September 6, 2019 Update: Robert Mugabe Dead
As reported by CNN:
Robert Mugabe, the founding father of Zimbabwe, has died. Mugabe, who was 95, ruled the country with an iron fist for more than three decades before getting pushed out of power two years ago in a coup. When he became the newly independent Zimbabwe’s first prime minister in 1980, he was touted internationally as the hope of his nation. But he turned into a tyrannical leader who waged a campaign of oppression and violence to maintain power. He drove Zimbabwe, once known as southern Africa’s breadbasket, into poverty. Read more about his complicated legacy here.
Personality Profile of Zimbabwe’s
President Robert Mugabe
Aubrey Immelman and Adam Beatty
Unit for the Study of Personality in Politics
October 2002
This paper presents the results of an indirect assessment of the personality of Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, from the conceptual perspective of Theodore Millon.
Information concerning President Mugabe was collected from media reports and synthesized into a personality profile using the second edition of the Millon Inventory of Diagnostic Criteria (MIDC), which yields 34 normal and maladaptive personality classifications congruent with Axis II of DSM-IV.
The personality profile yielded by the MIDC was analyzed on the basis of interpretive guidelines provided in the MIDC and Millon Index of Personality Styles manuals.
Mr. Mugabe’s primary personality patterns were found to be Conscientious / compulsive and Ambitious / self-serving, with secondary Dominant / controlling, Retiring /aloof, and Distrusting / suspicious patterns. In addition, his profile revealed the presence of subsidiary Contentious / resolute and Reticent / circumspect features.
Mugabe’s profile suggests the presence of Millon’s bureaucratic compulsive syndrome — a conscientious personality orientation infused with narcissistic features. Leaders with this composite character complex are noted for their officious, high-handed bearing, intrusive, meddlesome interpersonal conduct, unimaginative, meticulous, closed-minded cognitive style, grim, imperturbable mood, and scrupulous if grandiose sense of self.
The major leadership and policy implications of the study are that President Mugabe will continue clinging to power and seeking to reshape Zimbabwe according to his personal ideological vision; that his policies will be noted for the tenacity with which he advances a central idea (e.g., land reform); that he will increasingly exhibit an “us versus them” view of the world, with a corresponding willingness to use perceived enemies as scapegoats; that he will be inflexible and highly task-oriented, overlooking the human dimension in his response to political problems and invoking moralistic principles and impersonal mechanisms (e.g., decrees, proclamations, and state-sanctioned use of force) to impose solutions — potentially with destructive or self-defeating consequences.
Full report
The Political Personality of Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe
Paper by Aubrey Immelman and Adam Beatty presented at the 26th Annual Scientific Meeting of the International Society of Political Psychology, Boston, MA, July 6–9, 2003. Abstract and link for full-text (28 pages; PDF) download at Digital Commons: http://digitalcommons.csbsju.edu/psychology_pubs/30/
Top Envoy for Africa: Zimbabwe Has Collapsed
U.S. official warns of impending Somalia-scale chaos
Misheck Bunyira carries his wife Janet, in the late stages of pregnancy, to hospital by wheelbarrow in Epworth, Harare, Wednesday, Dec. 17, 2008. Zimbabwe’s health system, once the envy of of many African nations, is in a state of collapse with many hospitals either completely shut down or unable to admit new patients. (Photo credit: Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi / AP)
December 18, 2008
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa — Zimbabwe has collapsed, and the world must act now to keep it from deteriorating into Somalia-scale chaos, the top U.S. envoy for Africa said Thursday.
U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Jendayi Frazer said questions about how much longer Zimbabwe can withstand hunger, disease and political stalemate before disintegrating ignore that “there is a complete collapse right now.”
If action is not taken soon, chaos could ensue and Zimbabwe’s neighbors will be calling for peacekeepers, as some are now calling for in Somalia, Frazer said during an interview in South Africa.
Frazer was in southern Africa to consult with regional leaders about what can be done to help Zimbabwe. A day earlier, South African President Kgalema Motlanthe stressed that he believed a proposed unity government was the solution, and that it must be formed quickly.
U.S. among Mugabe’s critics
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, in power since independence from Britain in 1980 and seen as increasingly autocratic, and the opposition have been deadlocked over a power-sharing agreement since September.
Frazer said that while the U.S. was not saying the power-sharing agreement has no chance, its proposal is that Mugabe yield to a caretaker government to organize new elections. The U.S. is among Mugabe’s sharpest critics, accusing him of trampling on democracy and destroying a once prosperous and stable nation.
