Tens of thousands of Zimbabweans yesterday flooded the streets of Harare, singing, dancing and hugging soldiers in an extraordinary outpouring of elation at the expected fall of Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, their leader of the past 37 years.
Mugabe, the only ruler Zimbabwe has known since independence from Britain in 1980, has been holed up in his lavish “Blue Roof” compound, from where he has watched support from his ZANU-PF party, the security services and the people evaporate in the wake of a military seizure of power on Wednesday.
On the streets of the capital, people let their emotions run free as they spoke of political and economic change after two decades of repression and deepening hardship.
Photo: AP
“These are tears of joy,” said Frank Mutsindikwa, 34, holding aloft the Zimbabwean flag. “I’ve been waiting all my life for this day. Free at last. We are free at last.”
Some held aloft placards reading “No to Mugabe dynasty” and pumping their fists in the air in a sign of freedom.
Others embraced the soldiers who seized power, shouting “Thank you! Thank you!” in scenes unthinkable even a week ago.
“These are our leaders now,” said Remember Moffat, 22, waving a picture of army commander Constantino Chiwenga and Emmerson Mnangagwa, the former vice president whose sacking this month precipitated the military intervention.
“My dream is to see a new Zimbabwe. I’ve only known this tyrant called Mugabe my whole life,” Moffat said.
The ruling ZANU-PF on Friday called for Mugabe to resign, the Herald state newspaper reported, in a clear sign that the 93-year-old leader’s authority has gone.
Mugabe is admired by some as an elder statesman and anti-colonial hero, but many more at home and abroad revile him as a dictator happy to resort to violence to retain power and to run a once-promising economy into the ground.
The Herald, a normally loyal Mugabe mouthpiece, said ZANU-PF branches in all 10 provinces were also calling for Mugabe’s wife, Grace, whose ambitions to succeed her husband have outraged the military and much of the nation, to resign from the party.
A senior party member said the party wanted Mugabe out and would not tolerate foot-dragging.
“If he becomes stubborn, we will arrange for him to be fired on Sunday,” the source said. “When that is done, it’s impeachment on Tuesday.”
Pointedly, the military threw its weight behind yesterday’s “solidarity march,” part of an apparent attempt to give its use of force a veneer of massive popular support to avoid the diplomatic backlash that normally follows coups.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion