Zimbabwe’s Mugabe era may have come to an end
GENERAL’S VISIT TO BEIJING PRECEDED MILITARY’S SWIFT GRAB FOR POWER FROM MUGABE GOVERNMENT
The general behind Zimbabwe’s coup may have sought Chinese approval days before the army launched its takeover of Robert Mugabe’s government. Mugabe remained under house arrest Wednesday night, still president of Zimbabwe, if in name alone, a prisoner of once slavishly loyal generals who now hold the country’s fate in their hands.
A trip to Beijing by Gen. Constantino Chiwenga, the head of the military, last week has reignited concerns about rising Chinese influence in Africa.
Although the Chinese foreign ministry insisted Chiwenga’s visit was “routine,” analysts have suggested that Beijing may have given the army chief its tacit blessing.
China, which has displaced the West to become Africa’s largest trading partner and is a major investor in Zimbabwe, notably declined to call for Mugabe’s restoration, despite his long ties to Beijing dating back to the Cold War.
As military vehicles and soldiers took up positions across Harare on Wednesday, ordinary Zimbabweans looked on in stunned silence, perhaps unable to countenance the prospect of their country without the man who bestrode it for nearly four decades.
The intentions of the generals remain unknown, with little direction given save for a terse announcement on state television declaring that Mugabe, 93, was safe and ostensibly still in power — even as an operation was launched to remove the “criminals” at the heart of his regime.
The army’s main objective was to hunt down cabinet allies of the president’s wife, Grace, whose bid to succeed her husband sparked the coup. At least two leading members of her faction, including the finance minister, were detained, with the whereabouts of others unknown.
The generals insisted they were not launching a coup, but the meticulous planning, swift execution and even the military music played on loop on the airwaves suggested otherwise.
Before midnight on Tuesday, a military convoy launched an assault on the barracks of the presidential guard, still thought to be loyal to Mugabe. It was quickly, perhaps even bloodlessly, captured.
Simultaneously, other units moved to secure important installations in government districts, surrounding parliament, government offices and the studios of state television.
Maj.- Gen. Sibusiso Moyo, designated as the plotters’ spokesman, addressed the nation from the studios of the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation.
“The situation in our country has moved to another level,” he announced, before assuring viewers that Mugabe and his family were safe and their security was “guaranteed.”
Gen. Moyo may have become the face of the coup, but he certainly was not its mastermind.
That role fell to two far more powerful figures: Emmerson Mnangagwa, Mugabe’s vice- president until he was sacked last week, and Chiwenga.
Mnangagwa is known to be every bit as ruthless as Mugabe, having served as his spy chief, defence chief and all- around enforcer for much of the early years.
Observers have described him as a cruel, spiteful man.
The dismissal of Mnangagwa, known by Zimbabweans as The Crocodile, last week represented the culmination of a bitter feud within the ruling party to succeed the ailing Mugabe. It also set the coup in motion.
Mnangagwa, supported both by the army high command and veterans of the ’ 70s rebellion against white minority rule, had long seemed the obvious choice to replace Mugabe. But in recent months it became apparent he lost out to a younger faction led by Grace Mugabe, whom Mnangagwa last month accused of lacing his ice cream with poison.
Mugabe’s true poison was her tongue. The day before her rival’s dismissal she told her husband during a ruling party rally that “the snake must be hit on the head.”
Mnangagwa fled the country and, as his chief lieutenants were removed, it seemed Grace Mugabe had won a stunning victory.
But from across the border in South Africa, Mnangagwa was marshalling his forces in the knowledge that many Zimbabweans resented Grace Mugabe’s lavish lifestyle and objected to her “coup by marriage certificate.”
With the army fearing the purge of the Mnangagwa faction could soon ensnare their high command, Chiwenga made an unprecedented military intervention in politics Monday. Flanked by 30 senior army colleagues, he demanded an end to the purge, warning otherwise “the military will not hesitate to step in.”
Mugabe, his once ruthless political instincts eroded by age, appeared oblivious to the danger. Even as the army moved into position Tuesday, he blithely chaired a cabinet meeting, while his wife told supporters “no one will remove the president except God.”
By Wednesday afternoon, Mugabe was under house arrest and his wife was reportedly heading into exile in Namibia.
But amid the uncertainty, one thing seemed clear. The Mugabe dynastic dream had been mauled into oblivion, devoured by the crocodile the president created.