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MUGABE’S NEIGHBOURS SAD BUT ACCEPT HIS OUSTING Had it been me, I would have resigned while people still liked me, says cousin.
Local residents in the rural Zimbabwean village where Robert Mugabe was born, got married, and has a house say he was a great leader – but express sorrowful acceptance rather than anger at his ousting. Kutama, 90km outside the capital Harare, has been a heartland of deeply personal support for Mugabe for decades, benefiting from his patronage and much-criticised land reforms.
“When I heard the news [of his exit] and seeing what was now happening in the country, and things not going right, I thought: well everything has to end, he has to rest,” Johannes Chikanya, Mugabe’s second cousin and a close childhood friend, told AFP. “Had it been me, I would have resigned while people still liked me,” Chikanya said. “Now there are problems.”
Mugabe was born on February 21, 1924 – with Chikanya born just three months later.
Chikanya fondly remembers how, as a child, he used to share a bed and blanket on the floor with Mugabe, and even ate from the same plate as they grew up together in the village.
Today, Kutama, in contrast to many city streets or even highways, has new roads, recently resurfaced with fresh black tar.
“We are so grateful for what he has done, how he has looked after us until today. We hope things will continue just as good,” said Tobias Sowero, 40, sitting at a shop.
But in much of the country, years of economic decline under Mugabe have left Zimbabwe’s infrastructure in ruins and almost no private-sector employment as agriculture collapsed and investors fled.
Some locals benefited from Mugabe’s seizure of white-owned commercial farms that is widely blamed for the economy’s implosion and the decline in production.
“Even if others are complaining that there are no jobs, I’m happy about the land we were given. We are able to farm and look after ourselves,” said Theophilus Chimanga, 22. “I want to remember him for the land and the freedom he brought.”
Unlike in Harare and second city Bulawayo, there were no wild scenes of street celebration in Kutama when news broke on Tuesday that Mugabe’s reign was finally over after 37 years.
“No, there were no celebrations here, we just accepted it quietly,” said one businessperson, who declined to give his name, at the village’s small shopping centre close to Mugabe’s house.
In Kutama, in the Zvimba district, the gates of Mugabe’s usually heavily-guarded house were wide open, though AFP was denied access.
In 1996, the village hosted Mugabe’s wedding to his second wife Grace, whose presidential ambitions triggered the intervention from the military chiefs determined to block her rise. The wedding at a Catholic church was attended by Nelson Mandela, with Joaquim Chissano, then president of Mozambique, as best man.
A lavish party, complete with beers brought in by the truckload, was held for thousands of guests at a thatched-roof property in the village.
Shopkeeper Marjorie Masuwa, 54, told AFP that she feared for the future under Emmerson Mnangagwa, whose inauguration as president was held on Friday.
“When I heard that [Mugabe] had stepped down, I didn’t get emotional, but allow me to say that he was loving. I just wish the one who is replacing him is the same. I urge him to seek advice from Mugabe, and to please not to give land back to the whites,” she said. – AFP