Denford Magora's Zimbabwe Blog

Harare, Zimbabwe, 26 April 2010


Robert "The Solution" Mugabe is reportedly "livid but overjoyed" at Morgan Tsvangirai and the MDC after the opposition party boycotted all events associated with the visiting Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Tsvangirai, who had been invited to the airport by Mugabe to meet the Iranian president, decided not to show up. He and ministers from his party also boycotted the dinner held at State House, where Ahmadinejad referred to the West and America as "Satanists" and "Satanic".

Although Tsvangirai and most ministers boycotted the ceremonies around the visit, the MDC-T co-Minister of Home Affairs and Tsvangirai confidant Eliphas Mukonoweshuro turned up at State House in order to sign cooperation agreements with the Iranian delegation.

Again, at the Trade Fair itself, which was opened by the Iranian President, Tsvangirai and his crew were a no-show.

The state media, as well as ZANU PF officials have already slammed Tsvangirai, with a ZANU PF official saying it was no coincidence that Western diplomats and the MDC failed to show up for the State Dinner and the welcoming ceremony at the airport. Quite nakedly, the ruling party is accusing the MDC of playing to the tune of "their paymasters", meaning the West.

It would be easy to dismiss the State media as simply amplifiers for their masters'voice, but the implications of the action by the MDC are far reaching and will, as sure as night follows day, complicate matters for the Prime Minister's party after the next elections (which, as can be expected, are going to be disputed by the MDC as well because they will go the way of previous elections and campaigns).

If the Prime Minister and his party had simply stayed away and not at all commented, it would perhaps have been defensible on grounds of motive. But they let that particular cat out of the bag by issuing what the BBC called a "hard-hitting statement".

The statement was indeed harsh.

"Warmonger"was mentioned. "Trampler of human rights"as well. And a host of other insults.

Without at all defending the Iranian President's politics, we have to accept that the statement and the boycott were blunders by the MDC on a massive scale.

Here's why:

Most, if not all, African leaders, have a soft spot for the Iranians and their leadership. Nelson Mandela defied Western opinion at the height of his popularity to embrace Iran's leadership and Gaddafi of Libya precisely because he was trying to balance his Western popularity with African acceptance.

Mugabe's most repeated insult against the MDC is that it is not a "home-grown opposition". He has told every African leader who will care to listen that the opposition in Zimbabwe was formed by the British and the Americans in the wake of his land reform program.

By acting in the manner that they have done, the MDC have given succor to this accusation.

African leaders, whom the Zimbabwe opposition expect to fight in their corner next time they are in trouble with Mugabe at home, will almost certainly have looked at this as confirmation of Mugabe's stance against the MDC.

What possible motive could there have been for so publicly denouncing a visiting Head of State. As the Americans say, nations have no permanent friends and no permanent enemies, only permanent interests.

Of course, you also must know that the motivation behind the statement from the MDC-Tsvangirai had nothing to do with concern for human rights or even the way politics is conducted in Iran.

In fact the MDC-T was sore that the invitation to Ahmadinejad was made "unilaterally" - Tsvangirai was not consulted, nor was the Minister of International Trade, an MDC minister.

The Prime Minister is still labouring under the illusion that his coalition with Mugabe is a coalition of equals. Mugabe, on the other hand, considers himself to have no equal anywhere in the world, let alone within ranks of the MDC.

The reaction from Tsvangirai and his party to the Iranian president's visit, therefore, was designed to spite Mugabe after a disagreement during a Monday meeting when Mugabe simply said that it was his prerogative whom to invite to open the Trade Fair (and the Agricultural Show, to which Sudan Omar Al Bashir will probably be asked to come this year!!)

But the way the MDC-T went about it was all wrong and effectively became a case of that party cutting off its nose in order to spite its own face.

Mugabe's case against the opposition with other African leaders has now been strengthened.

The MDC-T should have sat down to think through this approach and this strategy before opening their mouths. This is a case of power play and there are other fights that they could have picked to make their point, not one such as this, with all its continental implications.

