It's all over bar the shouting. Robert Mugabe's time is up. The obituaries have already been written. Of his political demise, that is. Sure, he's still pottering about, but that's just theatre. He's biding his time. The pretence may continue for some time. But it's over. Nobody is shedding any tears for Uncle Bob. The man has blood on his hands.
The performance of real, chilling significance, however, was the army tanks rumbling through the streets of Harare. Soldiers and power can be a toxic mix.
Did it have to come to this?In confirming the coup d'etat - yes, that's what it is - the fierce-looking army spokesman referred to Mugabe as the commander-in-chief of the defence forces, even as the army had him detained in his own home. He was safe, the man assured Mugabe's supporters. But the president was obviously no longer in charge. The army was in control of the state.
According to the army, the aim was not to target Mugabe, but to remove the "criminals" around him. But when you drain the swamp, you can't expect the fish, or crocodile, to survive.
The generals are not keen to be seen to be taking Mugabe head on, either out of respect or for fear of arousing the ire of his supporters. But whatever the approach, his goose is cooked.Mugabe and his wife Grace seem to be carbon copies of Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos of the Philippines - the ostentatious display of wealth and luxury in a sea of want and poverty; the fondness for foreign trips and shopping; the torture chambers and the disdain for human suffering. Power corrupts.
Mugabe's career provides a perfect study in the destruction of a country and the unravelling of the legacy of the man himself. It is for many a dream that became a nightmare. That day in February 1980 when a triumphant Mugabe addressed the media, having won an absolute majority in the 80-member parliament, is seared in memory - a victory that came as a shock to the white establishment in the region.
Mugabe had been portrayed as a fire-eating radical who would nationalise everything and drive the white community, the backbone of the economy, out of the country. The reaction of the then president PW Botha was as pithy as it was bitter. "The people of Rhodesia," he said, "have made their bed. Now they'll have to sleep on it." Such utterances were dismissed as sour grapes from a man who sensed the march of freedom too close for comfort. But the Groot Krokodil's words have proved prophetic.On that day Mugabe was impressively articulate and reassuring, calling for unity, stability and law and order. He assured white civil servants that their pensions would be guaranteed. And for a man who was later to seize white farms without compensation, he gave an undertaking that private property would be protected.
"Let us turn swords into ploughshares," he said in an appeal for racial reconciliation.
He followed up his words with deeds and policies, appointing some of his fiercest adversaries to his cabinet. He handed the economics portfolio to David Smith, finance minister and deputy prime minister under Ian Smith, and Denis Norman, former head of the white Commercial Farmers' Union, became agriculture minister. Zimbabwe was a breadbasket then and Norman's responsibility was to make sure the country continued to have a good harvest.
But the biggest surprise was Mugabe's appointment of Peter Walls, former head of the Rhodesian army, to be in charge of integration of many forces into a single regular army. That arrangement, however, didn't last and Walls was out before the year was over.
Mugabe begged the UK to play a two-year "guiding" role for his government when he realised his people lacked the experience to run the country. The request was rejected.Come to think of it, and incongruous as it may sound, Mugabe was a pathfinder in racial reconciliation. Nelson Mandela applied Mugabe's template. But unlike Mandela, Mugabe changed tune and metamorphosed into an ogre when he realised he was about to lose power.
It was probably easy for him to ditch reconciliation because it was never his thing. It was imposed on him by Mozambican president Samora Machel, his mentor, who had seen the devastation caused by white flight from his own country.
It is also said that the statement that Mugabe read at that first press conference was drafted for him by Machel. The Mozambican president was also crucial in compelling Mugabe to accept some compromises at the Lancaster House talks...