was boastful about his brutal rule. He once boasted that he had “degrees in violence” and that he was a black “Hitler tenfold” of Africa. At some point he boasted about the fact he had died and resurrected many times than Jesus Christ himself. He certainly viewed himself as a deity, a god of some sort.
Robert Gabriel Mugabe will be remembered as a callous man who brought misery to many especially in Matebeleland with his Genocide crusade against them. As Mugabe meets his maker in heaven this week, it must be pointed out fairly and squarely that he has left a legacy and culture of mass rapes, mass beatings, mass starvation, mass abductions, mass violence, mass killings and mass displacement of his surviving victims from Zimbabwe to other countries.
Today the displaced victims of his brutal rule face constant xenophobia attacks in South Africa and in other African countries. He has left a legacy of black imperialism within Zimbabwe, a legacy of oppression and subjugation of one black Nation by the other. His legacy continues unabated with the current government that is in place.
In 1980 Mugabe emerged as a freedom fighter and in 2019 he has exited the world stage as a ruthless genocidal dictator who brought hell on earth to many in Africa. Gabriel became the angel of hope in 1980 and in 2019 exited the world stage as the angel of Death and Destruction. He is no hero. He is a zero.
Mugabe’s legacy will continue to be recorded and read in the annals of African and world history as that of an African leader who committed genocide and brought total mayhem and destruction to a promising African country called Zimbabwe. The effects of his brutal rule were felt beyond the borders of Zimbabwe and the consequences of his brutal rule remain with us today and for generations to come.
His brutish and odious Gukurahundi inspired murderous rule further brought mass destruction to infrastructure and mass destruction to a vibrant economy bequeathed to him by Rhodesians. Is it not shameful that Rhodesians left him something viable and he destroyed it in a twinkle of an eye, making blacks a mockery of the world?
Mugabe encouraged mass looting and corruption and chaotic policies that destroyed everything. Harare has become a sewage capital city of Zimbabwe today. The filth found in that town speaks volumes of the legacy of Mugabe in Zimbabwe. His chaotic rule further brought mass destruction to education institutions and mass destruction to healthcare institutions leading to mass deaths in the healthcare sector. For want of a better description, Mugabe committed education and healthcare genocide in Zimbabwe additional to the Matebele genocide he committed.
He destroyed lives en masse while spending billions of money on trips travelling abroad for shopping, personal health treatment and for useless engagements that did not bring any tangible benefits to the ordinary person in the country. His voracious appetite for travelling the world knew no boundaries, earning him the nickname, “The Vasco da Gama” of Africa. He mortgaged our resources to big international powers to save his skin from the enemies he created for himself. He was eccentric and an extremely self-centred and selfish person who thought speaking fluent English brought food on the table of many people he impoverished in Zimbabwe.
Our Movement and the surviving victims of Robert Gabriel Mugabe’s crimes against humanity cannot shed a tear for him. His death robed us of an opportunity to have him tried for the genocide he committed against the Matebele. We are of the opinion that he is not going to heaven. It is not that very often that we say such in Africa.
Released by the 1893 Mthwakazi Human Rights Restoration Movement Information and Publicity Department