What Of Mugabe's "National Duty"?
Islam: What Are The Rights of Women?
What Can Be Said Of Pakistan?
So Mugabe and his wife have commandeered an Air Zimbabwe aircraft and jetted off to Singapore because Grace has hurt herself.
Who pays for this jaunt? And, if the Air Zimbabwe pilots are on strike, what aircraft and crew did he use?
It is a serious reflection on the depths to which Zimbabwean health services have plumbed when the President's wife is flown to Singapore for medical attention. Not exactly a 'Zimbabwean' reaction, is it?
While he and his wife are being molly-coddled on the other side of the globe, the people of Zimbabwe have to contend with virtually no medical services - or none that they can afford at any rate...
"President Robert Mugabe left Harare for Singapore Friday evening with local media speculating that his wife, Grace, is in an Asian country seeking treatment for what was described as a serious ailment.
Mugabe has travelled to Singapore quite a few time this year for what officials described as routine check-ups following an operation to correct a cataract operation."
Another article I read suggested that Amazing (Dis)Grace had managed to dislocate a hip in a fall. If that is the case, surely that sort of malady can be repaired and treated in Zimbabwe?
"Striking Air Zimbabwe pilots had to be scrambled to fly Mugabe out with the airline's chairman, Jonathan Kadzura, insisting they could not refuse to perform what he described as 'national duty'.
There is a difference of going on strike for commercial flights and flying on national duty," Kadzira told The Standard. "You can't say no to national duty because yesterday's flight wasn't a commercial one."
What a load of rubbish! Why should pilots be shanghaied into flying Mugabe and his wife to Singapore? One wonders whether the pilots concerned will be even paid for their mission.
And if flying Mugabe and Grace to Singapore was to be considered a ‘national duty’ then we must consider Mugabe’s tenure as President as ‘national duty’. Sadly, the truth of the matter is that he may hold the position, but his actions within that office do not, and have not resembled anything close to ‘national duty’ for decades.
His rule has spelt death and destruction for many, many Zimbabweans. (I do find it sad that no one has kept a score of just how many Zimbabweans have died as a direct result of Mugabe’s insidious rule. The people that have died in the political violence, in the criminal activity which has blossomed in the face of a lack of law and order.
The people that have fallen prey to the diseases that now rage almost uncontrolled in a country with no sanitation and almost no health services to speak of, those that have died through lack of food or decent nutrients. Those that have died having sustained simple injuries in accidents but whose families have been unable to raise the prerequisite money to have medical attention.
Those that have died at the hands of ZANU PF thugs.
Those that have died for lack of something so basic as adequate shelter and housing.
Transporting Mugabe and his wife to Singapore is not a ‘national duty’ – not while he continues to rule with no regard to his own 'national duty'.
Robb WJ Ellis
The Bearded Man
