Soon after the ZANU was formed, it was banned by the contemporary Ian Smith government and Mugabe was detained in prison for ten long years. Usually, when political leaders are imprisoned for a long period of time, they lose their interest in the freedom struggle. But, Mugabe’s resolve strengthened further in those ten years. Mugabe earned two university degrees while in prison. More importantly, he always remained in contact with the freedom fighters during all those years. After ten years, when he was released, he led the Chinese-funded military wing of the ZANU. This party gave tough resistance to the Ian Smith-led white government. Ian Smith’s government was an elected interim government as the British were preparing to grant Rhodesia its independence. The British were following a policy of gradually leaving a colony till the majority (ethnically) came to rule in that colony (http://www.africanet.com/africanet/country/zimbabwe/history.htm).However, Ian Smith wanted Rhodesia to be governed by a White government. He was quoted as saying, “There are no plans to bring Rhodesia under black majority rule in my lifetime or even my children’s” (Smith, 163). In 1965, Smith declared Rhodesia as an independent, white-led republic without British consent. This garnered widespread criticism and Ian Smith’s government was not recognized by other international governments. Frequent violent protests by ZANU under Mugabe, who was now a famous and respected politician, and condemnations from foreign governments, forced Smith to revert from his stance. He agreed for negotiations to solve this dispute. In 1979, negotiations were held at the Lancaster House Conference in Britain, whereby it was decided that a non-racial, fair election be called for in Southern Rhodesia. For the meantime, Southern Rhodesia was to be again considered as a British colony. However, after the elections, the British were to grant Southern Rhodesia its independence. Thus, as a direct result of these negotiations, elections were held in Rhodesia in 1979, and consequently, Rhodesia was granted its independence. After independence, the country changed its name from Southern Rhodesia to Zimbabwe (http://africanet.com/africanet/country/zimbabwe/history.htm).
When the results of the first elections held in Zimbabwe came out, the United African National Council (UANC) party won and Canaan Banana, their leader came into power. This came as a surprise to everyone, including Mugabe, and the British, as everyone had predicted Mugabe to win the elections easily due to his popularity and his role in the Zimbabwean freedom struggle. Mugabe’s image was so impressive that the British called upon all parties for a re-election. In this re-election, Mugabe won with an overwhelming majority and he was thus elected as free Zimbabwe’s first prime minister. Everyone was satisfied with the outcome of the results this time. This is mainly because during those days, Mugabe was considered an idealist politician. His only aim was to lead towards a prosperous and developed Zimbabwe. His leadership skills and political insightfulness garnered him respect from all his contemporary national and international leaders (Meredith, 103). These were the words of Ian Smith at the time when Mugabe was elected, “He behaved like a balanced, civilized westerner, the antithesis of the communist gangster” (Smith, 175). Mugabe’s rule in independent Zimbabwe had begun.
As Robert Mugabe started assuming power, the other, authoritarian side in him started showing up. Mugabe always had the dream of a single party ruling over Zimbabwe under his leadership. In his quest to achieve his goal, he tried to merge the rival party, the Zimbabwe African People’s Union (ZAPU) into his own party. Mugabe gave ZAPU’s leader Joshua Nkomo a series of Cabinet positions in order to please him. However he made sure that all the real executive powers were never in Nkomo’s hands. This, along with favoritism towards his friends, and discrimination towards Nkomo’s colleagues, caused many conflicts, which ultimately resulted in the failure and the inevitable split of the coalition. Mugabe dismissed Nkomo from the cabinet in 1983. However, it was not until Mugabe brutally inflicted havoc on the Ndebele tribe, did the world come to know about the despot that Mugabe was. Mugabe sent his personal military, the 5th brigade to brutally rape, torture and kill thousands of innocent Ndebele civilians, as the Ndebele tribe was a supporter of Nkomo. (Meredith, 134) His tyranny and his absolute quest to stay in power saw no end when he cut off all food supplies to Ndebeleland, causing thousands of Ndebele citizens to die from starvation.
