E conseguiram desviar as atenções tão bem que o próprio Mugabe andou "distraído" 20 anos.




Os verdadeiros problemas, no plural se faz favor: As injustiças da disparidade da posse das terras que o Mugabe nunca se importou, e a possibilidade dele poder perder o poder que ele sempre se importou.




É mentira o que o sr. diz? Qual parte? É isso a tua resposta? Muito pobre! Pobrérrima!!! Estou a ver que é tudo verdade o que o entrevistado diz.

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Replying to:

Isto e mais um exemplo de como as pessoas estao a tentar desviar a atencao do verdadeiro problema que e a injustica com relacao a disparidade em termos de posse de terras no Zimbabwe. O que esta em jogo aqui nao e a personaldade do Mugabe. Acredito que daqui a pouco o chamarao de terrorista, pra entao mais uma vez, poderem demoniza-lo e assim desviar as atencoes do verdadeiro problema.

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Replying to:

What had been happening with Sithole?




Robert Mugabe and his followers had staged a coup against Sithole while they were all in prison. Smith released Mugabe, who then led a Zanu delegation to meet with the leaders of the front line states - Agostino Neto, Julius Nyerere, Samora Machel and Kenneth Kaunda. They were surprised and horrified to see Mugabe leading the delegation and asked how on earth he could stage a coup inside an enemy prison against the properly elected leader of the movement. They suspected the prison authorities had helped Mugabe. Indeed, Nyerere was so angry that he refused to accept Mugabe as leader and demanded that the delegation return to Rhodesia and come back with Sithole.




In the end this is what happened and Sithole, who had been released in December 1974, helped to negotiate the December 1975 unity accord with Zapu and two smaller movements. This was very much what the front-line leaders wanted. Two months later Sithole was rearrested. This was just one of a number of openings that Smith created for Mugabe. Looking back it is difficult not to believe that Smith wanted to help promote Mugabe as the leader of Zanu.






How did Mugabe emerge as a rival to Sithole?




Mugabe wanted to build a following among the refugees in Mozambique. At that time there were only 300 Zanla fighters in Mozambique but many more Rhodesian refugees. However, President Machel would not allow him into the country, so he sat for three months on the border. The border was always alive with Rhodesian agents and later we wondered whether Mugabe had been in touch with them then. He finally slipped into Mozambique disguised as a refugee, but Machel put him under house arrest far away from the refugee camps.






What was your attitude to all this?




Like most of the Zanla fighters I still considered Sithole our leader. When we got to know him, it was a disillusioning experience. We quickly discovered that Sithole was very keen to talk to Smith, whereas we wanted to fight him. Sithole believed that we were very close to an independence deal with Smith and everything he did was based on that. I will never forget the way he turned to us fighters and said, "I can certainly talk to Ian Smith but as for you, my children, I don't know what's going to become of you." When the Zambians shot and killed ten Zanu fighters, we expected Sithole to protest but he simply didn't want to know about it. He didn't even want to let us go to their funerals or to visit the wounded in hospital. We were beyond the pale. It made your blood run cold.




Sithole knew that we were resentful and he formed an alliance with the Zambians against us. His idea was to arrest the fighters at one of the memorial services. But we realised what was going on and escaped into Tanzania, where we decided to depose Sithole and back Mugabe instead. With Sithole out and Chitepo dead he was the obvious person, but we didn't really know what he was like. The front-line states continued to agitate for unity and so they sent both Zanla and Zipra commanders to Mozambique saying "You must unite and fight." We agreed with this and the result was that we united as the Zimbabwe People's Army (Zipa), under the leadership of Rex Nhongo. I was number two to Nhongo on the Zanla side and thus number three in Zipa as a whole. We sat down and worked out our war strategy and in January 1976 we resumed military operations together.




However Machel was worried about continuing trouble in the military camps and wanted Zanu leaders to balance the Zapu leaders. We suggested Mugabe or Josiah Tongogara. Machel didn't like or trust Mugabe. He was quite adamant about this and said we must find somebody else. But we weren't very keen on Tongogara and in the end Machel accepted him as leader.






What was Robert Mugabe like?




Gradually, of course, we realised that we had made a terrible mistake. I now greatly regret it, as do the other members of the Zimbabwe Liberators' Platform. He was arrogant, paranoid, secretive and only interested in power. And he didn't want unity at all since he was scared that Nkomo, as the senior African nationalist, would take over a united movement. He dissolved Zipa and abolished all the joint organisations between the liberation movements, which was very upsetting for those of us who had worked hard for unity. When Mugabe asked me to join his Zanu delegation to the Geneva negotiations on the country's future in 1976 I refused, saying that I only wanted to go under a Patriotic Front banner uniting the Zapu and Zanu forces.






How did Samora Machel react?




The irony was that Machel had finally become reconciled to the idea of Mugabe as Zanu leader. Just as Kaunda supported Nkomo as future president of Zimbabwe, Machel now backed Mugabe, who he thought would be his client in turn. When Mugabe came back from the Geneva negotiations having received international publicity, Machel decided it was time to really get behind him. Knowing that many Zanla fighters were extremely critical of him, Mugabe persuaded Machel to arrest us in order to head off a military rebellion. I was arrested along with some 600 fighters and the 50 top commanders. Some of the fighters were released but the commanders stayed in jail for three years




Excerto de: http://www.mdczimbabwe.com/archivemat/other/gen/focus0012txt.htm




Não, não é da BBC, é do MDC Zimbabwé, entrevista com Wilfred Mhanda, ex-Guerrilheiro da Guerra de Libertação.