On Sunday — at just before 11.30am — the mourners of Zimbabwe’s national stadium paid tribute to Robert Gabriel Mugabe, known as a great dictator in the modern history. A military brass band led the funeral procession followed by bereaved family and Mugabe’s successor, President Emmerson Mnangagwa, foreign dignitaries, cabinet ministers and officials from the ruling Zanu-PF party.
Mugabe died at the aged of 95 this month in a private clinic in Singapore. Ultimately he was ousted by his close aides in November 2017 after 37 years in power. The official order of service was coy about the brutality of the bloodless military takeover. “Comrade Mugabe retired … after a long and distinguished political career,” it read.
No doubt, some of the Zimbabweans have deep respect for the man who fought a guerrilla war to overcome a white supremacist regime and bring full independence to his nation. And obviously he was an icon of the nation. He not only liberated his country but also defended his nation against all the countries that want to take their land and resources and make the country a colony again.
It was true and there is a public sentiment about it. Such sentiments were echoed in the speeches of his admires in the funeral ceremony. But what’s true is that – Mugabe had lost his charisma and honour due to his uncounted misdeeds. According to the Guardian: ‘If the early years of Mugabe’s rule saw a series of progressive measures, welcomed by overseas observers, its later decades were characterised by economic mismanagement and brutal suppression of growing opposition. Being isolated from the west and much of the international community, Mugabe and his officials had turned increasingly to a new coalition of allies and collaborators: the Kabila family in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Theodore Obiang of Equatorial Guinea, China, Russia and Cuba.”
Mugabe at his last public appearance openly alleged that he and his second wife, Grace, 54, had been mistreated by the country’s new rulers. And on Sunday, Grace refused to allow Mnangagwa to preside over a burial, and her late husband will now be interred in a month once a suitable tomb has been constructed at the monument reserved for “national heroes” on a ridge overlooking Harare.
Though Zimbabwe has been struggling with a deepening economic crisis, massive debts, continuing international isolation and significant domestic opposition to their rule – the fact is that Mugabe had no desire to leave power. However, the death of Mugabe is an opportunity for new leaders to assume the role of legitimate successors to the “founder of the nation” and lead the country to prosperity.
Mugabe had fought for his country’s liberation and at that time he was a ‘hero’. But after that, he remained in power for 37 years (as Prime Minister of Zimbabwe from 1980 to 1987 and then as President from 1987 to 2017) without caring the people’s freedom and had to leave power only when the army negotiated. So he did not to liberate the country but captured the country for his thirst for power.
Who stayed in power as cruel despot it is wrong to say he was the liberator of the people of Zimbabwe. He occupied the country to stay in power life long without caring freedom of the people. To continue in power through misrule and corruption he destroyed the country’s economy and increased miseries of the people.
