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Robert Mugabe’s role in Zimbabwe’s fight for economic emancipation has not been disputed by many, but at the same time, the country’s ultimate economic ruin left him with a conflicted legacy. While he has been widely hailed as a liberation icon, blame for the country’s catastrophic downfall has also been laid at his feet.

Mugabe was meant to be Zimbabwe’s economic liberator. But something went horribly wrong.

In 2017, when Emmerson Mngwangwa succeeded Mugabe, Zimbabweans were again promised economic renewal after years of deterioration. This did not occur. Today, the country is at a tipping point, the outcome of decades of erosion. Its year-on-year inflation will only be published in February, it was announced in August.  The country’s inflation was recorded at 176% in June – the highest in a decade. Economists, however, have pegged annual inflation as closer to 558%, some three times the official rate.

In August, Zimbabweans heard they would be paying 173% more for electricity as the country sought ways to alleviate crippling power shortages.

Zimbabwe’s woes have also impacted South Africa to some extent. State-owned entity SAA was unable to access over R1bn amid a shortage of foreign currency, which was needed to transfer the proceeds of local ticket sales to airlines outside the country. South Africa has also agreed to supply 400MW per week to Zimbabwe in electricity, amid reports of Zimbabwe – which has been facing its worst power cuts in ten years – struggling to pay its debt to Eskom.

These types of hardships are all too familiar to Zimbabweans.

An unwavering drive towards economic emancipation at all costs saw Mugabe implement a range of populist policies with catastrophic results. Ultimately, this led to vast numbers of the country’s citizens being forced to flee.

At the top of his populist policies was the controversial and violent fast-track land reform programme. As glaring as it was that there was need to redistribute land from a few white minorities – roughly 5 000 farmers – to the black majority, the way Mugabe went about it left Zimbabwe with a perennial begging bowl amid food shortages.

Additionally, as an audit was conducted following Mugabe’s ouster, it emerged that several top Zanu-PF officials had benefited from the programme, with Mugabe himself reportedly owning over 20 farms, in contravention of the one farm per family policy.

The policy systematically destroyed 400 000 jobs in Zimbabwe, according to economist John Robertson.

Robertson is on record saying the cancellation of property rights and security of tenure imposed severe limitations on farmers and had a significant negative impact on Gross Domestic Product.

Robertson suggested, the crippling process started with agricultural production declining sharply enough to cause precipitous falls in export revenues and food security, as well as manufacturing volumes.

“The move to declare all farmland to be the property of the state crippled the whole country and is the source of Zimbabwe’s problems which range from unmanageable foreign and domestic debts, cash and liquidity shortages, very high unemployment rates, dependence on food imports, a serious trade imbalance, deteriorating health and education services, disabled air and rail transport services, an inability to borrow and very little success in attracting foreign investors,” according to Robertson.

Mugabe was to come back again with another policy which, like a hurricane, helped destroy the once-prosperous economy.

In 2008, his government enacted the Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment Act, which Mugabe said was meant to empower historically disadvantaged indigenous Zimbabweans.

The law gave Zimbabweans the right to take over and control foreign-owned companies. Specifically, over 51% of all the businesses in the country were to be transferred into the hands of indigenous Zimbabweans, defined as “any person who before 18 April 1980 was disadvantaged by unfair discrimination on the grounds of his or her race, and any descendant of such person”.

The impact was devastating as foreign capital left or shunned setting base in the country. It complicated the local business environment for the few investors that showed faith in the Zimbabwean economy, while denting the country’s prospects of attracting fresh FDI inflows.

Soon after the introduction of the law, FDI actual inflows plummeted to US$69m in 2008, as investors reacted negatively to the policy. Since then, FDI actual inflows have averaged US$340m from 2009 to 2019 against a SADC regional average of US$1,2bn.

The hyperinflation era, from approximately 2004 – 2009, was characterised by severe shortages of foreign exchange, made worse by a marked difference between official and black market rates.

