Mugabe an ‘accident of history’

ountry’s main guerrilla movement before becoming independent Zimbabwe’s first black prime minister and then state president.
Tekere’s newly published autobiography, A Life Time of Struggle, puts Mugabe at the outer periphery, rather than the centre, of the liberation struggle waged by black nationalists in the 1970s to end white minority rule.
Mugabe is cast by Tekere – former secretary-general of Zimbabwe’s ruling party – as a reluctant leader of the independence struggle who was thrust into the top position merely by accident of history.
The book has caused uproar within Zanu (PF). There are cries for Tekere’s dismissal from the party and a leading Harare bookstore wholly owned by the government has refused to stock his book, which has become an instant bestseller.
Mugabe became leader of the party by default, argues Tekere, after Takawira died in prison; Chitepo was assassinated in Zambia (after internal struggles within exiled ZANU factions turned bloody); and Sithole was toppled from the leadership while still in prison. Although official accounts of the nationalist struggle make Mugabe its kingpin, Tekere writes that during the difficult formative years in the late 1950s of the black nationalist resistance, Mugabe was teaching in Ghana. When the precursor of ZANU, the National Democratic Party, was launched in 1960 Mugabe still had not returned home.
When Mugabe did return, he was told that despite his considerable academic achievements it would be difficult to incorporate him into the top leadership because he was single.
To overcome the problem, the leadership arranged a marriage for him with a woman named Abigail Kurangwa, who, says Tekere, “agreed to marry Mugabe, and eventually fell in love with him. Mugabe appeared to reciprocate, and his family liked Abigail”.
Tekere says even Mugabe’s historic decision to flee across the border with him into Mozambique – after their release from imprisonment in 1975 – was not voluntary one on Mugabe’s part.
“Myfirst disagreement with Mugabe took place then [on their clandestine journey from Rhodesia to Mozambique]. We were discussing what we would do when we met the other [exiled ZANU] recruits, and Mugabe was adamant that we should tell them that we were in the UANC [United African National Council], according to the Lusaka Accords [an agreement designed to unify all the Zimbabwean movements and factions].
“This made me extremely angry, and I said: ‘What a treacherous mind you have! We are here by decision of ZANU. I am not part of the UANC. You are a betrayer. I am going to report back to those who sent us here about your betrayal.’
“After that I made sure that he did not meet any recruits when I was not there too, in case he began to talk about the UANC,” writes Tekere.
The theme of Mugabe as a betrayer of the armed struggle runs throughout the book. After the Chimoio Massacre of November 1977, in which more than 1,000 people were killed in a Rhodesian Armed Forces raid on a ZANU camp
in Mozambique, Tekere gave a report on the killings to Mugabe, who was in Maputo, Mozambique’s capital by the Indian Ocean.
Tekere writes, “Two thirds of our dead were women. He [Mugabe] said to me, ‘You know what, I’m beginning to wonder whether this is worthwhile, with all these people dying.’ But I replied that we must go on to the end. His remark aroused in me a mixture of anger and disgust.”
This was the time when Mozambique President Samora Machel is reported to have said of Mugabe, “I respect Mugabe, but he does not measure up to this scale of military operation and planning. He does not belong as a soldier.”
When Tekere later told the ZANU commander Josiah Tongogara – later to die in Mozambique in a car crash and be replaced by Mugabe loyalist Rex Nhongo – about this and not to trust Mugabe with details of their discussions, Tekere says Tongogara told him, “Now you have heard it for yourself! You are the one who brought a sell-out here! Look how many of the people have been killed! I told you not to bring him here, but you only believe what I said now because Machel told you!”
Tekere writes, “Some time later, I brought the subject up again with Tongogara: ‘Are you saying I brought a sell-out?’ This time the two of us analysed the situation and realised that we were both equally apprehensive that Mugabe might let us down. After this we began to isolate out dependable commanders, and tried to discover how many of us were still committed to the war. But this filled us with sadness.”
Machel put Mugabe “virtually under house arrest” in the aftermath of the Chimoio massacre. “Security at the house [where Mugabe was kept] was uncomfortably tight”, Tekere writes. The house arrest was ostensibly for Mugabe’s safety, but the fact that Machel never discussed it with him personally suggests there was another reason. Tekere says Mugabe did not share his enthusiasm for committing to war. While Tekere went straight into military training on arrival in Mozambique, Mugabe showed no interest and never became a fighter.
Tekere writes that Mugabe was eventually chosen as Zanu’s leader-in-exile because he was a middleman between competing factions, not because he showed leadership qualities.
At a function in Harare to launch the book, Tekere said Mugabe now regarded himself as a king who had single-handedly delivered the country from white rule – although the truth was that he had had to be persuaded to join the nationalist cause wholeheartedly. “I am more Zanu (PF) than Mugabe,” said Tekere. “I have heard ….predictions that 2007 would be a better year for this country. No, it cannot be. It is going to be worse as long as we continue with the slogan ‘Pamberi navaMugabe’ [Long Live Mugabe]. Mugabe has become a liability to the people of Zimbabwe.” – IWPR