‘Mugabe is dead”. That’s a headline many long to see in their lifetime — so much so that, once in a while, we write it anyway.
A report on Wednesday that Robert Mugabe was in hospital quickly morphed into the tale that he had actually croaked.
So, distressed at missing the scoop, and having made a few calls to Zanu-PF types who laughed at me, I do what any self-respecting journo would do — hit Google. I log on to website deadoraliveinfo.com and, punch in Robert Mugabe on search.
Up pops a bright yellow smiley, with the search result: ‘Alive,” it says. ‘President of Zimbabwe, currently in the process of driving his country into bankruptcy, anarchy and starvation.”
So, no change there. Just to be sure, since Mugabe has recently added a few new prefixes to his name, I try again: ‘Robert Mugabe, Supreme Leader”, I write this time. ‘Alive,” says the site.
‘President of Zimbabwe, currently in the process of driving his country into bankruptcy, anarchy and starvation.” Bummer! He’s still at it! Mugabe dies every year.
Then reappears. One minute he’s wheezing up the old ghost in some Far East hospital, the next he’s running up the stairs like some kid, on to the plane and off to visit a fellow Supreme Leader.
Just as he will do soon when he visits Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who sent an emissary to Mugabe on Wednesday afternoon — as the rumours raged — inviting him to Venezuela.
The web search continues.There’s a 2004 article, ‘Mugabe death watch”, on a website called ‘Damnation”, speculating on Mugabe’s demise after he failed to attend a state funeral.
It links to a site called ‘The Daily Wanker”.
That figures. There’s a 2005 report quoting The Herald saying Mugabe had ‘scoffed at rumours doing rounds in Harare that he died last week following heart failure”.
Another, from 2006, quotes George Charamba, Mugabe’s press secretary, saying he had to check with Mugabe about reports that he’d died of heart failure. ‘He [Mugabe] said: ‘When did I die and where?”’
The good news is that wiki-News isn’t leaving anything to chance. It has a ‘prepared story”: ‘Robert Mugabe, dictator and president of Zimbabwe has died today at the age of AGE.
The cause of death was announced as CAUSEOFDEATH.”
The story, says wiki, ‘describes an event that is scheduled or expected, but has not yet occurred”. And so we wait.