-Caveat Lector- http://www.sunday-times.co.uk/news/pages/sti/2001/08/12/stifgnafr01002.html August 12 2001 AFRICA Mugabe eats supper with spirit of dead rival R W Johnson, Harare Paranoid president ROBERT MUGABE, Zimbabwe's embattled president, believes he is haunted by the ghost of a former rival who berates him for mismanaging the country, aides have said. For six months, Mugabe has been "seeing" Josiah Tongogara, a former guerrilla leader who was expected to become president in 1980, but died in a car crash. Mugabe is said to be tormented by his accusations that the revolution for which they fought has been destroyed. Staff at the presidential palace say that in an effort to placate Tongogara, Mugabe sets an extra place at dinner each night and orders food to be served for him. He has sought help from witchdoctors, a rain goddess and an oracle. Dr Vlad Rankovic, a government psychiatrist, has prescribed anti-depressants to help Mugabe, 77, overcome his anxiety. The president's wife, Grace, is understood to believe his psychological deterioration began after parliamentary elections last year, when Mugabe's supporters resorted to violence to help him secure a narrow victory over the Movement for Democratic Change. Mugabe is said to have become convinced shortly afterwards that she was going to run away with their two children. She has since been largely confined to the presidential palace. Mugabe's distress deepened before an eclipse in June - a portent of evil in traditional tribal culture. He has also been disturbed by the recent deaths of Hitler Hunzvi, leader of the "war veterans" who have occupied white farms, and two ministers killed in road accidents. As attacks on white farmers intensified in the north of the country yesterday and 50 families fled properties near Chinhoyi after looting by pro-government militants, Mugabe was pressed by advisers to declare martial law, imprison his opponents and call off a presidential election due by next April. He warned whites not to organise themselves against landless blacks, saying any attacks could "ricochet". In a rambling speech, he also condemned the US Senate for passing a bill last week aimed at funding democratic change in Zimbabwe. "They feel repulsed that we seek to correct the imbalances of the sinful slave past," Mugabe said. "Our crime is that we are black and in America blacks are a condemned race." http://www.sunday-times.co.uk/news/pages/sti/2001/08/12/stifgnafr02001.html Paranoid Mugabe dines with a ghost RW Johnson, Harare Mugabe eats supper with spirit of dead rival THE residents of Harare tend to hurry past the long, forbidding walls of Robert Mugabe's presidential palace, protected as they are by electrified wire and armed sentries with bayonets fixed and the muzzles of their automatic weapons pointing at every passer-by. Few know what happens within those walls, for the president is secretive to the point of paranoia. He ensures that his movements remain unpredictable even to the elite Presidential Guard and the much-feared secret police of his Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO). Mugabe, 77, who has torn up the rule of law, orchestrated a reign of terror and brought his country's once-strong economy close to collapse, is seldom seen in public now. His swollen neck and face are apparent evidence of steroid treatment; the talk is of prostate cancer. But inside the palace a terrifying dialogue is going on. For the president believes himself to be haunted by the ghost of a man many believe to have been a victim of his rise to power: Josiah Tongogara, the charismatic guerrilla leader of the Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army (Zanla). Tongogara was widely expected to become president in 1980, with Mugabe as prime minister, but no sooner had Zanu won the independence election than Tongogara was killed in a car crash. As the African tradition of the politically convenient crash has become entrenched, so doubts have grown that the death was really an accident. Mugabe had made it clear that he wanted "total power" - and with the popular and comparatively moderate Tongogara as president, he would not have had that. The Sunday Times has learnt that staff at the presidential palace are seriously alarmed at the state to which Mugabe has been reduced by Tongogara's "ghost". It is said to be tormenting him with accusations that his mismanagement has destroyed the revolution for which they fought together. In the tradition of the Shona, the Bantu-speaking people who comprise three-quarters of Zimbabwe's population, the spirits of the dead have easy contact with the living and have the power to "possess" an individual. Normally they are benevolent and protect him - but if angered they can bring sickness. Mugabe believes he is dealing with an ngozi or aggrieved spirit, a far more dangerous