“We think that the person who has ruined the country … that he needs to step down,” Frazer said. “We’re watching Zimbabwe become a failed state. We need to act now, proactively, in Zimbabwe.”
The political impasse comes amid a mounting economic and humanitarian crisis that has pushed thousands of Zimbabweans to the point of starvation and left 1,111 dead of cholera since August.
The latest figures, compiled by the World Health Organization and released Thursday, show that the number of cases has risen to 20,581 since the start of the outbreak. …
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12/27/2010 Update
Fears growing of Mugabe’s iron grip over Zimbabwe (Celia W. Dugger, New York Times, Dec. 26, 2010) — Warning signs are proliferating that President Robert Mugabe is planning to seize untrammeled control during the elections he wants in 2011. … Full story
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11/29/2010 Update
WikiLeaks: Ambassador Reports on Zimbabwe’s Leader
As Christopher W. Dell leaves Zimbabwe after three years as American ambassador, he sends a frank account of its aging, erratic leader, Robert Mugabe.
Date: 2007-07-13 10:04:00
Source: Embassy Harare
Classification: CONFIDENTIAL
C O N F I D E N T I A L
SIPDIS
SIPDIS
DEPARTMENT FOR P, AF, AND AF/S FOR MOZENA AND HILL, NSC FOR SENIOR AFRICA DIRECTOR B. PITTMAN AND B. LEO; USAID FOR M. COPSON AND E. LOKEN
E.O. 12958: DECL: 07/12/2017
TAGS: PGOV, PREL, ZI
SUBJECT: The End is Nigh
Classified By: Ambassador Christopher W. Dell under Section 1.4b/d
1. (C) Having said my piece repeatedly over the last three years, I won’t offer a lengthy prescription for our Zimbabwe policy. My views can be stated very simply as stay the course and prepare for change. Our policy is working and it’s helping to drive change here. What is required is simply the grit, determination and focus to see this through. Then, when the changes finally come we must be ready to move quickly to help consolidate the new dispensation.
THE SITUATION
2. (C) Robert Mugabe has survived for so long because he is more clever and more ruthless than any other politician in Zimbabwe. To give the devil his due, he is a brilliant tactitian [sic] and has long thrived on his ability to abruptly change the rules of the game, radicalize the political dynamic and force everyone else to react to his agenda. However, he is fundamentally hampered by several factors: his ego and belief in his own infallibility; his obsessive focus on the past as a justification for everything in the present and future; his deep ignorance on economic issues (coupled with the belief that his 18 doctorates give him the authority to suspend the laws of economics, including supply and demand); and his essentially short-term, tactical style.
3. (C) While his tactical skills have kept him in power for 27 years, over the last seven this has only been achieved by a series of populist, but destructive and ultimately self-defeating moves. In reaction to losing the 2000 referendum on the constitution, a vengeful Mugabe unleashed his “Green Bombers” to commit land reform and in the process he destroyed Zimbabwe’s agricultural sector, once the bedrock of the economy. While thousands of white farmers saw their properties seized, hundreds of thousands of black Zimbabweans lost their livelihoods and were reduced to utter poverty. In 2005, having been forced to steal victory by manipulating the results of an election he lost, Mugabe lashed out again, punishing the urban populace by launching Operation Murambatsvina. The result was wholesale destruction of the informal sector, on which as much as 70-80 percent of urban dwellers had depended, and the uprooting of 700,000 Zimbabweans. The current inflationary cycle really began with Murambatsvina, as rents and prices grew in response to a decrease in supply.
4. (C) And now, faced with the hyperinflationary consequences of his ruinous fiscal policies and growing reliance on the printing press to keep his government running, Mugabe has launched Operation Slash Prices. This has once again given him a very temporary boost in popularity (especially among the police, who have led the looting of retail outlets and now seem well positioned to take a leading role in the black market economy) at the cost of terrible damage to the country and people. Many small grocery and shop owners, traders, etc., will be wiped out; the shelves are increasingly bare; hunger, fear, and tension are growing; fuel has disappeared. When the shelves are still empty this time next week, the popular appeal of the price roll back will evaporate and the government simply doesn’t have the resources to replace the entire private commercial sector and keep Zimbabweans fed. It may attempt to do so by printing more money, adding even more inflationary pressure on a system already reeling from the GOZ’s quasi-fiscal lunacy combined with the price impact of pervasive shortages. The increasingly worthless Zim dollar is likely to collapse as a unit of trade in the near future, depriving the GOZ of its last economic tool other than sheer thuggery and theft of others’ assets.
