Robert Mugabe has snuffed it

[angrysoba]

I don't have a link.

But he is dead.

 

[cullennz]

I don't have a link.

But he is dead.

If I was religious and betting man, I would put a $1 k on which way he is going.

And the lift has no up buttons.

 

[The Atheist]

I'd be prepared to celebrate the disgusting prick's death, but it's about 30 years too late for that.

 

[smartcooky]

And the world has just become a better place.....

 

[McHrozni]

I don't have a link.

But he is dead.

Yay.

He's with his country now, in hell (or the atheist equivalent).

McHrozni

 

[BillC]

I'm pretty sure at some point on this forum I have said "Hurry up and die, Mugabe".

And now he has.

Dead link.

 

[Norman Alexander]

Now he is MUCH more use to his country...as fertiliser.

 

[The Don]

Yet another case of The Don getting it utterly wrong - though in my defence I was only 12 at the time.

The Smith regime in Rhodesia was so unpopular in the UK (presumably as a result of UDI) that when Zimbabwe became (officially) independent and held elections in 1980 I was really optimistic. Even in the first few years I had hopes that Zimbabwe would manage to be a multi racial country with a good economy - boy was I wrong

Not only has Mugabe ruined a country when he was alive and President, I believe that he has sown the seeds for its continued destruction for decades afterwards

 

[smartcooky]

Yet another case of The Don getting it utterly wrong - though in my defence I was only 12 at the time.

The Smith regime in Rhodesia was so unpopular in the UK (presumably as a result of UDI) that when Zimbabwe became (officially) independent and held elections in 1980 I was really optimistic. Even in the first few years I had hopes that Zimbabwe would manage to be a multi racial country with a good economy - boy was I wrong

Not only has Mugabe ruined a country when he was alive and President, I believe that he has sown the seeds for its continued destruction for decades afterwards

It is often said (with much truth) that Mugabe turned the bread-basket of Africa into the basket-case of Africa.

 

[McHrozni]

Yet another case of The Don getting it utterly wrong - though in my defence I was only 12 at the time.

The Smith regime in Rhodesia was so unpopular in the UK (presumably as a result of UDI) that when Zimbabwe became (officially) independent and held elections in 1980 I was really optimistic. Even in the first few years I had hopes that Zimbabwe would manage to be a multi racial country with a good economy - boy was I wrong

Not only has Mugabe ruined a country when he was alive and President, I believe that he has sown the seeds for its continued destruction for decades afterwards

Don't worry, you are not alone. The history repeated itself twenty years later in Venezuela. Millions of people around the world still adore Hugo Chavez who did the same for his country, using the same methods, with the same reasons, yielding the same results. Both are venerated as perfect leaders by varying groups of people (African supremacists / Fanatical Marxists).

McHrozni

 

[BillC]

It is often said (with much truth) that Mugabe turned the bread-basket of Africa into the basket-case of Africa.

Compare the state of the country with that of neighbouring Botswana.

 

[smartcooky]

Compare the state of the country with that of neighbouring Botswana.

Hmm.

From what I can see, Botswana's rise to become one of Africa's richest countries has been a mirror image of Zimbabwe's decline.

 

[dann]

Mugabe's first mistake was to believe that capitalist agriculture would improve conditions for Zimbabweans:

He announced a policy of reconciliation and invited whites to help rebuild the country.
“If yesterday I fought you as an enemy, today you have become a friend,” he told them. “If yesterday you hated me, today you cannot avoid the love that binds me to you.”
Zimbabwe's intellectual despot: how Mugabe became Africa's fallen angel (Guardian, Sep. 6, 2019)

That was when the West still loved him for having given up on Marxism and therefore also wasn't really bothered by "the vicious ethnic cleansing that ensued in the mid-80s":

Few in the west noticed, or wanted to. They preferred to see an economy that was growing as agriculture boomed ...

And at that time Mugabe actually did do something for ordinary people in Zimbabwe who loved him, too:

... and Mugabe built clinics and schools, turning Zimbabwe into one of the healthiest, best-educated and most hopeful countries in Africa.

But!

The optimism began to sour in 1997, when Mugabe gave in to pressure from war veterans waging violent protests for pensions.

This is something that any leader of an African nation should know: "an economy that was growing" does not go hand in hand with pensions for impoverished Africans! If the purpose of economic growth is to enrich white farmers, money for clinics and schools is a waste, which is why white farmers got the idea to pay trade unions and political activists to put a stop to Mugabe:

Trade unions and political activists began organising what would become the first viable political threat to Mugabe, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). But it was partly bankrolled by white farmers

Which led to Mugabe turning against the white farmers who he had initially hoped would help him turn Zimbabwe into an affluent nation that could also sustain its indigenous population and not just the white upper classes:

In 2000 Mugabe began a land reform programme, billed as an attempt to correct the unresolved colonialist legacy by giving white-owned farms to landless black people.

And that is how Mugabe became the epitome of a black African dictator in the West.

 

[Giz]

Mugabe's first mistake was to believe that capitalist agriculture would improve conditions for Zimbabweans:


...snip...


And that is how Mugabe became the epitome of a black African dictator in the West.

No. His first mistake (and becoming the epitome of a dictator) was in 1982, after just 2 years in power, when he started the Matabeleland massacres of dissenters.

 

[Darat]

Always strange how gaining dictatorial powers change saints to demons. He was always a nasty piece of work, just because for a time he was aligned with what was right didn't make him a good person.

 

[Information Analyst]

Yet another case of The Don getting it utterly wrong - though in my defence I was only 12 at the time.

The Smith regime in Rhodesia was so unpopular in the UK (presumably as a result of UDI) that when Zimbabwe became (officially) independent and held elections in 1980 I was really optimistic. Even in the first few years I had hopes that Zimbabwe would manage to be a multi racial country with a good economy - boy was I wrong

Not only has Mugabe ruined a country when he was alive and President, I believe that he has sown the seeds for its continued destruction for decades afterwards

Don't feel too bad, lots of people had high hopes at the time. Norman Beaton once gave an outstanding performance as Mugabe in an unusual drama documentary from Channel 4's Dispatches back in the day, that took a very positive line. I expect that it hasn't aged well.

 

[sackett]

He was 95.

The good die young.

 

[BStrong]

Good Riddance.

 

[dudalb]

Mugube is the ultimate textbook example of "Power Corrupts;Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely".
Sadly, he not the only example of the leader of a anti colonial movement becoming a tryant once the colonial power is kicked out; that seems to be a common scenario.
Algeria,Vietnam (which managed to spawn 2 corrupt and dictatorial regimes for a while) The Congo,the list goes on.

And if you really want a contrast, compare him with Nelson Mandela....

 

[dudalb]

But Mugabe is now a dead insane corrupt ex dictator.
He has passed on, he has ceased to be, he is a stiff, bereft of life....