The madman from Ngomahuru who rules Zimbabwe

ate the talks with Blair. Mkapa is contemptuously dismissive of any criticism against Mugabe, he will be more of a public relations man than an honest broker. According to some reports, Britain is willing to talk to Mugabe on condition that he and his party implement substantial political reforms, including the return to the rule of law. But Mugabe has rejected genuine mediators from the United Nations, and even the African Union. He is prevaricating on the visit to Zimbabwe by Kofi Annan.
The lesson for the rest of the world is that Mugabe, though desperate, is still stubborn. And there lies the problem.
It has for some time been suspected that negotiations were underway for a government of national unity in which Zanu (PF) would be a senior partner, leading to elections either in 2008 or in 2010.
That plan appears to be bogged down by Mugabe’s intransigence because of additional demands he has reportedly been making, namely immunity from prosecution for his crimes against humanity, a hefty pension, the right to appoint his successor and ministers in several key ministries. The very fact that Mugabe was demanding immunity shows that he knows that he has committed unspeakable crimes against the people of Zimbabwe.
Mugabe is trying to have his political cake and eat it at the same time. He has all his life lived with this illusion that the world must see Zimbabwe his way. At the age of 82, Mugabe is too old and too mentally decadent to be educated or motivated to see reason. Mugabe is not only part of the problem. He is the problem. Mugabe can never be part of the solution to the Zimbabwean crisis. Some may argue that while Ian Smith was the problem in colonial Rhodesia, he became part of the solution that led to a free Zimbabwe. There is a world of a difference between Ian Smith and Mugabe. Smith tolerated democracy among the white Rhodesians. He never jailed or tortured his fellow whites. He never dispossessed them of land nor forced them into exile.
Within two years of Zimbabwe’s independence Mugabe had shown far less tolerance of black opposition than Smith had shown among white opposition parties. Ironically, while Smith was intolerant of black political opposition, Mugabe was more conciliatory to the whites at the very same time he was intolerant of black opposition.
Like the Biblical Pharaoh, Mugabe is hardening his position even as Zimbabwe sinks to new depths every day.
The late Edison Zvobgo once described Mugabe as a madman from Ngomahuru hospital for the mental patients, and who had been given a baton in a relay race to pass on to the next runner. Instead, argued Zvobgo, the madman decided to run away with the baton and was still running wild in the bushes and mountains!
But there is now emerging a backlash from several fronts to Mugabe’s ruthless dictatorship and reckless decimation of the country’s economy and social infrastructure. For a man supposedly with a degree in economics it is strange that Mugabe has printed so much money that is has lost its value and sent inflation soaring. Economic realities are now dictating just how much money he can print. But he knows he has everything to lose if democracy and the rule of law were to return to Zimbabwe. No one is more aware than he is about what happens to dictators once they lose power. On April 28, 1945, the fascist dictator of Italy, Mussolini, was found hanged upside down on meat hooks in a public square. – SW Radio Africa