Africa’s oldest tyrant got a hand up from an Aussie PM

Malcolm Fraser writes to his friend and Zimbabwe’s new leader, Robert Mugabe, March 15, 1980:

… under your leadership, Zimbabwe will make great progress in achieving your goals of peace, prosperity and unity.

Mugabe liked Big Mal, too. The Zimbabwean president speaks to Philip Ayres in Malcolm Fraser: A Biography, 1987:

I got enchanted by (Fraser), we became friends, personal friends …

So, did Mugabe bring “peace, prosperity and unity”? Now the end is near. London’s The Times, yesterday:

Robert Mugabe’s brutal 37-year rule came to an end yesterday after the Zimbabwean army launched a rapid coup, seizing control of the country and placing the president under house arrest in his mansion.

Peace? Yeah, nah. Agence France-Presse, March 20, 2008:

President Robert Mugabe’s supporters have used violence to intimidate opponents in the run-up to next week’s Zimbabwe election, undermining chances of a fair poll, according to Human Rights Watch.

Prosperity? Nope. South Africa’s The Times, October 2:

A decade ago, hyperinflation wiped out personal savings, left shops empty and made it all but impossible to buy a tank of petrol or groceries. Inflation peaked at 500 billion per cent before the Zim dollar was abandoned in favour of the US dollar, and the economy never recovered.

And how about unity? Definitely not, mate. London’s The Times, ­October 10:

The former vice-president of Zimbabwe has fled from the country in fear of his life, vowing to lead the ­opposition against Robert Mugabe. Emmerson Mnangagwa said the 93-year-old president was planning to hand power to his wife, Grace …

But Fraser strongly backed Mugabe in the beginning. The prime minister on ABC Perth Radio, October 6, 1980:

Caller: … I ask you if you will admit publicly that you made a vast miscalculation … (of) the Marxist Mugabe to take over Rhodesia?

Fraser: … I think earlier there were many miscalculations about Mr Mugabe … He has done many things to try and make sure that the white people stay in Zimbabwe.

And Fraser backed his original judgment of Mugabe until the end. Fraser writing for The Australian, April 17, 2008:

Because the past 15 years have been so increasingly bad, people forget that initially Mugabe started reasonably well. While his first wife, Sally, a Ghanaian, was alive, the government was much more moderate.

Despite the early warning signs he was a tyrant all along. The Guardian, May 19, 2015:

From January 1983, a campaign of terror was waged against the Ndebele people in Matabeleland in western Zimbabwe … more than 20,000 civilians were killed by Robert Mugabe’s feared Fifth Brigade.

Never forget the role this country and its prime minister played in this sorry tale. Fraser on the ABC’s The World Today, April 7, 2000:

I find it very hard to understand the disintegration that has, in fact, ­occurred because I really did believe, and I think many people who knew what was happening in the country believed, that president Mugabe started very well … in recent years I haven’t really been all that close (with Mugabe). I doubt if my ringing him would influence him.