DADDY DESPOT
Lying in state, Mugabe, tyrant who caused deaths of thousands
IT WaS an incongruous trib- ute to a man who ruled with an iron fist and was responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of those who opposed him.
Set among white flowers and wreaths spelling out ‘DaD’, this was the casket holding Robert Mugabe yesterday as his body lay at rest at his family home in Zimbabwe.
The late dictator’s wife Grace wept over the coffin as family and supporters gathered at the Harare villa, the Blue Roof.
The father of three’s body had been flown back from Singapore on Wednesday, following the 95year- old’s death there while undergoing hospital treatment three days earlier.
The coffin was later flown by helicopter to the Rufaro football stadium – where Mugabe was sworn in as Zimbabwe’s first leader in 1980 – where it is due to lie in state for another two days.
Soon after the coffin’s arrival, a stampede broke out among the thousands who had packed into the stadium as crowds surged forward to get a closer look.
Police tried to hold them back but a large group pushed their way past, leading to a crush before riot officers restored order, at times using batons.
Several people were taken away on stretchers, while the walking wounded were treated by Red Cross medics.
Former first lady Mrs Mugabe – the president’s former secretary who married him after the death of his first wife Sally in 1992 – sat on a podium to the side of the sports field away from the casket.
She will sit by her husband’s body through the night and into today, amid a row over where the former leader will be buried.
Mugabe’s children and other family members are said to want a private burial, while the government is insisting on a state burial at the national Heroes acre site. Nephew Leo Mugabe said the family had spoken to current president Emmerson Mnangagwa with no resolution to the impasse.
‘There have just been discussions between President Mnangagwa and Mrs Mugabe and it would look like nothing has changed,’ he added
‘The family said they are going to have a private burial. We don’t want the public to come. They don’t want you to know where he is going to be buried. We are not witnessing burial on Sunday, no date has been set.’
Mugabe, who had been ill since last year, was credited with helping secure Zimbabwe’s independence from Britain and during his early years was praised for improving health and education for the black majority of the country.
But he later became a dictatorial ruler and was responsible for violent repression of his political opponents and Zimbabwe’s economic ruin, before being ousted by the army in a coup in 2017.
‘We don’t want public to come’