African leaders now have one more reason to sit on the fence (at the very least).


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Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is in Zimbabwe today and is already talking tough against America and the West (The Imperialists). The street poles in Harare are plastered with pictures of the Iranian President and those of Mugabe, with the flags of the two countries flying on all major roads, including the main road from the Harare International Airport.

Ahmadinejad is in Zimbabwe to open the Zimbabwe International Trade Fair. This year, the Fair has seen a massive influx of South African companies. Official figures show that the South African contingent far outnumbers other countries and this is despite the presence of the new Empowerment laws in Zimbabwe, which compel companies to sell 51% of their shareholding to local, black Zimbabweans or risk losing it all.

The attraction for South African companies is understandable against the background of a Zimbabwe that has now adopted the United States Dollar as its currency. The Rand, as I mentioned in a previous post, has now all but disappeared from circulation in Zimbabwe and where it is seen, it is being traded at an unrealistic ballpark figure of one US Dollar to ten rands. The actual rate is just above seven rands for a single US Dollar.

Added to this, Zimbabwe's pricing system is skewed. There is still a hyperinflationary mentality in this country. This explains the "dismaying" rise in inflation to double digits in US Dollar terms as recently revealed by Finance Minister Tendai Biti (who is also the MDC-Tsvangirai Secretary General).

Mugabe and the Iranian President share a pariah status where the West is concerned and it is no surprise that he has been asked to come and visit his comrade in Zimbabwe. The surprise, though, is the visit (also official State Visit) by Ahmadinejad to Uganda. At one point, Yoweri Museveni was the darling of the donor community and the West. Bill Clinton paid a state visit to Uganda when he was president and the Ugandan leader was considered one of a new breed of enlightened leaders in Africa. (I still rate Jakaya Kikwete of Tanzania as the most progressive of all African leaders at the moment).

Quite unnecessarily, the Zimbabwe opposition, the MDC-Tsvangirai, which is now supping with the devil using a very short spoon, issued a rabid denunciation of the visit by the Iranian leader calling him a "war-monger, a trampler of human rights, an executioner".

The MDC's statement says "hobnobbing with dubious political leaders confirms stereotypes that we (Zimbabwe) are a banana republic."

The real interest in Zimbabwe by Iran, of course, goes beyond the mere fact that both countries face Western sanctions. Zimbabwe has huge amounts of uranium deposits, which the Iranians have signed a deal with Mugabe to extract.

Iran is also hoping to make religious inroads into Zimbabwe's largely Christian population.

Earlier today, as I drove to work, Zimbabwe radio was broadcasting a message from an organisation calling itself The Muslim Students Association of Zimbabwe, calling on youths to turn out in their thousands at the airport to welcome the Iranian president.

Apart from opening the Trade Fair, Ahmadinejad will also tour a textiles factory funded by Iranians as well as a Mazda vehicle assembly plant.

The Iranians have been keen supporters of the Broadcasting company in Zimbabwe owned by the government, ZBC Holdings, which they have supported heavily with equipment. They have also established a tractor company in Zimbabwe.

Mugabe is hosting a state dinner at State House later on today for the visiting Iranian leader.

It will be interesting to see if Morgan Tsvangirai will attend the State function after his party has poured so much vitriol on the visiting president!!

A Zimbabwean man cycles home, during a break in one of the storms that have been pounding Zimbabwe this April. This is Domboshava, just outside Harare, on 16 April 2010

President Mugabe lights the Eternal Flame (also known as the Independence Flame) at the National Sports Stadium in Harare on 18 April 2010

Bishop Muzorewa, who was the first black person to become Prime Minister of Zimbabwe (then known as Zimbabwe-Rhodesia), has died.

The president of Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe, has not sent a message of condolence or acknowledged the death of the Bishop in any way. At least not in public.