The above mentioned act was just the start of the tyrannical rule of Mugabe over Zimbabwe. He abolished the position of Prime Minister in 1987, and assumed the new office of executive President of Zimbabwe, in the process transferring more powers to himself. In real terms, he had now become an absolute authority in Zimbabwe (Meredith, 134). Since then, Mugabe has been doing ‘what he pleases’ in Zimbabwe as if he deserves all the power as a reward for his contribution to the freedom struggle. The current situation in Zimbabwe is far from good. In fact, Zimbabwe’s condition has actually worsened than what it was under the imperial rule. It is worthwhile to take a look at the comparison between pre-independence Zimbabwe and post-colonialism Zimbabwe, just to get an indication of how disastrous Mugabe’s rule has proved to be for Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe used to be prosperous nation with agriculture as its main economic activity. Now Zimbabwe doesn’t have food to feed its people. Citizens of a country that once exported its surplus food to its neighbours are now dying from famine, draught and starvation. Zimbabwe’s economic condition has deteriorated since the Mugabe has taken full control. In recent years, the GDP growth rate has been -4%, inflation has risen from 32% (1998) to a whooping 246.7% (2005), and the exchange rate has fallen from 24 Zimbabwean dollars per US dollar to 15,200 in the last seven years (http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/zi.html). Corruption has become rampant. There is a huge scramble for jobs. This is largely due to the absurd practices followed by Mugabe. Jobs are offered only to those people who have links with the Mugabe government. Land, previously owned by white colonials, is distributed only among the elite colleagues of Mugabe rather than to the poor black farmers, to whom it was promised. Mugabe crushes any revolt against him with the use of force. Whatever challenges his regime faced, he has always been prepared to overcome it by resorting to the gun. He is so proud of his record that he has often boasted about having a “degree in violence”. The liberty of the Zimbabwean Press is curbed to an extent where nothing can be said against him (Meredith, 224). Elections for the position of the President were held several times, but the results were always manipulated to let Mugabe stay in power. The most recent example of his despotic and tyrannical rule was Operation Murambatsvina (June 2005), in which the Mugabe government left 700,000 urban people homeless due to bulldozing, in operations (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4101228.stm). Mugabe has turned to become the destroyer of his own people, rather than their protector.
In conclusion, Robert Mugabe is a tyrannical ruler, who has been oppressing his own people for years. His actions have led Zimbabwe into turmoil. Although he seemed an idealist politician in his early days, he turned out to be an authoritarian once he assumed power. The ultimate goal of Mugabe was to assume as much power as possible. “Power for Mugabe was not a means to an end, but the end itself” (Meredith, 225). He did everything he could to assume total power; he crushed his opponents, killed thousand of innocent civilians and wrecked havoc on his own nation and his own people. Mugabe is a shrewd political mastermind. He first built confidence in people, and after they placed their faiths in him by electing him, he turned his back on them. In his relentless quest to remain in power, he used all the resources he had to attack his opponents, sanctioning murder, torture and lawlessness (Meredith, 228). In 2001, he himself proved that he was tyrant when he was quoted as saying, “No matter what force you have, this is my territory and that which is mine, I cling unto death” (Meredith, 228). Mugabe comes across a man who just wants to stay in power forever; someone who believes that he has the last word on everything. But the irony about Mugabe’s journey is that Mugabe started out fighting against British Imperialism. The very same idea of absolute power that Mugabe hated at the beginning is now being practiced by him. Thus, he can be rightly termed as “Zimbabwe’s official elected neo-imperialist dictator”. Sadly, the cost of all this has to be borne by people of Zimbabwe. The present situation in Zimbabwe makes it seems as if Mugabe’s rule is defeating the aims and purposes of all those who fought against imperialism in the last century. Despite drawing criticism from all around the world, Mugabe’s oppressive rule goes on even today, uncontrolled.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
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