Staff ReporterZimbabwe Former President Robert Mugabe was told he would be exposed as a corrupt mass murderer by Zimbabwe’s military leaders unless he ‘volunteered’ to resign.
The 93-year-old former leader of Zimbabwe was warned that his reputation would be destroyed with the release of secret police files containing records of his personal orders to slaughter thousands in the early 1980s.
More than 20,000 members of the Ndebele tribe were killed, with pregnant women bayoneted and disembowelled, in the 1980s because they supported a rival party opposed to Robert Mugabe.
Details of the despot’s direct involvement – said to be confirmed in telegrams and telephone records obtained by the secret police – would have left him open to war crimes charges.
Several Hours before he resigned on Monday night, prompting euphoric scenes as thousands poured onto the streets, Robert Mugabe received a chilling visit from General Constantine Chiwenga, the military leader of the coup that took place in Zimbabwe.
Former president Robert Mugabe has been granted immunity and allowed to remain safely in Zimbabwe under a resignation deal, sources have said
The military coup leaders made ‘generous offers’ in the following days to Mugabe that he could retire with his full state pension and all other benefits as long as he stepped down.
But when Mugabe broke an agreement to resign on lived television on Sunday, Chiwenga turned ruthless .
He and his officials confronted Mugabe with these sheaves of intelligence files relating to his orders to kill innocents during the so-called Gukahrundi massacres, which means the ‘spring rain that clears the chaff’, as well as details of massive corruption behind his £3 billion fortune.
‘We tried to be kind,’ one official involved told me last night. ‘He is an old man. He would talk for hours, then fall asleep mid sentence. He can’t walk without help and has to wear special nappies. He could not continue in power.’
Former President Mugabe was told that ‘if you are staying defiant and arrogant we will release all these documents. You will be humiliated, prosecuted and jailed. Your legacy will be in tatters. The law will be allowed to run its course.’
The documents would be handed to parliament during impeachment proceedings to remove him from office, and published around the world.
