‘Crocodile’ must shed dark past

EARLY on Friday morning, a convoy of small trucks flying flags and banners left Kwekwe, Emmerson Mnangagwa’s scruffy, one-street home town in central Zimbabwe, on the 257km journey to the capital Harare.

Some were waving small, stuffed fabric crocodiles – a tribute to the new president’s nickname from his days as a teenage guerrilla in the war against white-rule in Rhodesia.

One of the banners read “Kutonga Kwaro Gamba” – a Shona phrase praising the king’s rule.

But these supporters were neither native Shona speakers, nor from Zanu-PF’s traditional support base. They were white farmers, and they had a very specific reason for supporting “Ngwenya” (The Crocodile).

“I am still on my farm because of Mnangagwa,” said a white farmer, who asked not to be named.

“Although the size of the farm was reduced, I kept the larger piece because of my excellent relationship with the people around me, my workers, and the Zanu-PF guys.”

The farmers’ enthusiasm for Mnangagwa as an honest broker and protector underlines the complex, often contradictory stories about him.

Mnangagwa joined the first liberation movement, the Zimbabwe African People’s Union (Zapu) as a teenager and took up with Robert Mugabe’s breakaway movement, the Zimbabwe African National Union (Zanu), two years later.

He rose up the ranks at Mugabe’s side – gaining a reputation as the older man’s shrewd, loyal and utterly ruthless enforcer.

But, as security minister, he gained a dark stain on his reputation that he struggles to shake off.

In the 80s, conflict between Zanu and Zapu supporters devolved into an ethnically charged campaign of mass murder, as Mugabe’s North Koreantrained troops rampaged across Matabeleland, the western part of Zimbabwe where Zapu drew support.

Up to 20 000 people are thought to have been massacred, tortured or fled in the campaign, which came to be known as the Gukurahundi.

In recent memory, the most notorious was a campaign of violence and intimidation against the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) during a disputed election that almost saw Zanu-PF evicted from power in 2008.

He has also long been associated with small-time gold miners, known as “makorokozas”, and has been accused of profiteering and extortion. — The Sunday Telegraph