24th January 2003

Vol 44 N0 2

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Zimbabwe ZIMBABWE

Coming out of the closet

The first plan may have failed but finding an exit route for Comrade Mugabe is now political centre stage

The architects of the soft-landing plan for President Robert Gabriel Mugabe are frustrated (AC Vol 44 No 1). Their efforts have produced the opposite effect to that intended: Mugabe is now less inclined to negotiate a retirement than he was six months ago. Not only have Colonel Lionel Dyck and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai exposed the scheme, the public naming of parliamentary Speaker Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa and the Commander of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces, General Vitalis Gava Zvinavashe (AC Vol 43 No 23), as its authors has made them targets of Mugabe's considerable wrath. Enraged that he wasn't informed about the advanced state of the negotiations several meetings with South African President Thabo Mbeki and intermediaries in Britain Mugabe has interpreted Mnangagwa's and Zvinavashe's scheme as tantamount to treason. Mugabe's attack-dog, Information Minister Jonathan Moyo, told the state-owned daily, The Herald that the Mnangagwa plan amounted to a coup d'état....

(This article contains approximately 1143 words)

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Keywords:

 Robert Gabriel Mugabe, Lionel Dyck, Morgan Tsvangirai, Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa, Vitalis Gava Zvinavashe, South African, Thabo Mbeki, Britain, Jonathan Moyo, Moyo, Chinamasa and Made, Patrick Chinamasa, Joseph Made, Stan Mudenge, Samuel Mbengegwi, Tony Blair, Mutumwa Mawere, John Arnold, Bredenkamp, United States, Constantine Chiwenga, Perence Shiri, Solomon Mujuru, Simba Makoni, Sidney Sekeramayi, Dumiso Dabengwa, John Nkomo, The Herald, coup d'état, Sunday Times, nom de guerre, Business Tribune