As one Zimbabwean, Respect Gwenzi aptly put it on Twitter, “A generation is poorer. He [Mugabe] decimated agriculture, industry and commerce, butchered critics and shunned the global world. [The] economy is at the brink of collapse, he left it in tatters and latter couped by his Cdes. Our present pain is of his making.”

Mugabe’s complex legacy leaves Zimbabweans with a burning question. As the country faces the same promises of economic liberation from his successors, will they find a way to do better?

Post published in: Featured

Despite the fact that the calendar has just flipped to September, for many law students, the Fall Recruiting Cycle — we really need to find a more seasonally appropriate term for this and I am open to suggestions — is coming to an end.  For those fortunate students, the extensive interview process has resulted in an offer for summer employment, and likely, a subsequent position after graduation.  A smaller cadre of students finds themselves in the even more enviable circumstance of having multiple options from which to choose one, or more positions.  Last year, I went through the nature of the offer stage and while that piece was long on logistics — those two paragraphs on how the NALP Guidelines address multiple offers now read as if they were written in an alternate dimension, which they may well have been— but short on advice.  So how should students sort through multiple offers?

While late capitalism might be the best term to describe the current American era, the latter part of that phrase is still applicable in the present day.  As such, in most industries, when multiple employers are trying to woo the same candidate, they will simply try to offer more money than their competitors.  But as mentioned previously in this space, the legal industry is far from a textbook example of the intersection between economics and employment.  As even casual Above the Law readers know, with law firms wary of seeming cheap to their own attorneys, law students, and possibly even clients, base Biglaw salaries are typically at a particular market rate to which all firms in a geographic area adhere.  Such uniformity often trickles down to the bonuses as well.  This is not to say that exceptions do not exist and that some firms will go above market, but typically speaking, salary is not going to be the deciding factor for most law students because there is no gradation amongst the firms — this similarly melts away when comparing Biglaw to more mid-size or boutique firms.

If money will not help you make a decision, consider geography.  Where do you want to spend the next several years of your life, if not longer?  Do you want to stay in the same city as your law school?  Return to your childhood hometown?  Live somewhere completely new?  Be honest with yourself during this process.  If you know that you do not like the cold weather, factor that into your analysis of whether you should accept and offer in Chicago versus Miami.

This is not to say that geographic location should be the only consideration, but it should be part of your evaluative process.

Also, think about what sort of law you want to practice.  The vast majority of firms that make up Biglaw are all-purpose firms, providing a young lawyer with an array of practice areas from which to choose — though there can be some exceptions with certain firms having more of a boutique practice, but with Biglaw revenues.  However, there are some obstacles that can arise, preventing one from being able to practice the type of law they prefer.  First, just because a firm has a particular practice area does not mean they will have a need for new attorneys in that area when you graduate from law school.  There are instances in which there is not enough work in a particular practice area to support the attorneys currently in that group, let alone to bring in a new crop of attorneys.  Furthermore, certain practice areas are more prominent in some offices than others.  If your goal is to be an appellate litigator, the Washington, DC office is likely going to have more opportunities than the firm’s Boston office.  Intellectual Property work is more prevalent in Northern California than in Milwaukee.  Not only should you consider where you want to work, but also think about how that will impact the type of practice you can build.

Working at a law firm, regardless of the size, can be an overwhelming experience.  While law school can provide you with the intellectual foundation needed to complete your work, it cannot teach you the intricacies of each firm and the dynamics at play within.  That is where mentoring programs can be greatly beneficial.  Typically, new attorneys are provided with senior mentors (typically partners) who can make sure enough work is coming the first year’s way as well as more junior mentors who help navigate the firm.  However, not all firm mentorship programs are the same.  First, make sure that the firms you are considering actually have a formal mentorship program.  While smaller firms might have more of an ad hoc program, you want to make sure there are at least some people at the firm who will support you.  Assuming all the firms under consideration have a mentoring program, get to know some of the details.  How are mentors assigned?  How many?  Are they drawn from your practice area or elsewhere?  Can you get different mentors if issues arise, e.g., a personality clash?  What sort of budget is afforded for mentoring activities?

