Categories: Stories

Robert Mugabe Wikileaks cables – Part Nine

Herald columnist Nathaniel Manheru boasted nearly 14 years ago that President Robert Mugabe was an impossible nut to crack for the United States government.

Manheru, who even the United States embassy identified as then Information Minister Jonathan Moyo, was probably right because six US presidents have come and gone while Mugabe hangs on.

Jimmy Carter was serving his final year when Mugabe was elected Prime Minister in 1980.  Ronald Reagan served two terms (8 years) and left.

He was followed by George Bush senior who served one term, Bill Clinton who served two terms, George Bush junior who served two terms and Barack Obama who also served two terms. Now there is Donald Trump.

Mugabe has survived them all and is planning to contest next year’s elections to serve another five years,  though this will be his final term whether he likes to continue or not.

Moyo, on the other hand, lost favour with Mugabe a year after this write-up and was on his own for four years before being readmitted to the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front.

Though he was initially given back his post of Information after ZANU-PF swept back to power in 2013, Moyo was moved to Higher Education in what most people thought was a demotion but Moyo argued otherwise.

But the media that was under his tight control is now after him exposing any perceived scandal that he might be involved in.

But always the darling of the media, the privately owned media has opened its doors to him.

Mugabe has singled Moyo out for praise twice, first at the 2003 party annual conference in Masvingo and secondly at the 2013 party conference in Chinhoyi.

Below are the first 180 of the 626 Wikileaks cables on Mugabe.

Continued next page

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This post was last modified on July 16, 2017 4:35 pm

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Charles Rukuni

The Insider is a political and business bulletin about Zimbabwe, edited by Charles Rukuni. Founded in 1990, it was a printed 12-page subscription only newsletter until 2003 when Zimbabwe's hyper-inflation made it impossible to continue printing.

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