The ruthless cunning of the Crocodile, as Emmerson Mnangagwa is known, delivered the ultimate prize yesterday when he was sworn in as Zimbabwe’s new president.
The carefully choreographed ceremony at the national football stadium in Harare was the culmination of the quietly vicious coup that toppled dictator Robert Mugabe after 37 years of unbroken rule.
The Crocodile’s supporters – having been advised to give ‘our president maximum support’ – duly obliged and packed the stadium in their thousands to cheer wildly. The applause was less enthusiastic when Mr Mnangagwa, urging people to let bygones be bygones, hailed the man he had forced out of power as the ‘father of the nation’.
Emmerson Mnangagwa, known for his ruthless cunning, was sworn in as Zimbabwe’s new president
Mr Mugabe, 93, had initially been reported as ‘too tired’ to attend, but was last night in the fully equipped hospital at his palatial home amid fears that he may have suffered a mild stroke.
The new president pledged to serve ‘all citizens, regardless of colour, creed, religion, tribe or political affiliation’ and indicated that he plans to reverse Mr Mugabe’s ruinous policies.
He announced, for example, that farmers would be compensated for the land seized from them to be given to Mr Mugabe’s cronies – a process that destroyed the country’s agriculture industry and helped wreck the economy.
Only two weeks ago the despot had fired Mr Mnangagwa as his vice-president on the order of his wife Grace, who was plotting to succeed him. The Crocodile fled to Mozambique but, in a carefully stage-managed return, was back in the country within 48 hours of the military moving against Mugabe ten days ago.
Mnangagwa is known as ‘crocodile’ and is one of the wealthiest men in Zimbabwe
The takeover has been described by some analysts as a ‘soft coup’ but it was nothing of the sort. At least seven of Mr Mugabe’s allies were killed when the military turned against him.
Those on a list to be detained included three prominent cabinet members, who were beaten and tortured before being released as part of the deal that forced Mr Mugabe to resign this week.
The finance minister Ignatius Chombo, who was caught with $10million (£7.5million) in cash as he tried to leave his home, was blindfolded, stripped naked and savagely beaten at a secret military detention centre. So, too, were higher education minister Jonathon Moyo and local government minister Saviour Kasukuwere.
Albert Ngulube, the head of the Central Intelligence Organisation, was also beaten and suffered a suspected fractured skull. Mrs Mugabe was taken from Blue Roof, the gaudy presidential mansion her husband had built at her insistence, and held in military custody.
The woman known as ‘Gucci Grace’ for her extravagant spending habits was verbally humiliated but not harmed. She was reunited with Mr Mugabe on Tuesday after he ‘volunteered’ to resign.
There is nothing surprising about the ruthless efficiency with which the Crocodile seized power. Mr Mnangagwa, 75, has long helped Mr Mugabe rig elections and terrorise and kill his opponents.
In the national football stadium in Harare was the Crocodile’s supporters gathered in their thousands to cheer wildly
In Zimbabwe, he is notorious for his role as director of intelligence during Operation Gukurahundi (‘the rain that washes away the chaff’), a genocidal campaign against a breakaway guerilla faction led by Joshua Nkomo during the war of independence.
Mr Mnangagwa is deaf in one ear after being hung by his feet and tortured, before being jailed for ten years, when he was caught during the bush war.
He went on to rise through the ranks of the ruling Zanu-PF party after independence in 1980. With an elaborate network of informers, he was responsible for directing the paramilitary Fifth Brigade against black enemy targets, particularly the supporters of Mr Nkomo.
Trained by North Korea and well armed, the Fifth Brigade has been blamed for the deaths of up to 20,000 people during the Matabeleland Massacres in the south west of the country between 1982 and 1986. Many were killed at public executions.
After being told to dig their own graves, with family and friends forced to look on, the victims were shot. Others were burnt alive in their huts. Women and babies were thrown into boreholes used for water.
Mr Mnangagwa is said to have been involved in developing Harare as a diamond trading centre, and is one of the wealthiest men in Zimbabwe. He has at least eight homes in the capital and three farms seized from white farmers.
Last night his family and close supporters were celebrating in a bar in Harare, all wearing Lacoste T-shirts with the famous crocodile logo. They drank malt whisky at £20 a glass, laughing and joking late into the night.
The Crocodile’s inauguration marked the perfect end to the perfect coup.