Finally, consider what you might want to do after the firm.  Even if you head into a summer program with the expectation that you will get a post-graduation offer, accept it, and spend the next thirty years at the firm, such a scenario is not always realistic.  Firms that have summer associate classes in the triple digits are not going to make 100 partners in ten years’ time.  Almost everyone in your summer associate and/or first-year associate class are going to leave the firm at some point before they would come up for partnership.  For those who leave the law entirely or go into academia — not to mention those of us who are academia adjacent — there might not be much of a connection between the new opportunity and their firm job.  However, for a great many more fleeing Biglaw, the landing point may well be a former client.  In-house opportunities rarely go to law school graduates as corporations would much rather let law firms train young lawyers and then pluck them once their skill set has developed.  But said plucking typically takes place from outside counsel.  Think about what sort of entity you might want to work for later in your career and see if any of your firm options happen to represent them.  It is much easier to land in-house at Pfizer if you spent the previous several years impressing them with your work product. 

Similarly, oftentimes certain government offices will have a significant number of former Biglaw attorneys from a particular firm who are always looking to add to their refugee ranks.  Do your diligence and see if a particular U.S. Attorney’s or Federal Public Defenders office you might be interested in down the line has a number of attorneys who used to work at one of the firms you are considering.  If so, that potential interview years down the road can be far friendlier than anticipated.

Having multiple law firm offers is an objectively fantastic situation, but one that can quickly paralyze even the savviest law student by overwhelming them with choices.^[1] However, if you think about the various aspects of the firm and your career, you can come up with a wholly satisfying choice.

[1] Consider what would happen if you wanted to buy some cereal and went to two stores, the first having one brand and another having fifty, which store are you leaving first with a box of cereal?

Nicholas Alexiou is the Director of LL.M. and Alumni Advising as well as the Associate Director of Career Services at Vanderbilt University Law School. He will, hopefully, respond to your emails at abovethelawcso@gmail.com.

At the Straight Pride Parade in Boston last week, the world came face-to-face with the power of hundreds of fragile male egos and the world laughed hysterically. But it turns out the most pathetic man in Boston wasn’t marching that day. Instead, Boston Municipal Court Judge Richard Sinnott was waiting at the finish line to take up the mantle of saddest man-child in town.

As one might expect of an explicitly fascist trolling event like the Straight Pride Parade, especially when held in Boston — a town that despite harboring more than its fair share of the lowest common denominator of inbred racists is generally pretty cosmopolitan — the affair brought out a number of protestors. The Boston Police — see above about the lowest common denominator — met these folks with riot gear and pepper spray as one does. While there probably was some jackhole in the crowds actually causing trouble, most of the protestors the cops harassed and locked up were just ordinary folks exercising their free speech rights — something District Attorney Rachel Rollins recognized when she ordered the charges dropped for over 30 of the protestors.

That’s when Judge Sinnott decided he would arraign the protestors anyway even though the government wasn’t prosecuting them.

This is, of course, entirely illegal. But Judge Sinnott’s tantrum didn’t end there! When Susan Church, the defense attorney representing a number of the protestors pointed out that, you know, there are centuries of precedent for this whole “rule of law” thing, Judge Sinnott’s personal sense of inadequacy had her handcuffed and hauled away for contempt of court. The Massachusetts Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers called for an immediate investigation of this incident.

DA Rollins filed an emergency petition focused on one of the defendants who was not only arraigned without a prosecutor’s blessing, but had bail set at multiples of the maximum fine for the alleged offenses just to make a scene. This sets up what’s going to be one of the most epic appellate benchslappings in quite some time.

