Sunday, February 9, 2025

Is the region prepared for when Zimbabwe implodes?

Nothing attracts predators and scavengers like a dying or rotting animal.

Even before the animal is on its belly, breathing its last whiffs, vultures already start to circle in the air, flies reconnoiter and refuse to leave while, on the ground, the stealthy convergence of hyenas and jackals signals the irreversible end.

My father, a merchant in his days, used to say that “a business is a wonderful thing because it can survive for a very long time after it has long died”.

I got his message clearly in that signs of life do not necessarily mean the presence of life.

For beloved Zimbabwe, I fear today more than I fear tomorrow or even yesterday.

A wounded buffalo, too weak to attack, will delay its demise through its mean and ferocious history. Predators approach very carefully.

Today, the once dynamic and productive Zimbabwe lies under the insufficient shade of its own mercenaries, flies buzzing around it, scavengers strolling up and down full of expectancy while vultures up in the air advertise the impending demise of the beast, promising a feast and full stomachs for those who were never there when it all started.

It tears my soul apart that those who were never near the hunt are the ones who are sharing the carcass before the animal is even dead.

Those who truly loved Zimbabwe were killed and those who remain have been shunted away and labelled enemies of the state.

Nothing reflects the unfortunate state of Zimbabwe than that exclusive group of liberators, wrongly referred to as war veterans. It must strike them at the raw flesh as the real freedom fighters and war veterans see charlatans and opportunists being cuddled by other carpetbaggers who managed to make their way even further up the ladder of authority.

The current scene in Zimbabwe reminds me of the aftermath of a feeding frenzy…lots of blood in the soil, clean bones everywhere and clouds of hungry flies at the scene.

The real freedom fighters, the real veterans of the war of liberation who sacrificed all they were to see a free nation and a free people, watch in despair for what they see before them is not what they fought for.

Their intentions were hijacked in broad daylight; their lives are in more danger today from those they liberated than they were from the oppressor enemy they fought.

The chaotic feeding frenzy continues.

Like all African countries, Zimbabwe never reached its full potential yet it already belongs to those who never plotted its reclamation from those who had stolen it.

While Zimbabwe lies bleeding, helpless and near death in the hot sun, vultures, hyenas and opportunists converge from all directions.

I cringe as I watch them fighting each other over the injured country, many times using its dripping blood to replenish themselves so as to use more of the defenseless nation.

The cast of cannibals devouring Zimbabwe is a list of dangerous unknowns led by Robert Mugabe who can no longer chew the chunks he continues to bite of the hapless nation.

Mugabe, a man who was never expected near the presidency, let alone the leadership of the war of liberation, has sat at the apex since before independence and Mugabe did not become leader of the party because people wanted him or voted for him. Heck, he was not even physically present when Zanu-Pf was formed; he was hiding in Tanzania having skipped bail.

His leadership of the liberation war party, now the ruling party, has brought the country of Zimbabwe from top of the table to the dust.

It hurts me while at the same time it insults me to read every day that “Zimbabwe, once the bread basket…Zimbabwe, one of the poorest countries in the world…”

Really? Zimbabwe, with Africa’s highest literacy rate, is one of the poorest countries in the world? What happened?

What happened is the arrival of man-eaters, some by Mugabe’s invitation for political protection and others through devious means. But all of them congregate to eat every scrap of a nation to whose liberation they contributed little.

The ruling party is in the throngs of power struggles fueled by Mugabe’s slowly diminishing hold and influence.

Zimbabwe carries the symptoms of Africa’s inability to openly handle successions.

Sensing that should Mugabe drop dead today they will be exposed and prosecuted, they have all huddled together to protect themselves in the event Mugabe is gone.

While there are many politicians in government who do not deserve to be where they are, perhaps the saddest and most painful symbol of the rot is the slowly emerging face of Mugabe’s South African born wife Grace.

A former trans-border vendor and secretary in a government typing pool, her marriage to Mugabe was as scandalous as the authority she now abuses as First lady.

Her greed rivals that of Imelda Marcos; her insensitivity towards the people and her selfishness have created a halo of fear as she does away with so-called political stalwarts one after the other.

Her undeserved arrival on the political scene distabilised Zanu-Pf when the party was getting weaker and more and more unpopular.

Now she has further divided the half of the party that she used to topple her husband’s vice president. There are more and more threats as her presence further divides the people everywhere in the country.

She has literally taken over the government. Cabinet ministers are afraid to miss any rally she holds anywhere in the country and those rallies are covered live on television regardless of where they are held.

Over the weekend, she told a rally that vice presidents and cabinet ministers were not elected officials but Mugabe’s appointees whom he could easily get rid of and instructed them to behave themselves.

Just months after toppling Mugabe’s vice president of ten years, she is now after Emerson Mnangagwa, the man who has always dreamt of succeeding Mugabe and the nation is, once again, on edge.

Because of Grace, there is complete chaos within the party and government at a time when the country is teetering on the precipice.

Party followers do not know who to follow anymore and while Grace rattles the ruling party, the government is running on auto pilot.

The civil war in Zanu-Pf, ignited and fueled by Grace, has left both the ruling party and government in limbo yet this is the time when true leadership is needed because Zimbabwe is in serious distress.

My fear is that Zimbabwe will not hold together much longer and when it implodes or explodes, the region, particularly Botswana and South Africa, will pay heavily for letting Mugabe do as he pleased with a country that counterbalanced surrounding nations in a symbiotic and complementary existence.

RELATED STORIES

Read this week's paper