5. (C) With all this in view, I’m convinced the end is not far off for the Mugabe regime. Of course, my predecessors and many other observers have all said the same thing, and yet Mugabe is still with us. I think this time could prove different, however, because for the first time the president is under intensifying pressure simultaneously on the economic, political and international fronts. In the past, he could always play one of these off against the other, using economic moves to counter political pressure or playing the old colonial/race/imperialist themes to buy himself breathing room regionally and internationally. But he is running out of options and in the swirling gases of the new Zimbabwean constellation that is starting to form, the economic, political and international pressures are concentrating on Mugabe himself. Our ZANU-PF contacts are virtually unanimous in saying reform is desperately needed, but won’t happen while the Old Man is there, and therefore he must go (finding the courage to make that happen is another matter, however, but even that may be coming closer). This is not some sudden awakening on the road to Damascus, but a reflection of the pain even party insiders increasingly feel over the economic meltdown. We also get regular, albeit anecdotal, reports of angry and increasingly open mutterings against Mugabe even in ZANU-PF’s traditional rural bastions. Beginning in March, the other SADC leaders finally recognized (in the wake of the terrible beatings of March 11 and the international outcry that followed — another self-inflicted wound for Mugabe) that Zimbabwe is a problem they need to address. Thabo Mbeki appears committed to a successful mediation and is reportedly increasingly irritated with Mugabe’s efforts to manipulate him or blow him off altogether. If Mugabe judges that he still commands all he surveys by virtue of being the elder statesman on the scene, he may be committing yet another serious blunder. Finally, one does well to recall that the only serious civil disturbances here in a decade came in 1998 over bread shortages, showing that even the famously passive Shona people have their limits. The terror and oppression of the intervening years have cowed people, but it’s anyone’s guess whether their fear or their anger will win out in the end.
WHAT WILL THE END LOOK LIKE?
6. (C) This is the big, unanswerable question. One thing at least is certain, Mugabe will not wake up one morning a changed man, resolved to set right all he has wrought. He will not go quietly nor without a fight. He will cling to power at all costs and the costs be damned, he deserves to rule by virtue of the liberation struggle and land reform and the people of Zimbabwe have let him down by failing to appreciate this, thus he needn’t worry about their well-being. The only scenario in which he might agree to go with a modicum of good grace is one in which he concludes that the only way to end his days a free man is by leaving State House. I judge that he is still a long way from this conclusion and will fight on for now.
7. (C) The optimal outcome, of course, and the only one that doesn’t bring with it a huge risk of violence and conflict, is a genuinely free and fair election, under international supervision. The Mbeki mediation offers the best, albeit very slim, hope of getting there. However, as Pretoria grows more and more worried about the chaos to its north and President Mbeki’s patience with Mugabe’s antics wears thin, the prospects for serious South African engagement may be growing. Thus, this effort deserves all the support and backing we can muster. Less attractive is the idea of a South African-brokered transitional arrangement or government of national unity. Mbeki has always favored stability and in his mind this means a ZANU-PF-led GNU, with perhaps a few MDC additions. This solution is more likely to prolong than resolve the crisis and we must guard against letting Pretoria dictate an outcome which perpetuates the status quo at the expense of real change and reform.
8. (C) The other scenarios are all less attractive: a popular uprising would inevitably entail a bloodbath, even if it were ultimately successful; Mugabe’s sudden, unexpected death would set off a stampede for power among ZANU-PF heavy weights; a palace coup, whether initiated within ZANU-PF or from the military — in which Mugabe is removed, killed, exiled or otherwise disposed of, could well devolve into open conflict between the contending successors. Similarly, some form of “constitutional coup” i.e., a change at the top engineered within the framework of ZANU-PFQs “legitimate” structures could well prove to be merely the opening bell in a prolonged power struggle. None of the players is likely to go quietly into the night without giving everything they have, including calling on their supporters in the security services. Moreover, experience elsewhere would suggest that whoever comes out on top initially will struggle, and more than likely fail, to halt the economic collapse. Thus, there is a good prospect of not one but a series of rapid-fire “transitions,” until some new, stable dispensation is reached.
9. (C) The final, and probably worst, possibility is that Mugabe concludes he can settle for ruling over a rump Zimbabwe, maintaining control over Harare and the Mashona heartland, the critical forces of the National Reserve Force and CIO and a few key assets — gold, diamonds, platinum and Air Zimbabwe to fund the good times. Under this scenario the rest of the country, in one of the comrade’s favorite phrases, could “go hang,” leaving it to the international community to stave off the worst humanitarian consequences.
WHAT OF THE OPPOSITION?
