Jan Raath in Harare
THE word “august” gets its very meaning from the Law Society’s annual dinner. The legal eagles of Zimbabwe gathered in black tie rectitude last Saturday in the Royal Harare Golf Club, with their wives softening the crispness of the occasion.
Imagine Chief Justice Ted Gubbay without his shoulder-length horsehair wig, attorney- general Patrick Chinamasa without his gown and his deep frown, advocate Adrian de Bourbon not talking down to his trembling adversary; all the other judges at their ease with drinks in their hands and being thoroughly convivial: no m’ludding and my- learned-friending, just normal people.
At 8.30pm, the guest of honour had still not arrived, although there had been confirmation earlier that day that he would definitely be there. A phone call was made, and received the bland reply: he can’t come.
That was all. No explanation and no apology. It was left to an embarrassed secretary for justice to fumble his way through a hastily concocted speech before the disbelieving guests.
Who was the yobbo?
President Robert Mugabe.
Standing up his own judiciary is one of a series of instances of discourtesies, absences and inappropriate behaviour committed by Mugabe in recent weeks. They are giving Zimbabweans serious anxiety over the head of state, now more than ever as the country accelerates into economic and labour crises.
“This is a serious avoidance game,” said John Makumbe, acting chairman of the Zimbabwe chapter of Transparency International, the Bonn-based pressure group for state accountability. “It has far exceeded rational behaviour.”
On Friday last week, British Trade Minister Tony Nelson was kept waiting virtually until he reached the steps of the flight back to London, without knowing whether Mugabe would find time to see him. Nelson was the first visiting British minister in 16 years of independence not to have been given time to see the president.
This week, an International Monetary Fund (IMF) team, here to gauge whether Zimbabwe had done enough to qualify for a renewal of lending it desperately needs, flew out of Harare without an interview. It was widely interpreted as an opportunity for Mugabe to smooth over his injudicious denunciation of the bank as a “blind dictator” last month, but he ignored it.
Michael Nowak, the IMF Southern Africa divisional chief, wondered whether Mugabe’s attack was “an indication of a lack of commitment” to the economic reforms the bank wants to see. Zimbabwe did not qualify for the cash.
If his schedule is too busy to fit in eminent people with the will to lend a good word in global business circles for the Zimbabwean economy, surely he remains a man of the people?
Sorry. October 10 was the 50th anniversary of Goromonzi Secondary School just outside Harare, the country’s first black government high school, with alumni who comprise many of the Cabinet and Zimbabwe’s senior black professionals. The school was telephoned an hour before to be told he was too busy to attend.
Soon after he was due at Kwenda mission in Chikomba communal land, where his heavy- lidded young wife, Grace, hails from. They, too, had to find a replacement for the guest of honour within an hour.
International travel continues to take a large bite out of his crowded diary. On Monday night he flew to Italy, via London, two days ahead of the World Food Conference he is due to address. Add to this trips to Cape Town, Maseru, Hamburg, Vienna, Geneva, Accra, Ouagadougo, Luanda, Kingston, and Yaounde that he has flown to since his extraordinarily expensive wedding in August.
It was on the eve of a planned general strike that he left for Rome, while a strike by nurses and junior doctors in Harare was into its fourth week and had spread to Bulawayo and Mutare.
The lives of thousands of urban poor have been made a misery by the lack of medical services. Mugabe’s response has been a refusal to talk to the strikers, to sack them and a so-far failed attempt to replace them with expatriates from South Africa and Britain.
The strike flopped, but the timing of Mugabe’s departure for Rome did not go unnoticed by Morgan Tsvangirai, the secretary-general of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU), who asked if the president thought he was Vasco da Gama. “There is no excuse for not doing your work,” he fumed.
“Things are falling apart at home,” said Makumbe. “But Mugabe seems to have gone back to boyhood, falling in love with Grace, and taking her all over the world, telling her, `let me show you Rome’.
“Mobutu and Mugabe are the only African leaders enjoying themselves in Europe while their countries are cracking up. It’s a pity.”