POLITICAL SITUATION IN ZIMBABWE

Robert Mugabe’s simmering succession crisis, which is full of twists and turns, just won’t go away. It looks like the burning question will linger on the political landscape for as long as Mugabe himself still hangs around. The issue is now one of the most controversial political debates in Zimbabwe. What Mugabe is doing and what’s happening around him is not surprising at all. This was to be expected in an authoritarian system like ours. It is difficult for such systems and their leaders to adapt to change. This is the current situation with Mugabe and Zanu PF. Generally authoritarian in content and character and not dynamic enough, they are either unable or unwilling to adjust to change. Since its formation Zanu PF has never had a smooth transfer of power. The way Mugabe took over in the mid-1970s after the ousting of Ndabaningi Sithole dramatically demonstrates the point. As Harold Wilson said ´´He who rejects change is the architect of decay´´. The only human institution which r

  Mnangagwa and other genocidaires in Zanu PF continue to somnambulate and sleepwalk themselves into their impending doom, they continue to bask in the comfortable, conniving and conspiring “opposition” of Morgan Tsvangirai and his MDC-T who have repeatedly promised to forgive Mugabe for Gukurahundi. Whoever sold to Morgan Tsvangirai the foolishness that he has a right to forgive Mugabe on behalf of Gukurahundi victims and survivors needs to have their head examined by a competent expert because during Gukurahundi, Tsvangirai was a loyal and active member of Zanu PF le­ading the youth wing that over turned Nkomo’s car in Masvingo. Any wonder then that Tsvangirai is so protective of Mugabe when it comes to the massacres? In reality Tsvangirai is a lab creature of Zanu PF’s politics of tribalism and hatred. Mnangagwa’s indecent words symbolize laughter at the unburied bones of the innocents and the tears of the orphans. Exactly what Mnangangwa means when he talks about “healed wounds”

The tight circles of "securocrats", who sit on the Joint Operations Command (JOC) committee, are now believed to be in day-to-day charge of Zimbabwe's government. They ensured Mr Mugabe did not step down after his defeat in the presidential election's first round in March 2008 and are now masterminding a campaign of terror to suppress the opposition Movement for Democratic Change and guarantee victory for Mr Mugabe in the upcoming elections this year. The government indefinitely suspended all work by aid groups and non-governmental organizations, accusing them of breaching their terms of registration. Mr Mugabe is a useful figurehead who still commands the deference of other African leaders, notably Former President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa. But the western diplomat said Mr Mugabe's power had ebbed away and Zimbabwe was now run by a "junta". "This is a military coup by stealth," he said. "There are no tanks on people's l

The Fifth Brigade was an elite unit of specially trained Zimbabwean soldiers. The Fifth Brigade was formed in 1981 and disbanded in 1988 after allegations of brutality and murder during the Brigade's occupation of Matabeleland. It was reformed later and was active in 2006 at least. In October 1980, President Robert Mugabe signed an agreement with the North Korean President, Kim Il Sung, that they would train and equip a brigade for the Zimbabwe National Army. In August 1981, 106 North Koreans arrived to train the new brigade. The members of the Fifth Brigade were drawn from 3500 ex-ZANLA troops, including two unintegrated ZANLA battalions, at Tongogara Assembly Point. There were a few ZIPRA troops in the unit initially, but they were withdrawn before the end of the training. It has been reported that there were also some foreigners in the unit, possibly Tanzanians. The training of Fifth Brigade lasted until September 1982, when Minister Sekeramayi announced training was complete

Once upon a time! A brave Catholic archbishop Pius Ncube promised to put on his “best robe” and “march with Zimbabweans against Mugabe’s blazing guns.” Not only that, but the fearless bishop also disclosed that he was “ praying for Mugabe’s death ”. Understanding that Ncube, a man equipped with a will of steel, meant business and could have confronted Mugabe’s regime in a suicidal but effective march, Mugabe sent the Central Intelligence Organization to record the archbishop’s bedroom activities. The revelations were explosive and damning. The archbishop, who is sworn to celibacy, was caught on camera performing felatio on women and the wild pornography was broadcast on national television. Humiliated and disgraced, the brave bishop failed to surmount the bad publicity and was effectively silenced. It is believed that he is now living a life of prayers.   Before Ncube, some Zimbabweans in Zanu PF, fed up with Mugabe’s genocidal and disastrous rule, proposed that an intelligent s

I DO not know how to put this, Sir. I have wrestled with my conscience and come to a rationally logical conclusion that after what transpired in your one-man 'presidential election' of June 2008, now come 2013 you repeat the same disregard of the people`s will, I could not possess enough of a morsel of moral authority, bestowed or assumed, to address you as 'President'. Moreover, to address you as 'commander-in-chief' would necessarily implicate you on the atrocities that your well-trained Fifth Brigade killing machine committed in Matabeleland in the 1980s. Again if I were to venture onto the term 'head of state and government', this would mean you were directly responsible for the collapse in national governance, the blatant disregard in rule of law, a judiciary and policing system that takes only one side – yours - and incremental poverty that has engulfed the people of Zimbabwe for so long. Sir, as 'head of state and government', you have t

In the 80`s Harare played host to Western leaders who all stampeded to confer Mugabe honorary doctorates in humanities even though the 1980s in Zimbabwe reverberated with untold calamities. This describes the West’s obsession with Mugabe in the first two decades of Independence while his government unleashed political repression as “a vanity, a vanity of all vanities”. Mugabe’s vilification in the Western world, for many reasons including repression and human rights abuses, as well as undermining the interests of global capital, is presented as evidence of his “revolutionary credentials”. However, political analysts are not convinced about Mugabe’s pedigree. They say while he has been vilified as a socialist in Western capitals due to his controversial land reforms and indigenisation policies, he is not cut from the same cloth as other icons of the communist or socialist world. However, Mugabe is at best a ‘reluctant revolutionary’ who reacts to events rather than initiated them. M