proposition. The ngozi is the spirit of someone who died violently or in extreme anger or bitterness. It never finds rest until full retribution has been made; it continues to haunt until fully placated, when at last it is allowed to join the rest of the spirit world. Accordingly, Mugabe is trying his best to soothe the ghost. An extra place is set at dinner for Tongogara and food is served for him. Presidential staff are alarmed because Mugabe has been "seeing" Tongogara for more than six months. "What we're all really worried about," said one source, "is that he might lose it altogether, like he did after Sally [his first wife] died." The president has sought the help of nyangas (witchdoctors) far and wide, but nobody seems able to help except the Rain Goddess at Sengwa and the Oracle of Mlimo at Njelele. Since the former is Ndebele and the latter Tonga - both persecuted minority groups - neither is willing to come to his aid. He has also sought help from the Serbian Dr Vlad Rankovic, the government psychiatrist, who is not believed to be sympathetic to the "haunting" theory behind the president's evident anxiety attacks and has prescribed anti-depressants. Mugabe, though a nominal Catholic, appears not to have sought the assistance of the church. As he ages, he seems to have returned increasingly to traditional Shona beliefs and has seldom been seen in church since his marriage to Grace, his young second wife. His anxiety increased considerably in the weeks approaching last June's eclipse, a foretelling of evil in Shona belief. The deaths of Border Gezi, his youth minister and favourite, Moven Mahachi, the defence minister, and Hitler Hunzvi, the war veterans' leader, also unsettled him. Although he ordained a media campaign insisting that the eclipse was not a harbinger of evil, "it was the president who most needed convincing", one source said. Awkward questions are still being asked about the car accident in which Mahachi died two months ago. There are reports that Mahachi, concerned at the destabilisation of Zimbabwe, had talked to some army leaders about the circumstances in which the military might intervene, and that news of these unwelcome conversations had reached hardline Mugabe supporters. Grace Mugabe is believed to date the deterioration in her husband's psychological state from the parliamentary elections last year, in which the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) won nearly half the seats and gave notice of a determined challenge in the presidential election, now only eight months away. Rule of the gun: as Mugabe sickens, police confront opposition supporters in Msvingo The stress of the approaching contest should not be underestimated: Morgan Tsvangirai, the formidable MDC leader, is trying to take it all away from him. Mugabe's response has become more and more frenzied. He has threatened the MDC, torn up the law book and launched ever more vicious attacks on white farmers. Yesterday the wives of 11 farmers arrested for resisting "war vets" were beaten in front of their husbands after they tried to take food to the men's prison cells. Mugabe is even suspicious of his wife. Not long after the elections he decided that Grace had been planning to abscond, taking their two children with her; opinion is divided as to whether she really had been planning to leave or not. Their relationship has still not recovered from the tremendous row and Grace has been largely confined to the presidential palace ever since. Certainly, the CIO operatives who accompany her every time she goes out to the shops or to functions have been left in little doubt that their role as bodyguards is secondary to that of ensuring that she does not leave. There is little sympathy for her, though: "She's had her fun - and now the bill is coming in. Tough," said one source. It is in the fevered atmosphere of the presidential palace that Mugabe will soon decide whether to declare martial law in the face of looming sanctions by America and the European Union. He could then imprison the whole MDC leadership and dispense with the presidential election altogether. "He could lock us all up, but he'd have to be crazy to do it," said Tsvangirai, who has been thrown in jail once before by Mugabe. "The more he departs from constitutional rule, the more he will hasten the crisis for himself." Tsvangirai's calculations relate to a rational political world, however. Mugabe's relate to the terrible need to stop the tormenting sight and voice of Tongogara's shadow. ============================================== SPY NEWS is OSINT newsletter and discussion list associated to Mario's Cyberspace Station http://mprofaca.cro.net/mainmenu.html ============================================== *** NOTICE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. 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