Imagine the glee of some appellate clerk getting ready to tee up this opinion — dripping with references to all the Star Chamber and Revolutionary War iconography that Massachusetts has traded upon for the last 250 years. How many times will they work in a Magna Carta reference?

The credibility of the Massachusetts state courts is on the line.

Boston’s DA wants to dismiss charges against some ‘Straight Pride Parade’ protesters. But a judge won’t let her [CNN]

Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.

Boston is a growing and dynamic legal market. Lateral hiring — among new offices and the more established Boston offices — is stronger than ever. If you have a background in tech or the life sciences or if you’re a talented corporate lawyer with any background, you will likely find opportunities in Boston you will not find elsewhere: opportunities that combine sophisticated and cutting-edge work, market or above-market pay, a collegial culture, and clear pathways for advancement.

New players on the Boston scene

In recent years, numerous international firms have opened new offices in Boston, including Kirkland, Sidley, Wilson Sonsini, Morrison & Foerster, Orrick, and White & Case. All of these firms are hoping to carve out a significant share of the market with respect to Boston’s core industries: tech, biotech, health care, and other life sciences-related businesses.

Sophisticated work, top clients

High-profile clients offer challenging and cutting-edge work. Clients of the Boston offices include Pfizer, Raytheon, Staples, Biogen, Alexion Pharmaceuticals, Timberland, Gillette, Dunkin Donuts, General Electric, State Street Bank, New Balance, Liberty Mutual, Bain Capital, Vertex Pharmaceuticals, Keurig Green Mountain, HubSpot, and of course the best sports team in the world, the Boston Red Sox.

Top practices

The new Boston offices and the established Boston firms are all looking to expand their corporate practices. Most in demand are private equity lawyers — PE M&A, PE finance, and fund formation. Emerging companies and venture capital work is also booming, as well as technology transactions. For intellectual property lawyers with a hard sciences background, there are numerous opportunities. Real estate lawyers have been consistently in demand in recent years. Even capital markets, a traditionally NY-based practice, is gaining ground in Boston.

Salaries and cost of living

Most of the top Boston offices pay New York market salaries, i.e., first-years start at $190,000. Some of these firms have bonus schemes that will put you above market pay when you bill over the hours target. Pair that with a 5.05 percent state income tax and no city tax (compared to a combined state and city tax rate above 10 percent for most New York associates). Furthermore, every dollar goes further in Boston. NALP statistics from 2018 show that $116,820 will buy you in Boston what $180,000 will buy you in New York City.

Pathways to Partnership

Making partner at a major law firm is always difficult and never guaranteed. However, joining a new office or an established office at the start of a growth phase can often give you a leg up when it comes time for advancement decisions. No matter how impressive your legal skills, firms won’t promote unless there’s a business case. Where practices and client bases are growing as they are now in Boston, that business case is more certain.

Hiring Trends

Needing ties to Boston to find a job in Boston or to succeed in that job is a thing of the past. Of course firms will want some assurance that you won’t just leave after your first winter in Beantown. But they also recognize that bringing in associates with training from other major markets, especially New York, only adds to a firm’s ability to handle the most sophisticated work. They encourage the idea that Boston is no longer just a market for associates “moving home”; Boston has become a destination for lawyers looking to advance their careers.

Despite high standards for hiring, Boston firms are often more flexible than New York firms when it comes to more superficial factors. For example, they will often consider associates outside the traditionally coveted 3-5 years’ experience range, and they will be more willing to relocate associates even without the local bar.

***

This is an exciting time to work in Boston. Whether you join a new firm to the Boston market or an established Boston firm, you’ll have the chance to be part of building the firm’s practice at a time of real growth and innovation.

It’s important to work with a recruiter who is knowledgeable about the specific market. Lateral Link is unique in that each recruiter specializes in one or just a few markets where we have practiced ourselves and/or where we are on the ground to build relationships with the firms’ key players. I work closely with a wide range of Boston firms. I can help you navigate the lateral hiring trends and can help answer questions such as:

• How important is it that I have the Massachusetts before starting my search?
• When in my career and when in the calendar year is the ideal time to move to or within Boston?
• Would a particular lateral move bring me closer to my ultimate career goals?
• Which Boston firms will be most interested in a candidate with a profile and skill set such as mine?
• Which Boston firms will allow me to broaden/focus my practice?

