Yesterday in Zimbabwe the streets belonged to its joyous people. Had they danced, sang, chanted or brandished ‘Mugabe Out’ placards last week, they would have faced violent reprisals from security forces.
But yesterday the 37-year rule of Robert Mugabe – one of Africa’s most iconic figures, one of the world’s most reviled men – was in its death throes, and the people savoured every twitch.
Stubborn to the last, 93-year-old Mugabe woke up still refusing to relinquish power. Then, in the late afternoon, the patience of the military – hitherto at pains to stress this was no coup, simply a ‘conversation with the president punctuated with firearms’ – finally snapped.
Mugabe has been given an ultimatum of 24 hours to resign by the powerful National Liberation War Veterans Association
‘The army gave the dictator a message earlier today,’ reported Christopher Mutsvangwa, the leader of the war veterans, who fought against white rule in the 1970s.
‘Either he steps down or they will let the people in to his mansion to take him. The army is threatening to unleash the people and let Mugabe be lynched. The generals said they will not shoot the people for him. Instead, they will abandon their posts and leave him to his fate.’
With that, Mugabe and, presumably, his toxic wife Grace, who was believed to have joined him under house arrest following the military takeover last week, are thought to have capitulated.
There were rumours that they were in the motorcade that hastily exited the couple’s extraordinarily opulent home late afternoon. Where they headed was unclear, but it mattered not to Zimbabwe’s ecstatic citizens. For yesterday euphoria conquered bitterness.
It was the party of a lifetime in the capital Harare as demonstrators, accompanied by a gun-mounted military armoured vehicle, took over the city – its highways and pavements and public squares and parks – to chant and sing their defiance.
After many years of reporting on the brutality and poverty that has crushed the naturally smiling and optimistic Shona people, I found it intensely moving to witness their hopefulness.
Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets of Harare to demand the end of dictator Robert Mugabe’s rule
It was in their dancing and warm greetings to each other, to everyone, to us whites sparsely dotted among the crowds, and in their chorus of welcome to a new Zimbabwe.
They called this unforgettable and unprecedented outbreak of celebration their Independence Day. I heard from older Zimbabweans that there were never crowds like this to greet Mugabe when he came home from exile to be lauded like a hero for winning independence; never crowds like this to celebrate the election results which appeared to have removed Mugabe and granted power to the Opposition Movement for Democratic Change, later blocked by corrupt procedures.
I saw a man kissing the ground, then he spotted us white people and ran over to kiss us.
All around people shouted: ‘We’re free! It’s the new Zimbabwe! Freedom, freedom!’
There were hugs between total strangers, black and white, and the military, driving slowly through the crowds, all smiled a victor’s smile.
A lone soldier walking briskly up Jason Moyo Avenue was besieged by people trying to high-five him, hug him, grab him and kiss him. Grinning, he broke into a fast run and escaped.
The vibrant red, gold and black flag of Zimbabwe flew from buildings, from cars and trucks, from the tops of people’s heads and flowed around some party-goers like capes.
Armed soldiers control a euphoric crowd marching near State House in Harare, demanding the departure of President Robert Mugabe
This was not a Zanu-PF Party event, not even a Zimbabwe Defence Force event – though their acronym ZDF could be seen everywhere. It was sheer people power, of a kind never seen before in this country.
Students Nicole Madziwa and Sharon Chimenya, 24-year-old friends, explained: ‘It’s goodbye to Mugabe, and welcome to the new Zimbabwe we’ve been longing for. Of course we don’t really know what is to come after him. It will still be Zanu-PF and that might be hard for us to take.
‘But even the slightest change in the politics ruining our lives is something to welcome. Anything is better than Bob and Grace.’
Were Bob and his decades-younger power-obsessed wife a mere seven miles away from the noisy party, languishing in their blue-roofed mansion in affluent Borrowdale?
No one knew for sure. But they believed intensely that the Mugabes’ oppressive rule was over and that it was just a matter of time before they went into exile.
Today an extraordinary meeting of Zanu-PF’s Central Committee will meet at its Harare HQ to put through a vote of no confidence in Mugabe as its President.
Patrick Chinamasa, the former Finance Minister sacked by Mugabe, said: ‘Mugabe is finished. It’s over. A huge faction of Zanu-PF, his own party, has finally turned against him.’
He is widely expected to lose his presidency of Zanu-PF. On Tuesday there is expected to be a Parliamentary motion to also oust him as President of the country. This is an unavoidable constitutional procedure which would legitimise an incoming president rather than install the newcomer through a military coup.
Yesterday the military, through its hugely popular General Constantino Chiwenga, announced the people could party on with complete freedom. ‘If the march is peaceful and there is no incitement to violence, we will offer no restraints’, the ZDF said in a statement on the Zimbabwe state broadcaster which they now control.
Cautious outsiders have voiced concern that their new leader will be Emmerson Mnangagwa, himself in a Mugabe cadre and a known brutalist.
