President Mugabe
Tichaona Zindoga in GABORONE, Botswana—
President Mugabe has paid tribute to Botswana at the 35th Sadc Summit for assisting Zimbabwe’s liberation struggle by being a transit point for freedom fighters travelling to Zambia and Tanzania. Before delving into his prepared keynote address, President Mugabe, recounted how two men, in particular the late Chief Gaborone and Sir Seretse Khama assisted Zimbabwe and the region in the fight against the settler regime.
To the accompaniment of his usual humour and wit, President Mugabe enthralled delegates with his walk down memory lane.
He began with his first journey in 1962 when he was still a member of Zapu before the split that bore ZANU in 1963.
“Just a year before the formation of the Organisation of African Unity in 1963, I and Jason Ziyapapa Moyo wanted to evade the eye of the settler regime. We came, the two of us to Francistown and we got documents from the British representative here to travel to Zambia and Tanzania. We met there our president Joshua Nkomo and others.
“When in 1963 the OAU was due to meet in Addis Ababa (Ethiopia), some of us were selected as an observer group of Zapu. We passed through Francistown in a small plane. We refuelled at Kasane and flew to Ndola and then Dar-es-Salaam,” President Mugabe recounted.
He said as Gaborone emerged as Botswana’s capital, many comrades passed through it.
Critically, the fighters developed a relationship with Chief Gaborone who provided accommodation to Zimbabwean liberators.
Some cadres like the late Cdes Maynard Muzariri and Mao stayed for a long time under the custody of Chief Gaborone.
President Mugabe recalled that Chief Gaborone, after independence paid him a visit.
He revealed that the elder chief requested a tractor for his small farm, which President Mugabe undertook to buy, but immediately gave $50 000 to him.
On Botswana’s founding President, Sir Seretse Khama, President Mugabe saluted him as one of the pioneer statesmen who along with such luminaries as Kenneth Kaunda, Julius Nyerere, Agostinho Neto and Samora Machel, founded the Frontline States to aid the liberation of the region.
President Mugabe said these statesmen were the makers of history. “We are mere survivors,” he intoned.
The Frontline States was the precursor of the Southern African Development Co-ordination Conference that is now the present Southern African Development Community.
“It was all here that we got our inspiration as the Frontline States. Unfortunately, some of us are departed, but I was glad that Seretse Khama when we got our Independence wanted to come and see Rhodesia,” he said.
To much laughter, President Mugabe recalled how Seretse Khama had broken racial ranks when he married a white woman, much to the consternation of white establishments in Rhodesia and South Africa who wanted to stand between the union.
The decision also cost the Khama family the royalty of the Bamangwato chieftainship.
But time is a cure, President Mugabe said as he (Khama) eventually landed the leadership of the country.
“Your father is in you,” President Mugabe told the Botswana leader and in-coming Sadc chairman.
President Khama thanked the elder statesman for recognising his country and father.
“Your Excellency, I am humbled by your recollection of our history as a country and indeed that of my parents,” he said.