Why Africans love Mugabe

CAPE TOWN - Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe who is demonised by the West and described by some as a political thug still enjoys unwavering support among many Africans on the continent for standing up to the world's biggest powers.

But very few African lovers of Mugabe know everything about his background or his human rights abuses in his country. Some of his supporters outside Zimbabwe are not even aware that their hero was once the darling of the same Western powers who are demonising him today.

Mugabe's political romance with the West ended when the 90-year-old former guerrilla leader sanctioned the invasions of white owned commercial farms in early 2000. The farm invasions were spearheaded by liberation war veterans and Zanu-PF youths.



The killing of white farmers by the war veterans and Mugabe's Stalinist policies cost Zimbabwe the much needed economic aid and financial support from the two powerful Bretton Woods institutions-the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

This week while taking a walk in Cape Town's suburb of Brooklyn, I came across a shop run by immigrants from Congo-Kinshasa or the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). What caught my attention about the shop was the name "Mugabe Barber shop."


Mugabe portrait at Congolese owned barber shop

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That made me stop and speak to the owners of the barber shop. There were photographs and potraits of Mugabe inside and outside the shop. But the photograph that caught my attention was the one with the caption: "Mugabe-the lion of Africa."

I asked the Congolese owner why he displayed so many photos of the Zimbabwean leader when there was not a single photograph of his own President.The owner's response was: "My brother, Mugabe is an African hero.dont you know that.Where do you come from because Mugabe is known everywhere for telling Americans to go to hell with their money."

While we were discussing the photos of Mugabe other Congolese joined the conversation.They all claimed that Mugabe was their hero.

"Mugabe has taught us blacks to be proud of our roots and race as Africans.Thats why we love him.Other African leaders always want to please the Americans and the British," said Claude Ngoma who comes from Lubumbashi.

When I asked him whether he was aware of Mugabe's human rights abuses in his country.The Congolese said I was lying and accused me of being a Tswangirai supporter.

That shows how ignorant many Africans are about President Mugabe's background.The whites can criticise Mugabe as much as they want because he does not care about their opinion.In Mugabe's mind, as he said it during his election campaign, the only white man you can trust is a dead white man.

As they say another man's villain is another man's hero.While Mugabe has become unpopular with many black Zimbabweans, the man still enjoys the support of Africans of all ages-mostly because of his anti-British and American rhetoric.
Wherever Mugabe appears at African functions, he is cheered by the audience.When he appeared at the Nelson Mandela funeral in Pretoria the Zimbabwean leader received loud cheers from the crowd.

Andile Mngxitama of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) described Mugabe as the greatest black stateman alive today in Africa.Obviously people like Mngxitama are ignorant of the Zimbabwean political and liberation war history or Mugabe's human rights record.

It is people like him who have given Mugabe a new lease of life in Africa while Zimbabweans are crying for change and deliverance from his rule.Butsuch comments coming from a black South African did not come as a surprise to many Zimbabweans both inside the country and in the diaspora.

South African blacks are well known for their ignorance of African affairs.Many South Africans don't even know there are people who speak Ndebele,Zulu,Xhosa,Sotho or Venda in Zimbabwe.Their ignorance can shock even a rural Zimbabwean villager with primary education.

Mngxitama does not even know that the same Mugabe he describes as the greatest leader in Africa sanctioned the massacres of thousands of his fellow black countrymen and women after independence.

Maybe during that time the EFF official was still at pre-school.While Mugabe's victims took refuge in the bush to escape death at the hands of Gukurahundi,Mngxitama was waiting for his mother to pick him up from pre-school.He and other African lovers of Mugabe are nothing but a disgrace to Africa.

You can not support an African leader who is killing his own people simply because he is black and has stood up against the West.The same Western governments they attack are the ones who have intervened in Africa to save Africans from being wiped out by their own leaders and dictators.

Its the Western humanitarian agencies which feed thousands of starving black people and refugees during famines and civil wars-not the African Union.This is not to say Western governments are run by angels.They too have done bad things in Africa and elsewhere but at least some of the leaders in those countries have a conscience.

How would you feel when someone who has just wiped out your family is described as a hero?In Africa leaders who have spearheaded genocide are hero worshipped when they attend summits.

When the late former Ugandan dictator Idi Amin attended summits of the defunct Organisation of African Unity (OAU) he was showered with praises while continuing with his human rights abuses at home.Some OAU leaders failed to condemn Amin when he sent troops to Tanzania to invade and annex  part of Kagera region which Amin claimed belonged to his country.

During the feud, Amin, a former army cook who seized power in a military coup in 1971, challenged Nyerere to a boxing match to settle their political problems in the ring.Nyerere,who also violated international law when he invaded Uganda got his revenge when his troops drove Amin out of power between 1978 and 1979.

The Uganda-Tanzania war demonstrated the OAU's shortcomings in resolving disputes on the continent.The OAU turned a blind eye to the killings of thousands of Africans by their governments.The organisation failed to stop the genocide in Rwanda and massacres in other regions.

Not a single African head of state has stood up to Mugabe for human rights abuses in his country.

When you don't tell someone he is wrong, he will continue with whatever he is doing believing he is doing the right thing.When good people fail to take the initiative to act and stop evil, they become part of that evil because of their silence.