Please reach out to me at agordon@laterallink.com to learn more about the best Boston opportunities for your specific skills and experience.

Ed. note: This is the latest installment in a series of posts on lateral associate and partner moves from Lateral Link’s team of expert contributors. Abby Gordon is a Senior Director with Lateral Link’s New York office. Abby works with attorney candidates on law firm and in-house searches, primarily in Boston, New York and Europe. Prior to joining Lateral Link, Abby spent seven years as a corporate associate with Cleary Gottlieb, focusing on capital markets transactions for Latin American clients in New York and for the last five years for European clients in Paris. A native of Boston, Abby holds a J.D., cum laude, from Georgetown University Law Center and a B.A. in government and romance languages, magna cum laude, from Dartmouth College. Abby also worked with the International Rescue Committee as a Fulbright Scholar in Madrid, Spain. She is a member of the New York, Massachusetts and Maine Bars and is fluent in French and Spanish (and dabbles in Portuguese and Italian). You can view additional articles by Abby here.

Lateral Link is one of the top-rated international legal recruiting firms. With over 14 offices world-wide, Lateral Link specializes in placing attorneys at the most prestigious law firms and companies in the world. Managed by former practicing attorneys from top law schools, Lateral Link has a tradition of hiring lawyers to execute the lateral leaps of practicing attorneys. Click ::here:: to find out more about us.

Katie Sears works as a criminal defense attorney in Iowa but in her spare time she flies to Nevada to work in a brothel. While attorneys going into prostitution have made news before, the narrative is usually an unfortunate tale of women who went into sex work because they needed the money. Thankfully, Sears is available to offer the counter-narrative that gets overshadowed by troubling tales of coercion and human trafficking — a lot of sex workers actually just like their jobs:

“I like sex,” Sears said. “Sex is fun and I can get paid for it.”

Sears, who took on prostitution three years ago, hopes that opening up about her other job can help change people’s attitudes about it:

“You can say, ‘No sex without a condom.’ You can say, ‘No sex until we’re married.’ But you can’t say, ‘No sex until you pay me’? And that feels like it really undermines what consent means,” Sears said.

While Sears said she’s shy, she feels empowered being a sex worker.

“I think the more we talk about it, the better our chances are of getting decriminalization that we’re pursuing,” Sears said. “We’re not going to have legislation change if we’re passive about it.”

Sears, who works with her husband at the firm of Clark & Sears, carries her side hustle into her advocacy, taking on prostitution cases pro bono to help sex workers in trouble, suing brothels that allegedly fail to pay their workers, and advocating for decriminalization to help combat sex trafficking practices that flourish while the industry is kept in the shadows.

And, yes, we did say that she works with her husband whom she met in law school. As for her other job, “I don’t really care that much,” John Sears said.

The question is: which job has the higher billing rate?

Des Moines attorney unveils her life as a prostitute [KCCI]

Earlier: Law Student Turned Prostitute In Legal Battle Over ‘Sex Contract’ With Lawyer
Down Goes Bajaj: Reema Pleads Guilty To Prostitution

Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.

A federal court has dismissed a defamation lawsuit brought against the Splinter website by a former Trump staffer. Jason Miller, a Trump campaign spokesman, sued after Splinter published an article that included allegations made by another Trump staffer Miller had an affair with. The allegations being sued over weren’t your normal allegations. These allegations were made in court by A.J. Delgado, Miller’s affair partner who later had Miller’s child.

Whether or not the allegations made by Delgado were true is irrelevant. Miller may have been correct his reputation had been damaged by the publication of these court documents (but $100 million-worth?), but the fact remains they were court documents. Filing a defamation lawsuit over reporting on court documents is per se stupid.