In private, though, I am told the president reacted to the news by saying that he still thinks that the blood of the "children"who died at Nyadzonya (a camp for Mugabe's fighters in Mozambique during the 1970s which was bombed when Muzorewa was Prime Minister in a Unity Government with Ian Smith) was "dripping from Muzorewa's hands".

This is not a surprise.

Mugabe considered Muzorewa a worse person than even Ian Smith, who put the Mugabe behind bars for ten years when Zimbabwe was still ruled by a white minority and called Rhodesia. Mugabe's beef with Muzorewa was with the Selous Scouts, an Auxiliary Force made up of black soldiers fighting on the side of the white minority government during the colonial era (and the Unilateral Declaration of Independence - UDI by the Smith Government).

What this force did was dress up like guerrillas, luring many of Mugabe's fighters into fatal traps. They also walked into villages pretending to be Mugabe or Nkomo's guerrillas and, if the villagers gave them food and shelter, then the village would get a visit the next day or week from the "official Rhodesian army", accused of sheltering guerrillas and slaughtered or tortured.

It is for this reason and this reason alone that Muzorewa will not be given space at Heroes Acre.

Mugabe says the man was a traitor and his bitterness comes from the fact that it was Mugabe and Nkomo who essentially made Muzorewa before he decided to become his own man.

Here's how:

With Mugabe's party, as well as that of Joshua Nkomo, banned from Rhodesia, the two exiled leaders who were fighting a liberation war decided that they needed a political front within Zimbabwe to mobilise the people and present a united front of opposition to white minority rule.

Joshua Nkomo, in his autobiography, says that they gave their blessing to Muzorewa to form this united front within Rhodesia's borders and considered him a "placeholder"for the exiled leaders, a sort of proxy who would mobilise people (in the first instance, the purpose was to mobilise opposition to the Pearce Commission, a British contraption that had been cobbled together to gather the opinions of blacks in Rhodesia on half-baked reforms that were supposed to concede partial power in parliament to the black people of the British colony of Rhodesia).

Muzorewa, Nkomo says, mistakenly believed that he was now a leader in his own right and decided to forge his own path, parting ways with the fighter who were out in the bush and in exile. He started negotiating for independence with Ian Smith and even succeeded briefly in getting Smith to step aside (not down) while Muzorewa became Prime Minister.

Mugabe and Nkomo promptly denounced him in public as a traitor and, with Mugabe threatening to behead him alongside Ian Smith in a radio broadcast from Mozambique in 1979.

After the collapse of the Zimbabwe-Rhodesia Government, the British moved in and supervised the elections that made Mugabe Prime Minister in 1980. Mugabe decided to not behead Smith or Muzorewa as realpolitik sank in. In those elections of 1980, Muzorewa, who had been tipped by the British and the Rhodesians to win, managed to secure only 3 seats as Mugabe threatened that is he lost the vote, he would go back to the bush and continue fighting for real independence.

Those elections basically spelled doom for Muzorewa and he never recovered from his 1980 loss, disappearing from public view completely. He emerged briefly in the 1990s to lead an opposition grouping called UP (United Parties) but failed to make any headway against the Mugabe juggernaut.

Mugabe is unforgiving, even in death. Even former comrades of his who turned against him (and therefore against the liberation war and against black Zimbabweans in his mind) find themselves out in the cold after death.

Unlike in South Africa, for instance, where even one of the most rabid defenders of apartheid, P.W. Botha (The Great Crocodile) was given a state assisted funeral at his death, in Zimbabwe, newcomers, who did not fight in the 1970s find space at the Heroes Acre while those who turned after making a contribution are treated as outcasts, their names mud even after death.

As an interesting aside, urban legends are already circulating in Zimbabwe, with street talk saying the Bishop died of a heart attack after hearing the news of the death of his brother.

The fact of the matter, of course, is that he had been unwell for some time with cancer and it just so happened that the ailment claimed him so close to the date of the death of his own brother, who died in the United States.

The Bishop was 85 yeas old.