After years of
international criticism, the European Union is resuming aid to the
country and has already lifted sanctions on some senior government
figures, while Mugabe has taken up the rotating chair of the African
Union.
"To put it very bluntly Mugabe has won," said Richard Dowden, director of the London-based Royal African Society.
"An immense amount of Western pressure to step down and reverse some of his policies -- and he's done neither."
When he came to power in 1980, Mugabe was a hero of the fight against white minority rule in the former Rhodesia.
He
won international praise for his declared policy of racial
reconciliation and for extending education and health services to the
black majority.
But critics say that over the
following decades he turned the 'breadbasket of southern Africa' into a
basket case, with human rights, justice and democracy trampled.
Mugabe's
violent seizure of white-owned farms was followed by food shortages and
hyper-inflation. Rigged elections saw Europe and the US impose
sanctions.
Ostracised by the West, but still respected as a liberation hero by other African leaders, Mugabe has remained defiant.
"Down
with imperialism. There was no country in Africa that was opposed to
Zimbabwe becoming chair [of the AU], not even a single one," he boasted
after his appointment last month.
Mugabe
once quipped that he would rule his country until he turned 100 -- and
he shows every sign of trying to achieve that goal.
He has recently purged his
ruling Zanu-PF party of senior ministers and officials seen as allies of
his former deputy, Joice Mujuru,who was accused of plotting to succeed
him.
Despite a recent fall
on the red carpet after his return from the AU meeting in Ethiopia --
which was gleefully seized on by opponents on social media -- he appears
remarkably fit for his age.
"If his aim was to rule Zimbabwe
and become the king of Zimbabwe for a long time, and whatever happened
to the country he would stay there and become a continent-wide hero, I
think he's achieved those aims," Dowden said.
"The
fact that Zimbabwe has been ruined in the process and it's now just run
by thieves who call themselves ministers, looting the place
continually, I don't think that worries him a bit."
In
an interview with the Zimbabwe Independent on Friday, Didymus Mutasa, a
long-time Mugabe ally who was expelled from the ruling party this week,
said: "His legacy is in ruins and the party of liberation is in tatters
and shambles."
But that has not stopped Mugabe
from planning a birthday party reportedly costing a million dollars and
including a feast of animals including two elephants.
The
party is set for February 28 at a luxurious hotel in the prime resort
town of Victoria Falls, with ordinary citizens pressured into
contributing to the cost.
The leader of the Progressive
Teachers’ Union, Raymond Majongwe said schoolteachers were being forced
to contribute up to $10 towards the feast.
“In
many provinces people are being forced to donate towards the birthday
and we now know where they intend to get the money to charter a plane
and bankroll the expensive party," Majongwe said.
The
main opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), wants
the funds "collected to bankroll this obscene jamboree" to be used
instead to rehabilitate collapsed hospitals and schools, said spokesman
Obert Gutu.
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SOURCE: yahoonews
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