The thing about allegations made in court is that, while they can be defamatory, they cannot be sued over. Miller understood at least this much, it appears, because he didn’t sue the staffer he had an affair with. He instead sued Splinter, which published an article containing the court document with the allegations in it. Miller may have thought he had found a softer target. But he was wrong, as the federal court points out.

Reporting on court documents is protected under New York law. Splinter invoked this law to defend its reporting. The court agrees the law applies. Because it does, it has no reason to examine any other of Miller’s claims. From the decision [PDF]:

Under New York’s fair report privilege, codified in section 74 of its Civil Rights Law, “A civil action cannot be maintained against any person, firm, or corporation, for the publication of a fair and true report of any judicial proceeding . . . .” N.Y. Civ. Rights Law § 74 (alteration and emphasis added). The purpose of the statutory privilege is to protect reports of judicial proceedings “made in the public interest.”

Because Splinter was honest about how it obtained this document and, crucially, included the document itself in its post so readers could draw their own conclusions about the contained allegations, the court finds it fulfilled the requirements of the state law on court document reporting.

With the summary judgment standard in mind, review of the record shows the Article: (a) states the allegations come from an “explosive new court filing” in the “ongoing custody battle” between Plaintiff and Delgado (Article 2); (b) describes the “acrimony” between Plaintiff and Delgado (id. 4); (c) describes how Delgado obtained the information (see id.); (d) quotes the victim’s alleged reaction to the journalist, exactly as it is quoted in the Supplement (see id. (quoting Jane Doe stating: “Yes, that happened to me — how did you know? Who told you?” (internal quotation marks omitted)), see also Supplement 9 (same)); and significantly (e) embeds a full copy of the Supplement, so readers can review the Supplement without leaving the webpage (see Defs.’ SOF ¶ 91). Considering these undisputed facts, the Article is a substantially accurate report on the Supplement under New York law.

Always post documents. It’s amazing how many reporters treat court records as privileged information, limiting readers to the journalist’s interpretation of a ruling or filing. More generally, suing over reporting on court documents is a bad idea. If you can’t sue people for what they say about you in court, it would seem to follow that suing for reporting on what people said about you in court is a non-starter.

Court Tosses $100 Million Defamation Suit Brought By Former Trump Spokesman Over Reporting On Court Documents

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Listen… typos happen. I get that. After all, I churn content daily for a blog, so I am well aware that that these small mistakes often happen in the rush to publish. Sometimes your brain just moves faster than you can type, or you mishit a key, or a sentence gets badly mangled in the self-editing process. All of which is to say, I really do sympathize and acknowledge that mistakes shouldn’t be a big deal.

But…

But when a publication is THE authority on legal citations that the law school perfectionist/overachievers known as gunners worship, well, then we’re going to take notice. After all it isn’t the first (or likely last) time Above the Law has documented a slew of errors in these pages. There’s just something so satisfying about seeing a a mistake in the tome that causes so much angst in law students. So we just had to post about it when an eagle-eyed tipster sent us a picture of a clear error in the Bluebook.

Now, is it a giant mistake? No, of course not. But it still elicits a smirk when I see it.

Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, and host of The Jabot podcast. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter (@Kathryn1).

Robert Mugabe, who led Zimbabwe for almost four decades, has died aged 95, leaving behind an indelible stain on his country’s human rights record, said Amnesty International.

His early years as leader of Zimbabwe, following the transition from British colonial rule, saw some notable achievements through his heavy investment in social services. Areas including health and education saw dramatic improvements, with the country still enjoying one of the highest literacy rates in Africa. However, he later eroded his own track record.

During his 37 years in power, he presided over the brutal repression of political opponents and established a culture of impunity for himself and his cronies, while his government implemented a series of policies that have had disastrous consequences.

