Mugabe turned terror to staying power

Is masterful in maneuvering

President Robert Mugabe at the National Heroes Acre in Harare, Zimbabwe, on Dec. 11, where he spoke at a burial. (Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi/Associated Press)

HARARE, Zimbabwe - For a very literal example of Robert Mugabe's staying power, look no further than a recent crisis summit of southern African leaders designed to settle the political impasse that has seen the longtime Zimbabwean leader cling stubbornly to the presidency.

The leaders wanted him to leave the room so they could deliberate in private. He refused.

Between their politeness and his famous capacity to intimidate, the presidents meekly backed down. Mugabe stayed.

Be it with his fellow African leaders, the West, or the Zimbabwean opposition, the 84-year-old Mugabe has outmaneuvered - and outlasted - his critics for more than a quarter of a century, through a careful calibration of the international reaction and domestic effect of his actions. As close as the end sometimes seems, Mugabe has managed to survive.

To help understand his long tenure, one need only rewind to the 1980s and the massacres of his early years in power, when he was a conquering hero who had thrown out the white minority regime of Ian Smith.

The name of the murderous operation, Gukurahundi, was poetic: the wind that blows away the chaff before the spring rains.

Mugabe's political opponents were the chaff. The spring rains were supposed to signify the golden era of a one-party (or rather, a one-man) state.

Western leaders and news media ignored the massacres of the "dissidents" by the army's crack Five Brigade in Matabeleland province in southern Zimbabwe. Some estimates put the dead at 20,000.

Mugabe drew his most important lesson from the West's blas?? reaction, analysts believe: that there was a level of "acceptable" violence that would escape international condemnation but still destroy any threat to his power.

"He's never, ever been frightened of war," said analyst Tony Reeler of the Research & Advocacy Unit, an independent think tank in Harare, the capital. Mugabe learned that he could get away with "subliminal terror" that would not trigger international intervention, he said.

"It's just below the threshold that upsets people, and it's deliberately so," he said.

The shadow of the Gukurahundi campaign has followed Zimbabwe since the early 1980s. Mugabe repeatedly revived its message, that opponents would be killed or tortured. But those who felt the rushing "wind" that was Gukurahundi needed no reminding.

"It's painful to remember. It's a story told in blood," said a 61-year-old retired military officer who was attached to the Five Brigade when it raided villages in 1982, arresting the men, interrogating and torturing them to identify opposition guerrillas. Like others cited in this report, he spoke on condition of anonymity, fearing repercussions.

He said he saw thousands of people killed. Women were shut into thatched huts and burned alive. Even the children were targets.

Others who were behind Gukurahundi are now among Mugabe's closest and most trusted allies.

Emerson Mnangagwa was head of security when the massacres started and is now Mugabe's heir-apparent. He was succeeded as security chief in the 1980s by Sydney Sekeremayi, now defense minister. The Five Brigade was commanded by Perence Shiri, the current air force commander.

Like Mugabe, all are obsessed with hanging on to their assets and avoiding prosecution. Their only guarantee of that is clinging to power.

Mugabe has rekindled the terror whenever he has perceived a political threat. He unleashed violence in elections in 2000 and 2002 after the rise of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change. He seized land from white farmers beginning in 2000 because many supported the MDC. In 2005, he launched Murambatsvina, or Operation Clean Out the Filth, evicting 700,000 urban people in MDC strongholds from their homes.

With every operation, he grew less popular among the people - but more feared. It seemed that he no longer could distinguish between the two.

On election day in March of this year, Mugabe affected the air of a leader so popular that he needn't concern himself with the opposition. He had shown extraordinary energy in the campaign, blitzing several rallies a day clad in his favorite election garb: a peaked cap and a yellow, lime green or red suit.

"Why should I cheat?" he said after casting his vote. "The people are there supporting us, day in, day out. The moment people stop supporting you, then that's the moment you should quit politics."

After his shocking defeat by MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai in the first-round presidential vote, he blamed traitors in his ZANU-PF party, according to several party sources. Enraged, he accused top ZANU-PF figures of "decampaigning," or campaigning against him.

He told military and ruling party leaders that he was ready to step down, according to numerous party sources. But rather than ceding control to the "securocrats" and generals, he has instead strengthened his position with these hard-line forces in the party, the sources say.

"It was done strategically," a ZANU-PF insider said. "It was to jolt people into action, and it had the desired effect."