Football Mania Masks Zimbabwean Crisis

For football fans around the world, today could not arrive quick enough. A month of football games with the eventual winners being crowned world champions.

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Whilst we have seen a rugby world cup staged in South Africa (which the hosts won – who can forget that game?), there has never been a football championship like this in South Africa.

There has been much work, planning, building and observations made as the clock has ticked down to the kick-off of the first match this afternoon between hosts Bafana Bagana and Mexico.

But, whilst the world watches 22 men kick around a sphere of air in an attempt to put it in the opposition’s goal, we should be very careful not to lose focus on the true crisis brewing in Southern Africa.

Zimbabwe is a mess - and the man responsible for that situation is being hosted as a guest at the opening ceremony later today. Robert Gabriel Mugabe reportedly begged Jacob Zuma, South African President, to give him an invite to the ceremony.

And, having received that invitation, he has gone to South Africa - with a 50-man delegation - and will be there for three days… all paid for by the longsuffering Zimbabwean people.

Meanwhile, it has been announced that the electricity supplier in Zimbabwe, ZESA, will not be carrying out the scheduled load shedding in Zimbabwe for the duration of the tournament to allow the people to watch the games on television.

My question is very simple. How can ZESA suddenly have enough magetz (electricity) to power Zimbabwe for the whole month, but cannot do it in normal times? Does sport now supersede the needs of the Zimbabwean population?

I have written much about the threat that exists of an impending reign of terror that Mugabe will have his security forces, war veterans and youth militia unleash upon the population of Zimbabwe once the final whistle has blown at the last game of the tournament on 11 July 2010.

If there was no threat, then why has Mugabe not come forward and said so? Not that I would have believed him…

Why has Mugabe not sought to assure the population that he does not intend any harm on the people he purportedly leads? For that matter, why have we not heard from the Prime Minister, Morgan Tsvangirai, on the subject?

Mugabe will now allow Zimbabwe to enjoy the FIFA world cup, secure in the knowledge that, at the very least, the tournament will have bought him another month at the top of the Zimbabwean political tree, and will allow him to hatch more plans to seize more power, unilaterally take from the MDC pot, and prefer spurious charges against more of the MDC MPs, whilst he plans his final military coup in Zimbabwe.

And, let’s face it, what Mugabe is perpetrating is a military coup - but, unlike the coups we see and read about elsewhere in the world, his is quiet and time-consuming, but equally deadly and equally destructive.

Is the 11th of July the end of the surreptitious power-grabbing rule of Mugabe, and the beginning of a 'no holds barred' dictatorship from the man who calls himself "Hitler" and his party call the "second son of God", or will common sense finally prevail in Southern Africa?

Robb WJ Ellis

The Bearded Man