http://www.sunday-times.co.uk/
Mugabe's men on the run from witchcraft
RW Johnson
ZIMBABWE'S embattled president, Robert Mugabe, is facing a new crisis: a
growing belief among his followers that he and his government have become
the victims of black magic, and that bad luck follows them at every turn.
Emmerson Mnangagwa, the much feared former head of the secret police and
Mugabe's designated successor, was visibly troubled when he went on
television last week to discuss recent setbacks, including the deaths of two
ministers in separate road accidents.
"We don't know what is hitting us," he lamented. "It's not natural.
Something else must be happening."
A regional leader of the ruling Zanu-PF party went further, saying: "We fear
the hand of Lucifer is at work."
The comments follow an unprecedented sequence of disasters for Mugabe.
First, his brutal and dynamic campaign organiser, Border Gezi, was killed in
a car crash.
Gezi had created a slush fund within his Ministry for Youth and Job Creation
that was used to pay election bribes in every municipal poll and
parliamentary by-election.
Mugabe had been counting on Gezi to get him re-elected as president next
year.
His trade minister, Nkosana Moyo, quietly shipped himself and his family to
the safety of South Africa before announcing he had resigned from the
cabinet on the grounds that Mugabe's policies had made his job impossible.
Then the defence minister, Moven Mahachi, was killed in another car
accident. Mahachi, an unconditional loyalist, was responsible for the
detention and torture of two leading black journalists last year.
The opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) had earlier persuaded a
court to set aside several election results because widespread violence by
Mugabe's party meant they had not been fair.
The judge brave enough to reach this decision had to resign the next day but
a legal precedent had been set for MDC challenges in more than two dozen
other seats.
Meanwhile, the invasions of urban businesses by Mugabe's shock troops, the
war veterans, have rebounded so badly that they not only had to be called
off, but the government claimed they had been carried out by "rogue
elements".
Among Zanu-PF's often superstitious supporters, the greatest impact has come
from the deaths of Gezi and Mahachi and the electrifying news that Hitler
Hunzvi, the war veterans' leader who led the invasions of white farms, had
collapsed.
Conscious that his macho image was on the line, Hunzvi discharged himself a
few days later, but he has collapsed again and is officially back in
hospital suffering from "cerebral malaria".
On the streets of Harare, the word is that all this is the work of a
powerful sangoma (witchdoctor) the MDC is said to have brought from South
Africa - a rumour the opposition ridicules.
But such superstition has permeated even the educated elite. When Mugabe
approached several leading businessmen about taking over the trade ministry,
he was turned down. "To get involved with Mugabe is to invite bad luck into
your life," said one.
Although Mugabe is notionally a Catholic, he has increasingly fallen back on
the tribal religions that many Zimbabweans combine to a greater or lesser
degree with Christianity.
Mugabe's supporters are vocal in their traditionalist beliefs. The war vets
have their own spirit medium, Sekuru Mushore, whose dictum is that "those
who die killing a white man will have no sin before Jehovah".
Mushore has his troubles with the law because he openly insists that using
marijuana and having sex with young women are legitimate parts of the
rituals he performs.
Similarly, many of Mugabe's rural supporters belong to the Va Pastori
church, whose followers proclaim a brand of Christianity but are frequently
caught up in witchcraft rituals.
But Mugabe's encouragement of tribal religion and scorn for the modern world
has now rebounded on him, for his authority and air of invulnerability has
been badly dented by the "black magic" explanations for his run of bad luck.
The Sunday Times.url
