Robert Mugabe was always a Mr. Hyde

Re: “Zimbabwe’s Mugabe a Jekyll and Hyde,” letter, Nov. 16.

The letter-writer wonders why former Zimbabwe president Robert Mugabe was Dr. Jekyll in his first two decades then became Mr. Hyde.

Mugabe was always Hyde to those who watched. His driving imperative always was power. During the bush war in what was then Rhodesia, rivals died mysteriously. Right after independence in 1980, the opposition leader’s bodyguards were killed in an attempt on his life. Then more than 20,000 civilians of the minority Ndebele tribe were murdered to show who was boss.

Canada and the West didn’t want to know about these actions because they’d helped to put Mugabe in place, so there was little publicity. They continued to shower aid.

Zimbabwe looked promising, but in the late 1990s, the termites of incompetence and nepotism led to the rise of a new opposition and food riots. Many whites thought Mugabe was a democrat, and white farmers began funding the opposition. White land ownership had been a secondary issue in the peace settlement leading to independence and during the ensuing years but suddenly it became a rallying cry because Mugabe faced a threat to his power.

The violent farm seizures began in 1999, primarily to cut off funding to the opposition, as a way to whip up nationalistic support and to hand them as loot to supporters. Mugabe then began rigging elections, openly perpetrating violence and intimidation, and generally acting as a despot.

Rob Garrard Ex-Rhodesian Victoria