By Own Correspondent- There are three reasons for sadness as the former Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe’s remains lie in a mortuary in Singapore.

The first is he lived as long as he did. The second is he is dying unpunished for some of the foulest crimes of this era. And, the third is his victims will never be compensated for the loss of liberty during his repressive rule.

More than 20 000 Zimbabweans in Matabeleland were killed during Gukurahundi by Mugabe and his acolytes, most of whom constitute the current regime, for opposing his tyrannical rule.

The Perence-Shiri-led Five Brigade butchered defenceless Ndebele-speaking citizens, supporters of the Zimbabwe African People’s Union (ZAPU), an opposition party led by Joshua Nkomo, his erstwhile ally in the guerrilla war that ushered independence from British rule in 1980.

Those who survived the bullets from the guns were finished off by the bayonets of the AK47s. Corpses of defenceless men, women and children were put in shallow and mass graves or disused mineshafts. Even their livestock went along with them.

Amid the genocide, the world cheered him on. Some even gave Mugabe honorary degrees. Such is the hypocritical world we live in.

Mugabe, a self-avowed Catholic, helped himself to Stanley Goreraza’s wife, Grace, while his esteemed wife, Sally, lay in her deathbed, siring two children in the process. The hapless Goreraza was sent to the United States to further his studies and later on given a diplomatic posting, just to get him out of the way.

Starting in 2000, more than 5 000 Zimbabweans were forced off their farms plunging Africa’s breadbasket into a basket case. Their crime: they supported the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), an opposition party led by the late opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai. Millions of Zimbabweans fled abject poverty into neighbouring countries and overseas as the situation in the southern African country plummeted.

Zimbabweans watched helplessly in 2008 from their safe havens abroad as the dead dictator, aided and abetted by the current despot, Emmerson Mnangagwa, and the disgraced former South African president Thabo Mbeki, refused to hand over power to Tsvangirai after a routing at the polls.

They watched helplessly as the victor was forced into a compromise government to avoid a bloodbath reminiscent of Gukurahundi. And, they watched helplessly as Mugabe’s thugs continued their reign of terror on their relatives countrywide.

The painful thing is, most Zimbabweans will have nothing or very little to leave for their children when they die. Yet, the dead  despot’s children have jaw-dropping wealth looted during his ruinous rule. Going by Mugabe’s own admission, US$15 billion from Chiadzwa diamonds was looted in less than a decade. One shudders to think how much more was stolen in the 37 years he was in power.

Zimbabweans will remember him as the lunatic who inherited a wonderful economy and plunged it into a basket case because of his obsession with power.

Ta-ta Robert Gabriel Mugabe!