10. (C) ZimbabweQs opposition is far from ideal and I leave convinced that had we had different partners we could have achieved more already. But you have to play the hand you’re dealt. With that in mind, the current leadership has little executive experience and will require massive hand holding and assistance should they ever come to power.
11. (C) Morgan Tsvangarai is a brave, committed man and, by and large, a democrat. He is also the only player on the scene right now with real star quality and the ability to rally the masses. But Tsvangarai is also a flawed figure, not readily open to advice, indecisive and with questionable judgment in selecting those around him. He is the indispensable element for opposition success, but possibly an albatross around their necks once in power. In short, he is a kind of Lech Walesa character: Zimbabwe needs him, but should not rely on his executive abilities to lead the country’s recovery. Arthur Mutambara is young and ambitious, attracted to radical, anti-western rhetoric and smart as a whip. But, in many respects he’s a light-weight who has spent too much time reading U.S. campaign messaging manuals and too little thinking about the real issues. Welshman Ncube has proven to be a deeply divisive and destructive player in the opposition ranks and the sooner he is pushed off the stage, the better. But he is useful to many, including the regime and South Africa, so is probably a cross to be borne for some time yet. The prospects for healing the rift within the MDC seem dim, which is a totally unnecessary self-inflicted wound on their part this time. With few exceptions — Tendayi Biti, Nelson Chamisa — the talent is thin below the top ranks. The great saving grace of the opposition is likely to be found in the diaspora. Most of Zimbabwe’s best professionals, entrepreneurs, businessmen and women, etc., have fled the country. They are the opposition’s natural allies and it is encouraging to see signs, particularly in South Africa and the UK, that these people are talking, sharing ideas, developing plans and thinking together about future recovery.
12. (C) Unfortunately, among the MDC’s flaws is its inability to work more effectively with the rest of civil society. The blame for this can be shared on both sides (many civil society groups, like the NCA, are single-issue focused and take the overall dynamic in unhelpful directions; others, like WOZA, insist on going it alone as a matter of principle), but ultimately it falls to the MDC as the largest and the only true political party, to show the way. Once again, however, these are natural allies and they have more reason to work together than fight against each other.
STAYING THE COURSE, PREPARING FOR CHANGE
13. (C) If I am right and change is in the offing, we need to step up our preparations. The work done over the last year on transition planning has been extremely useful, both for stimulating a fresh look at our own assumptions and plans and for forging a common approach among the traditional donor community. But the process has lagged since the meetings in March in London and should be re-energized. It is encouraging in this respect that USAID Washington has engaged the Mission here in discussing how we would use additional resources in response to a genuinely reform-minded government . I hope this will continue and the good work done so far will survive the usual bloodletting of the budget process.
14. (C) The official media has had a field day recently whooping that “Dell leaves Zimbabwe a failed man”. That’s not quite how it looks from here. I believe that the firm U.S. stance, the willingness to speak out and stand up, have contributed to the accelerating pace of change. Mugabe and his henchman are like bullies everywhere: if they can intimidate you they will. But ther’re not used to someone standing up to them and fighting back. It catches them off guard and that’s when they make mistakes. The howls of protest over critical statements from Washington or negative coverage on CNN are the clearest proof of how this hurts them. Ditto the squeals over “illegal sanctions.” In addition, the regime has become so used to calling the shots and dictating the pace that the merest stumble panics them. Many local observers have noted that Mugabe is panicked and desperate about hyperinflation at the moment, and hence he’s making mistakes. Possibly fatal mistakes. We need to keep the pressure on in order to keep Mugabe off his game and on his back foot, relying on his own shortcomings to do him in. Equally important is an active U.S. leadership role in the international community. The UK is ham-strung by its colonial past and domestic politics, thus, letting them set the pace alone merely limits our effectiveness. The EU is divided between the hard north and its soft southern underbelly. The Africans are only now beginning to find their voice. Rock solid partners like Australia don’t pack enough punch to step out front and the UN is a non-player. Thus it falls to the U.S., once again, to take the lead, to say and do the hard things and to set the agenda. Hundreds, maybe thousands, of ordinary Zimbabweans of all kinds have told me that our clear, forthright stance has given them hope and the courage to hang on. By this regime’s standards, acting in the interests of the people may indeed be considered a failure. But I believe that the opposite is true, and that we can be justifiably proud that in Zimbabwe we have helped advance the President’s freedom Agenda. The people of this country know it and recognize it and that is the true touchstone of our success here.
DELL
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Related commentary
The Zimbabwe Cable (Walter Rhett, Southern Perlo blog, Dec. 5, 2010)
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