Zimbabwe\u2019s military seized power Wednesday, saying it was holding president Robert Mugabe and his family safe while targeting \u201ccriminals\u201d in the entourage of the only ruler the country has known in its 37 years of independence.<\/p>\n
Reuters News Agency said that Mugabe had confirmed to South African president Jacob Zuma in a telephone conversation that he was confined to his room at State House but was fine.<\/p>\n
Malawi\u2019s Foreign Affairs Minister, Emmanuel Fabiano, told Times Group that the government was still studying the situation before they could comment.<\/p>\n
Civil strife in Zimbabwe has the potential of affecting Malawi because the two countries are neighbours.<\/p>\n
Soldiers seized the state broadcaster and an army general appeared on television to announce the takeover. Armoured vehicles blocked roads to the main government offices, parliament and the courts in central Harare, while taxis ferried commuters to work nearby.<\/p>\n
The atmosphere in the capital remained calm.<\/p>\n
It was not clear whether the apparent military coup would bring a formal end to 93-year-old Mugabe\u2019s rule. The main goal of the generals appeared to be preventing Mugabe\u2019s wife Grace, 41 years his junior, from succeeding him.<\/p>\n
But whether or not he remains in office, it is likely to mark the end of the total dominance of the country by Mugabe, the last of Africa\u2019s generation of anti-colonial state founders still in power and one of the continent\u2019s most polarising figures.<\/p>\n
Mugabe, still seen by many Africans as an anti-colonial hero, is reviled in the West as a despot whose disastrous handling of the economy and willingness to resort to violence to maintain power destroyed one of Africa\u2019s most promising states.<\/p>\n
He plunged Zimbabwe into a fresh political crisis last week by firing his vice president and presumed successor. The generals believed that the move was aimed at clearing the path for Grace to take over and announced on Monday they were prepared to \u201cstep in\u201d if purges of their allies did not end.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are only targeting criminals around him (Mugabe) who are committing crimes that are causing social and economic suffering in the country in order to bring them to justice,\u201d Major General SB Moyo, Chief of Staff Logistics, said on television.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs soon as we have accomplished our mission, we expect that the situation will return to normalcy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Western countries mostly called for calm.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe cannot tell how developments in Zimbabwe will play out in the days ahead and we do not know whether this marks the downfall of Mugabe or not,\u201d British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson told parliament.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will do all we can, with our international partners, to ensure this provides a genuine opportunity for all Zimbabweans to decide their future.\u201d<\/p>\n
Finance Minister Ignatius Chombo, a leading member of the ruling party\u2019s \u2018G40\u2019 faction, led by Grace Mugabe, had been detained by the military, a government source told Reuters<\/p>\n
Yesterday afternoon, it was business as usual in Harare\u2019s suburbs while there was less traffic than normal in the city centre. Soldiers continued to man armoured cars but had relaxed searches on vehicles on some checkpoints. Residents spoke in awe of events that had previously seemed unthinkable.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t support the army but I am happy to see Mugabe gone, maybe this country can start to develop again,\u201d said Rumbi Katepfu, preparing to shut her mobile phone shop early in downtown Harare. \u201cI did not think this would ever happen… We used to think Mugabe and Grace were invincible.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mugabe supporters seemed disinclined to fight to defend him. Tinashe Murisi, washing a car emblazoned with a picture of Mugabe in the poor township of Mbare a few minutes from the city centre, said: \u201cAll I need is peace in the country and the rest we don\u2019t have to get involved in what does not concern us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Whatever the final outcome, the events could signal a once-in-a-generation change in the southern African nation, once a regional bread-basket, reduced to poverty by an economic crisis Mugabe\u2019s opponents have long blamed on him.<\/p>\n
Even many of Mugabe\u2019s most loyal supporters over the decades had come to oppose the rise of his wife, who courted the powerful youth wing of the ruling party but alienated the military, led by Mugabe\u2019s former guerrilla comrades from the 1970s independence struggle.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a correction of a state that was careening off the cliff,\u201d Chris Mutsvangwa, the leader of the liberation war veterans, told Reuters. \u201cIt\u2019s the end of a very painful and sad chapter in the history of a young nation, in which a dictator, as he became old, surrendered his court to a gang of thieves around his wife.\u201d<\/p>\n
The opposition Movement for Democratic Change called for a peaceful return to constitutional democracy, adding it hoped the military intervention would lead to the \u201cestablishment of a stable, democratic and progressive nation state\u201d.<\/p>\n
Zuma \u2014 speaking on behalf of the Southern African Development Community \u2014 expressed hope there would be no unconstitutional changes, and urged Zimbabwe\u2019s government and the military \u201cto resolve the political impasse amicably\u201d.<\/p>\n
While most African states gained independence by the end of the 1960s, Zimbabwe remained one of the last European colonies on the continent, ruled by white settlers as Rhodesia until 1980. Mugabe took power after a long guerrilla struggle and, two decades later, ordered the forcible seizure of white-owned farms.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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