d) 8 August; eighty-nine year-old Robert Mugabe hailed his reelection as Zimbabwe’s president as a victory over the ‘British and their Allies’, although the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission admitted that 350,000 voters had been turned away from polling stations apparently because their names had not appeared on the roll. It also disclosed that 207,000 people had been ‘assisted’ to cast their votes – which represented another mechanism for rigging the final outcome of the election.
e) 10 August; the leader of the opposition, Morgan Tsvangirai, and his MDC party, filed a legal challenge urging the Constitutional Court in Harare to overturn Mugabe’s victory and to order a re-run. As all the judges had been appointed by Robert Mugabe, few people expected the judges to defy him, regardless of the evidence presented.
f) 16 August; Morgan Tsvangirai, who was no longer the country’s prime minister, and the MDC withdrew their legal action against the results of the election. For Tsvangirai had concluded that the outcome of the proceedings would be sufficiently biased not to come out in its favour.
On 7 December 2013, the ninety-five year-old Nelson Mandela, South Africa’s first democratically elected black president, and one of the world’s greatest statesmen, the symbol of forgiveness and reconciliation, died at his home in Johannesburg. World leaders were quick to send their condolences to the government and people of South Africa, with Barack Obama saying, ‘We have lost one of the most influential, courageous and profoundly good human beings that any of us could share time with on this earth,’ and that, ‘He no longer belongs to us, he belongs to the ages, and he will be remembered as the last great liberator of the twentieth century.’
Well after the news of Nelson Mandela’s death had been announced, Robert Mugabe issued a written statement which, in comparison to some of his previously reported negative comments about Mandela, represented a politically correct and positive appraisal of his lifetime achievements. For Mugabe’s statement described him as, ‘A champion of the oppressed whose commitment to liberation would always be cherished by Zimbabwe,’ and that he was, ‘Not only a great champion of the emancipation of the oppressed, but also a humble and compassionate leader who had showed selfless dedication to the service of his people.’
On 10 December, ninety-one heads of state and world leaders gathered to celebrate the life of Nelson Mandela at a memorial service held at the 95,000-seater FNB Stadium in Soweto. Barack Obama was introduced as ‘A son of the African soil’ and in his impressive speech he praised Mandela as the embodiment of the African ideal of unity, ‘Ubuntu’. He was also inspired to lecture some of the other world leaders sitting around him (viz. China, Iran, Zimbabwe – Robert Mugabe) by stating, ‘There are too many leaders who claim solidarity with Nelson Mandela’s struggle for freedom, but do not tolerate dissent from their own people,’ and ‘It took a man like Mandela to liberate not only the prisoner, but the jailer as well.’
Glossary
ANC African National Congress
BOSS Bureau of State Security – South Africa
BSAC British South Africa Company – Rhodesia/South Africa
BSAP British South Africa Police – Rhodesia
CIA Central Intelligence Agency – USA
CIO Central Intelligence Organisation – Rhodesia
ComOps Combined Operations – Rhodesia
FBI Federal Bureau of Investigation – USA
FRELIMO Mozambique Liberation Front
FR&N Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland
IRSAC Institut pour La Reserche Scientifique en Afrique Central
KAR King’s African Rifles (1st/2nd Battalions) – Nyasaland
MI5 British Security Service
MI6 British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS, ‘The Firm’)
MDC Movement for Democratic Change – Rhodesia
MPLA People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola
NDP National Democratic Party – Rhodesia
NRR Northern Rhodesia Regiment
NUF National Unifying Force – Rhodesia
OAU Organisation of African Unity
PEA Portuguese East Africa – Mozambique
PF Patriotic Front – Rhodesia
PSYAC Psychological Action Group – Rhodesia
RAR Rhodesian African Rifles
RF Rhodesian Front
RLI Rhodesian Light Infantry
R&NSC Rhodesia and Nyasaland Staff Corps
SAS Special Air Service – Rhodesia
SASO Senior Air Staff Officer – RAF
SIS Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) – UK
TTLs Tribal Trust Lands – Rhodesia
UDI Unilateral Declaration of Independence – Rhodesia
UFP United Federal Party – Rhodesia
UNITA National Union for the Total Independence of Angola
ZANLA Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army
ZANU/PF Zimbabwe African National Union – Patriotic Front
ZAPU Zimbabwe African People’s Union
ZIPRA Zimbabwe People’s Revolutionary Army
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