Beware The Crocodile's smile
When the newly-elected Robert Mugabe made his first victory speech as president in 1980, many of the country’s 300,000-strong white minority had packed their bags.
After years of fighting to overthrow white minority rule, the rebel had achieved his vision of black majority government, and few expected magnanimity to those who were on the wrong side of history.
“I urge you, whether you are black or white, to join me in a new pledge,” he said. “To forget our grim past, forgive others and forget.” He even seemed to mean it.
The last commander of the Rhodesian armed forces was asked to stay in his job to integrate rebel fighters into the new Zimbabwean army. Promises to protect white property and pensions were initially kept. Foreign investment and aid cash continued to flow, with literacy rates shooting up to become the highest in Africa. Yet his embrace of white settlers was more out of fear that frightening them away would propel his republic toward economic ruin. That happened anyway. More than half of whites fled in the first three years.
Mugabe introduced a security apparatus as formidable as that which had enforced white minority rule, crushing dissent among the minority Ndebele of Matabeleland, killing an estimated 10,000 people over three years.
By 2000, Mugabe was looking for others to blame. He found them in the remaining white farmers, who still owned a disproportionate amount of the country’s best land. Mugabe unleashed teams of Zanu-PF “war veterans” to stage violent repossessions of white farms, the spoils being handed to party cronies. What was billed as a final blow against colonialism was instead the final blow to the economy. By 2006, 60 farmers had died and many more had fled, collapsing the once hugely valuable farming sector and leading to 75 per cent of the population becoming dependent on food aid. In 2008, Mugabe dispatched his thugs onto the streets after losing in the first round of an election to Morgan Tsvangirai, an act of blatant intimidation that kept him in power.
With the 93-year-old’s health long in doubt, the only surprise is that this leadership crisis did not come earlier. After all, Emmerson “The Crocodile” Mnangagwa is every bit as ruthless as Mugabe, having served as his spy chief, defence chief and all-round enforcer for much of the early years.
True, in a 2011 interview, Mnangagwa was polite, praising the then coalition with Tsvangirai, and avoiding Mugabe’s anti-white rhetoric. But if Mnangagwa does emerge as leader, it might be foolish to assume the Crocodile’s grin is a friendly one.