Expelled Rugare Gumbo who was branded a traitor by President Mugabe says he feels sorry for him.
Gumbo told the Daily News that :”Normally these should be allegations that would make someone like me, who sacrificed a lot to liberate this country, very angry but because I know President (Robert) Mugabe very well, having been among the few who had to work hard to convince freedom fighters to accept him in Mozambique. I am bound to feel very sorry for him because he has not grown into the leader that we thought and fought to try and mould him into.
His major problem is that he cannot distinguish between criticism and betrayal and this has been his biggest undoing.
This has led him into making very serious errors of judgment, first in 1977/78 during the liberation struggle when he presided over the arbitrary arrests of nearly all Zipa commanders on trumped up charges of planning a coup d’état and these errors of judgment have continued way into his reign with devastating effects on his standing as a leader and dire economic consequences on the country he is leading.
What I have done in the past, during the war in 1977/78 and what I did in the last politburo meeting that I attended before being summarily expelled by Mugabe, was not betrayal but honest criticism borne out of the need, first to tell the truth, and second, to try and make him see that he, like any individual, makes mistakes and should therefore listen to those around him.
I am proud today and stand vindicated that the interview I gave to the Herald in 1980 clearly shows that I understood Mugabe had shortcomings, was an autocrat and that this country was going to suffer under his leadership.
It is unfortunate that the independence euphoria that engulfed the country then provided a smokescreen that blinded people from seeing the evil in him that they needed to deal with to make him, not only a better leader, but also a better person to live with in a democratic society.
It is true that during the war of liberation, in particular 1977 to 1978, some of us lost confidence in his leadership style which was a departure from the liberation values, which considered leadership as just division of labour not individual status of superiority over the people.
He also exhibited authoritarian and totalitarian tendencies. So as former members of the Dare Rechimurenga, we challenged those tendencies which were clearly a departure from the norms and values of the national liberation struggle, whose objective was one man one vote, true freedom and democracy for the people of Zimbabwe.
In 1980, the experience of 1977/78 which was his authoritarian and repressive response to the genuine and constructive criticism of the “leadership” which resulted in the detention of nearly all the commanders of Zipa and former members of Dare for the remaining 18 or so months before the Lancaster House Conference and the ceasefire was still fresh in my mind hence the emotion with which I described him and anticipated the type of leadership he was going to avail.
It was during this time in 1980 that I warned the people of Zimbabwe about the manipulative tactics that characterise his leadership and I feel vindicated by the history of Zimbabwe from 1980 to now, the events that took place between 1980 and now clearly indicate I was spot on in my description of a Zimbabwe under Mugabe.