Smith accepted change when the game was up but not so with Mugabe!

Ian Smith’s racist regime was doom to collapse because it was not economically and militarily sustainable. Mugabe’s wasteful and oppressive Zanu PF dictatorship too was doomed to collapse because it was not economically and socially sustainable. Both regimes have cause the loss of over 30 000 human lives; whilst Smith finally saw the “Dead End” sign and finally agreed to accept change, Robert Mugabe has already gone beyond that as he has completely destroyed the nation’s economy too and still he hang on to power.

The Mugabe regime deployed the Riot Police to stop last week’s protest by the Students and University Lecturers over the country’s worsening economic situation. The regime has being threatening even more Police clamp down in the face of the growing unease in the nation.

After 35 years of mismanagement, corrupt and criminal waste of the country's human and material resources which has result in the distraction of the country's once prosperous economy to the point where unemployment has soared 90%, 16% of the people are now living in soul crashing abject poverty, etc.

The people realized soon enough that Mugabe and Zanu PF would never deliver “gutsa ruzhinji” (mass prosperity) but were on route to deliver the exact opposite, mass poverty. Income has been dropping ever since Mugabe took office in 1980 and today they have dropped to the lowest in 60 years. As noted above 16% are already living in soul crashing abject poverty and the numbers are set to grow in the coming month for all the signs are that the economic meltdown is going to get worse and not better.

Mugabe’s economic recovery plan, ZimAsset, is dead in the water. The massive $27 billion plan has only managed to get $7 billion in post-dated project funding (both the Chinese and Russians have yet spent a dollar on the grounds) and not a single dollar in budgetary support, which is what Mugabe wanted. Meanwhile the regime has done nothing to address the primary causes of the country’s economic meltdown – the gross mismanagement, rampant corruption and the institutionalized lawlessness behind the white owned farm seizures and the indigenisation laws.

It is the lawlessness that has forced donors and investors alike to shy away from investing in Zimbabwe. The only foreign players, the Chinese, Indians, Israelis and more recently the Russians, have come to join in the looting and plunder especially of the country’s $800 billion Marange diamonds. The diamond windfall has the potential of lifting the country out of poverty into prosperity but the corruption is so, so bad that the country is not even getting a single dollar in revenue from the sale of diamonds. Not a penny!

Finance Minister, Patrick Chinamasa, tired of giving feeble excuses why the government was failing to collect the tax from the diamond mining said the alluvial diamonds from Marange were “finished”.

Since the regime does not have the political will to address the root causes of the economic meltdown and its own, ZimAsset, economic recovery plan – which was essentially meant to rig economic recovery by throwing loads of money at the economic meltdown without addressing the root causes – is dead in the water the only way to end the economic crisis is therefore for the regime to step aside so that someone else with the political will and vision can take the country forward.

Ever since the nation realised that Mugabe and Zanu PF will never deliver economic prosperity the people have sort democratic means to remove the regime but only to be confronted with a regime determined to resist regime change by all means.

Mugabe and Zanu PF were at the forefront in the fight to end the exploitation and oppression of the blacks by the whites. They said they were fighting for freedom, justice, one-man-one-vote and all the other human freedoms and basic rights. But most important of all what they were fighting for was absolute power and they never hesitated even for a moment to disregard all those values and ideals of freedom, justice, etc. in pursuit of their goal of establishing a one-party dictatorship and absolute power.

The blacks in Ian Smith’s Rhodesia were denied a fair share of the country’s economic wealth and they had no political say in the governance of the country but at least the whites had the economic common sense to grow the economy. The racist regime was unsustainable. Smith realised that the economy, although still very strong, was beginning to suffer because of the increasing political isolation and through the even increasing extra burden of fighting the civil war. The civil war had caused so such human suffering and loss property and human of lives and the situation was set to get worse and not better.

Ian Smith had the good sense to see the “Dead End” sign and accept the dreaded regime change, black majority rule, he had boosted would not happen “in a thousand years”.

Zimbabwe’s economic situation in which 90% are out of work and 16% are living in abject poverty and the numbers are increasing every day is not sustainable. The “Dead End” sign has been there for Mugabe and Zanu PF to see for years. They should have accepted that regime change was unavoidable years ago before dragging the nation this deep in the economic and political mess with the country up to its eyes in debt, the economic infrastructure in ruins and so many people forced in abject poverty. 

If Mugabe and Mnangagwa think they can continue to use brute force to stop the people demand change forever then they really do not know the meaning of the unsustainable and thus of the sign “Dead End”. Does the regime real think it can use brute force to stop the people voicing their suffering as the numbers of those living in grinding poverty start to climb from the present 16% to 25% to 30% etc.?

What this Zanu PF dictatorship is failing to see and appreciate is that it does not have the power to stop regime change, it never had. It is has done so far is delay regime change just as Ian Smith delay majority rule.

It is a big plus that the nation has held its peace for 35 years of this Zanu PF corrupt and tyrannical rule give the regime the opportunity for peaceful regime change. Now all the signs are this nation going to have violent street protest or worse because the people’s patience is running out.

Mugabe has enjoyed absolute tyrannical powers for the last 35 years but the two things that are beyond his tyrannical dictate is the economic meltdown – after decades of criminal waste of human and material resources the national economy is now in total meltdown and he has failed to rig recovery – and regime change. Zanu PF is in political turmoil internal because it is rotten to the core. The people have suffering under its corrupt and tyrannical rule they hate Mugabe and all the regime stand for with a consuming passion, no tyrant can rig love where there is hatred. All these three forces are working in unison to ensure the demise of the regime; regime change is as certain as the sun rising tomorrow!