“While casting himself as the saviour of Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe inflicted lasting damage upon its people and its reputation,” said Muleya Mwananyanda, Amnesty International’s Deputy Regional Director for Southern Africa.

As a leader of the resistance to the white minority government of what was then known as Rhodesia, Mugabe began his political life fighting against injustice. Imprisoned and later exiled for his political activities, he was one of more than 900 prisoners of conscience adopted in Zimbabwe by Amnesty International between 1965 and 1979.

Boosted by his image as a champion of the victims of imperialism, Robert Mugabe became Zimbabwe’s first post-independence prime minister in 1980 on a platform of reconciliation.

However, shortly after taking office, he deployed the repressive machinery of the state against political opponents. During the 1980s, in a military crackdown, known as Gukurahundi – loosely translates as “the early rain which washes away the chaff before the spring rains”, that widely targeted suspected opposition supporters, some 20,000 people were killed in Matabeleland and Midlands provinces. Many of the dead were unarmed civilians.

Amnesty International’s calls for the prosecution of suspected crimes committed by his supporters and by the security services went unheeded. In a warning that would prove prophetic, the human rights organization said at the time that a failure to hold anyone accountable for the Matabeleland and Midlands violations would set a dangerous precedent.

Though he came to office on a wave of popular support, Mugabe’s tenure as prime minister, and then as president, was defined by a stubborn determination to hold on to power – an end to which he sacrificed Zimbabwe’s economy, institutions, and society.

Throughout his presidency, general elections were marred by spikes in serious human rights violations and abuses by state security agents and ZANU-PF activists. Opposition supporters suffered torture, harassment, intimidation and even death. Some were disappeared without a trace.
In 2008, following his first-round ballot loss to the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) candidate Morgan Tsvangirai, the army unleashed a wave of violence in which more than 300 people were killed and thousands injured or tortured on suspicion of having voted for the opposition. The response saw opposition MDC leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, withdrawing from the second round of voting.

Again, Amnesty International called for the crimes to be investigated. Again, the call went unheeded.

“Whenever Mugabe felt under pressure he defaulted to sanctioning human rights violations, publicly defending the actions of his officials’,” said Muleya Mwananyanda.

The early progress made by Mugabe’s government on economic, social and cultural rights was wiped out by a series of disastrous government policy decisions.

In 2000, Mugabe sanctioned a violent land reform programme, ostensibly to redress skewed land distribution resulting from 90 years of colonial rule.  While the need for land reform was legitimate, Mugabe used the redistribution programme as a system of patronage, rewarding his supporters with land while denying those considered political opponents. The programme was also used as a front to disguise the violent targeting of farm workers who had supported the opposition.

In 2005 Mugabe presided over one of the most disastrous forced eviction campaigns in African history. Known as Operation Murambatsvina – a Shona word meaning “drive out trash” – it targeted urban shack dwellers. The United Nations estimated that 700,000 people had their homes, livelihoods, or both, destroyed.  The evictions drove most of the affected people deeper into poverty, with many continuing to live without access to health, education and other basic services.

An increasing reliance on his security services to suppress dissenting voices within and outside his party became a hallmark of the latter years of his rule. Opponents including human rights defenders, journalists and opposition party activists were locked up on politically motivated charges or under draconian laws. The less fortunate were killed. Mugabe was also uncompromising in his opposition to LGBT rights, saying that they were “worse than dogs and pigs”, and favoured more anti-homosexual legislation.

Escaping repression and a shrinking economy, an estimated three million Zimbabweans have left the country since 2000.

Finally forced to resign in November 2017, his long-time lieutenant Emmerson Mnangagwa – later his political rival in the jostling for the control of Zimbabwe with the ruling ZANU-PF – engineered his exit from the presidency with the backing of the army.

“Mugabe leaves behind permanent scars of his brutal rule. Going forward, those who come after him must forge a national healing programme, beginning with accountability for the past human rights violations. Zimbabweans deserve the truth,” said Muleya Mwananyanda.

Post published in: Featured