No role for Mugabe in future Zimbabwe

in his State House bunker despised by the people of Zimbabwe.
Commentators latch on to recent pronouncements by Mugabe and his Zanu (PF) stooges as signs of a changing attitude towards Britain. As if it matters. The heart of this crisis is not about Mugabe’s relations with Britain. It lies in the attitude of his regime towards the people of Zimbabwe and after 26 years of betrayal and cruel manipulation that will never change. Oily platitudes about building bridges with the British government count for absolutely nothing when as recently as 26th May his doomed regime gazetted an Interception of Communications Bill designed to crush still further the liberty of Zimbabweans. MPs in the House of Commons at Westminster are united over Zimbabwe. My colleagues in all parties recognise that Zimbabwe’s crisis stems from Zanu (PF)’s addiction to power. They know Mugabe will use any degree of violence and even resorts to depriving the population of food and shelter to prolong his rule. We are sick of his lies and brutality. His regime betrayed the trust of the people of Zimbabwe long ago. We are way, way past the time when he might have been seen as forming any part of the solution to the nightmare he himself inflicted on Zimbabwe. It is unthinkable that Mugabe or his close lieutenants have any role to play in the rebirth of Zimbabwe. The world is far less willing now than in the past to show indulgence towards removed tyrants. Zanu (PF) brutes know that once out of office they are vulnerable. There are suggestions that immunity from prosecution might be negotiated if this helps hasten the liberation of Zimbabwe from dictatorship. Whether or not that is the case there can be no question that crimes committed under the Zanu (PF) regime must be fully investigated. Guilt cannot be airbrushed from history and the right of the people of Zimbabwe to know the truth cannot be negotiated away. Increasingly isolated within Africa and too scared even to let his old friend Joachim Chissano into Zimbabwe as envoy of the African Union Mugabe relies on rogues such as the former President of Tanzania, Bernard Mkapa, to feed Zanu (PF) falsehoods to an ever-shrinking audience of the gullible. EU sanctions apply personally to government ministers and a few other individuals complicit in the abuse of human rights in Zimbabwe but are wilfully misrepresented by Mugabe’s apologists as sanctions against Zimbabwe as a nation. They are nothing of the sort and it is ludicrous to pretend that they can in any way be blamed for the collapse of the economy in Zimbabwe.
EU ambassadors in Harare recently expressed outrage over distorted reporting of their position in the state-controlled media. They reaffirmed their resolve and unity of purpose in isolating the Zanu (PF) leadership and deplored attempts to portray the EU stance divided or to blame poverty in Zimbabwe on EU sanctions.
Apart from the blatant propaganda of the state-controlled media inside Zimbabwe Mugabe knows his ability to control the agenda has gone. Statistics issued by his own government’s ministries expose the extent of his wanton economic mismanagement. Reports from agencies of both the African Union and the United Nations bear witness to his disregard for the fundamental freedoms and human rights of the people of Zimbabwe.
Before the 2008 Presidential election campaign Mugabe’s bogeyman, Tony Blair, is very likely to have already stood down from office. It will not be possible to whip up the same frenzy of personal animosity towards whoever is the new British Prime Minister. Obsessed as he has always been with everything British – and deeply offended that he no longer has the opportunity to be photographed with the Queen at Commonwealth occasions – Mugabe longs to engineer a meeting that his propaganda machine could portray as a climb-down by Tony Blair and a rehabilitation of his Zanu (PF) regime. With loss of power looming and old age bringing him ever closer to a meeting with his maker Mugabe inhabits a fantasy world. He dreams of meeting the British Prime Minister and perhaps one last visit to London. That is his dream. For the people of Zimbabwe the nightmare goes on. In the real world we are too busy finding ways of ending that nightmare to indulge the fantasies of a cruel dictator. – Kate Hoey is Labour MP for Vauxhall and Chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Zimbabwe.