Zimbabwe – Mugabe’s biggest con yet

When Mugabe does it, he always does it big, real big. His largess is often so breathtaking that most find it hard to comprehend, let alone digest. He’s doing it again.

First it was Gukurahundi where he oversaw the slaughter of at least 20,000 people in the Matabeleland and the Midlands Provinces. He used his personal extra-legal military unit, the 5th Brigade, which was trained by North Korea to do his dirty work. Whilst this genocide was going on, Mugabe was the darling of the West and a blind eye was turned on his excesses.

When he saw his grip on power under threat in 2000 and 2002, he blatantly rigged more elections and ordered his storm troopers to invade and violently confiscate at least 4000 farms from fellow white Zimbabweans. In the process, over one million black farm workers and their families lost their homes and livelihoods and became refugees in their own country.

Today Zimbabwe starves.

A few years later, he implemented Operation Murambatsvina where he literally destroyed the homes and livelihoods on over 700,000 Zimbabweans. Quiet diplomacy kept the lid on this atrocity.

To top it off, last year he ordered all businesses to slash their prices in half and thousands of businesses went under as a result.

Throughout his rule, Mugabe has perfected the rigging mechanisms necessary to win elections but this time the pressure is on to have free and fair elections and given the numbers, he has a real problem.

Some months ago, Mugabe’s advisors warned him that conditions in the country had become so bad that if an election was held, he would suffer a humiliating defeat. His worst fears were confirmed as he was told that Morgan Tsvangirai’s MDC now commanded the overwhelming majority of support in Zimbabwe.

Enter Mugabe’s new con – Operation Makoni.

In the Polit Bureau, his strategists developed a comprehensive and detailed plan to get Mugabe and zanuPF out of their predicament. The plan involved the fabrication of a split in the party and the creation of the perception that zanuPF was falling apart. Later, when the votes are counted, there would be “enough” votes from the so-called disaffected zanuPF (Makoni) faction and zanuPF (Mugabe) faction to form a “coalition” government. As a sweetener, another small unimportant party would also be included.

The plan would be that Makoni would pull out of zanuPF with a bit of stage managed acrimony. He would then “play” a magnominiously role to the electorate which would be desperate enough to see him as their saviour. This would be re-enforced especially if it was marketed in such a way that there was an illusion that Makoni had the support of certain key strongmen/kingmakers from zanuPF. Many analysts say that ZanuPF have always kept the public guessing. That’s why these so-called strongmen remain an illusion to this day.

A week before the Makoni “split”, Makoni held another secret meeting with Mugabe to add the finishing touches to their plan.

Makoni then went out and told Zimbabwe that he “felt their pain” and called on Zimbabwe to rally behind him and stand as a united front against Mugabe.

The Mutambara MDC splinter faction fell for it almost immediately and naively answered his call. However, within an hour of Mutambara’s irrational announcement, Makoni caused them major embarrassment by saying he would not agree to any alliances. By doing this, Makoni effectively neutralised Mutambara and his splinter faction.

One down and one to go.

The question on many people’s lips is, will Tsvangirai also fall for this deception? To date it seems not. In fact Tsvangirai is keeping his distance.

It is common knowledge that certain western countries such as the United States, United Kingdom, certain Scandinavian countries and Canada are quite prepared to accept a reformed zanuPF. Mugabe’s minders in South African are well aware of this. South Africa desperately needs the Zimbabwe problem to go away before the 2010 Soccer World Cup. If not, the world cup venue might be in jeopardy if Zimbabwe explodes.

The real dilemma for zanuPF has been to find a way to repackage Mugabe to become more acceptable to the international community. The realisation is that they can’t, so this is their way of doing it. It kills two birds with one stone by giving Mugabe a safe way out and it also solves the succession issue in such a way as to keep Mugabe safe from prosecution at the Hague.

Known as “Operation Makoni” it forms part of an intricate web of deceit to re-package and give a face-lift for a NEW zanuPF formation to become more internationally acceptable. The resources of zanuPF and their jingles in branding Makoni are being done in the classic zanuPF way. Their propaganda news vehicles are in full flight as they spread dis-information and deception through local and international media.

The sudden announcement of the March election was a deliberate ploy to confuse and rush the opposition into going into this election. Mugabe needed this to happen as part of the deception in order to confuse the real objectives.

Mugabe has already done enough to rig the outcome and has prepared the ground for a “semi” free and fair election that certain Western countries will gladly accept, especially if there is a “coalition government” in place.

Mugabe is being very quiet at the moment. He’s watching the fall-out being generated and he’s playing a waiting game in preparation to further manipulate the situation.

This is Mugabe’s only way out and it is becoming clearer by the day that his “pup” is being well and truly bought by the West.