But this notion was dismissed, and I was reprimanded for being ‘negative’ about the country’s future when I suggested it. White Zimbabwean Ian Robertson told me: ‘He’s a shrewd businessman and people are going to vote for him. I’m going to vote for him. We welcome him and realise he has a lot to do to put this country right.’
Putting things into perspective, Mr Robertson added that he was a chromium miner and that the notorious influence of the Chinese in Zimbabwe was also all right by him.
‘Our economy couldn’t do without them’, he said. ‘Let the people get behind a new regime and see the end of the Mugabe dynasty.’
Resentment towards Mugabe’s wife Grace, 52, who had visions of leading the country at the end of his Presidential term next year, borders on fury among people outraged by the idea of an unelected, inexperienced woman manipulating her way in to the role.
Sam Tazenda interrupted a spontaneous breakdance to tell me: ‘Her, she should be jailed. She should face criminal action for her theft of property in this country. She has done exactly what she likes for years and got rich off the back of workers like me.
‘She is a disgrace to Zimbabwe and we need her to go.’
Crowds erupted in cheers and ululations when military helicopters flew low overhead, and it was performance time for everyone who wanted to dance, sing, or spin an old Mercedes round in a sequence of donuts.
To whites like us there were cries of ‘Welcome! Welcome to the new Zimbabwe!’ but also charges screamed at us: ‘Where have you been all this time, watching but not helping? Where have you been?’
Every road leading to the city centre was crowded with marchers and a loose amalgam, happy to have a military armoured vehicle in its midst, headed to the Zimbabwe Grounds to listen to noisy encouragement and congratulation from the country’s War Veterans, the venerated hard-men heroes of the war of independence that ended white rule in the late Seventies.
Emboldened, hundreds of thousands then headed for State House, the ceremonial seat of government. It was hugely symbolic for them. The long tree-lined drive with its brightly-coloured tropical hibiscus and bougainvillea hedges has been sealed off from the public throughout Mugabe’s reign.
Today the manicured gardens took a beating, with hooting cars and people-laden trucks careering through to make their good-natured protest as close as they could to Mugabe’s former centre of power.
Frank Chipesa told me: ‘We’re not trying to break in. This isn’t a riot. This is a message – we’re telling Mugabe that it’s over. No more. Enough is enough. He must go now and we say welcome to the new Zimbabwe without him.’
On a slightly quieter road heading out of the city we spotted a pick-up truck overflowing with burly white guys in shorts and baseball caps, drinking determinedly, beer cans littering the vehicle.
The driver Paul de Klerk told me: ‘We’re going to Mugabe’s house. We’re going to tell him – it’s him or us. I’m sixth-generation Zimbabwean, born and bred here, and all my family members lost their farms in his illegal land-grab.
‘We’ve had enough of this c**p. We’re going there and no one and nothing is going to stop us.’
There were rumours that Mugabe had fled the country after hundreds of thousands took to the streets to protest against his rule
That turned out to be untrue. Following these white Zimbabweans to Borrowdale, accompanied by the hooted encouragement of passing cars, we found ourselves turned away at gunpoint just as they were.
But unlike them we were treated to a special last show of strength by livid soldiers and police outside Mugabe’s blue-roofed mansion.
They shouted at our black driver to stop, then brought him from the car to the imposing gateway where he was beaten to the ground by a vicious soldier, probably aware that his action was his last as one of Mugabe’s presidential guard.
Our driver was not badly injured and we left together, but it was hideous and upsetting to see, a reminder – if one was needed – of what ordinary, law-abiding Zimbabweans have endured for decades.
There had been rumours reported that a crowd was outside Mugabe’s mansion, jeering and refusing to leave until they saw a letter of resignation from him.
This did not happen although later we met up again with the happy, celebrating crowd making its ragged and excitable way out of the city claiming they were going to invade Mugabe’s home.
We handed out dire warnings but were outnumbered and overwhelmed by people drunk on a notion of freedom they had never tasted before.
A huge crowd crammed on to the back of a truck sang and chanted and refused to listen to us.
Instead they waved their home-made placards announcing with incomparably African humour: ‘Mnangagwa and Chiwenga – eat ice cream!!’
This is a notion of luxury, along with the flood of illicitly-brewed liquor that began to appear as the afternoon wore on.
Now there was drunkenness on the streets, and an increasingly frantic and frustrated atmosphere as no news came through about the longed-for resignation of Mugabe.
A few cliques of tough-looking youths were squaring up to each other, and some solemn faces indicated that disgruntled Mugabe supporters were also out in the crowds.
We drove back through streets where I was once arrested with a photographer colleague because he took a picture of the cityscape. Two police officers took control of our car and drove us to the notorious Harare central police station. As we were about to be driven down a ramp leading to interrogation and detention I threw open the door and jumped out of the car, claiming that I was an outraged English woman being treated with disrespect, and they let us go.
Yesterday that street was crammed with happy revellers. A smiling woman came up and hugged me and said: ‘Our children will know where we were on this day.’