Sotho

Wole Soyinka thinks Mugabe should be whipped off the throne [source]. And I think he should, too. There is no oil in Zimbabwe, so the Occident isn’t gonna go rushing in to save the day. It would in any case have been a bad idea. So the West is out on this one, except for yelling from a distance. Mbeki is pals with Mugabe, so SADC is out, too. Theirs must be a friendship that goes back to when Zimbabwe under Mugabe helped the South African liberation fight. Fair enough. But friends don’t lie to friends. They tell them the truth in the face. It seems like that’s not gonna happen in time to save lives.

The people of Zimbabwe must whip him off the throne themselves, just like they did Ian Smith. Imagine he were just your regular dictator, who stepped into power after overthrowing another government. There’s no shortage of those, I can assure you, but Mugabe is more. He’s been elevated to power by no less than God! He says so himself, in the now famous “Only God can oust me” speech. Has he gone mad?

More than that, people have died to place this man where he is. People grew up in and died in the bush, fighting for Zimbabwe. Everybody trusted Robert Mugabe with the country. Bob Marley trusted him, and composed a magnificent song to immortalise the country’s independence. I trusted him, and you probably did, too. The economy was robust when Mugabe took over, but it is now a sad shambles. Mugabe does not listen to anyone, and Mugabe kills anyone who dares say something. Just like the Rhodesia, Apartheid and Amin regimes before him. Mugabe and his goons are now ready, and really asking, to be affronted by force in order to be made to see reason. Our region needs Frontlines States again.

There’s a time when even the most peaceful and non-violent of people decides to fight. From the outside looking in, that time has arrived for the Zimbabwean people, and very few would contradict such an endeavour, if it were to be born today. I wish the people of Zimbabwe well, and would like to praise Morgan Tsvangirai for his courage, as well as for the good sense of his actions thus far. Our leaders in southern Africa are beginning to shout out their discontent at this. I have yet to hear something from my country, Lesotho, and its powerful neighbour, South Africa.