Sitting in his office beneath a portrait of himself, Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe cut a lonely, pitiful figure in his first in-depth interview in nearly 30 years, moved to tears at the memory of his lamented friendship with Britain's Queen Elizabeth. Moments later, however, his eyes sparked with anger, betraying his vengeful nature.
The 84-year-old Mugabe was talking to author Heidi Holland and her resulting "psycho-biography" depicts a deluded leader who still has the power to bring everything right for his country -- on condition that he gets a phone call from Downing Street.
"His issue is with Britain," said Holland, whose book, Dinner With Mugabe, has just been published by Penguin South Africa. "Even today, he sees the white farmers as British. Given the history and the behavior of Britain, there is logic -- a twisted logic -- to his thinking. It's all very well for Britain to say he is beneath contempt. But it is they who have to talk to him if the crisis is to end."
PHOTO: EPA
Holland, a white Zimbabwean living in South Africa, spent 18 months lobbying for the interview, which she finally obtained in December thanks to a Roman Catholic priest close to Mugabe.
"I had been waiting in Harare for five weeks and had been vetted and grilled. In the end I received a call telling me I should be at State House in half an hour. I arrived at 10am and three hours later His Excellency -- `HE' as everyone calls him -- received me," she said.
Holland's only previous meeting with Mugabe was in 1975 when she cooked chicken for him at a clandestine dinner in Salisbury (now Harare). When he left her house, it was to go to Mozambique to lead guerrillas fighting Rhodesian white rule. He became prime minister in 1980.
"I think meeting me [again] was a searing experience for him. He is a loner with no friends who has constructed a bubble around himself because he does not want to confront his failure," she said.
For the entire two-and-a-half hour interview, Mugabe sat behind his desk on a swivel chair.
"There are comfy chairs in the office, but he preferred the safety of his desk," she said.
To write her book, which includes interviews with British and Zimbabwean friends and foes of the president, Holland sought the help of three psychologists.
"I needed help to understand how events in Mugabe's life, including his childhood, had impacted on his internal narrative," she said.
By the age of 10 his father had left the family home and his older brother had died. It was a joyless childhood, cut short.
"Mugabe has a thin skin and a shaky self-image. He has unrealistic expectations of people. When he is rejected or humiliated, he turns to revenge. His relationship with the British government has the intensity of a family feud," she said.
Holland saw evidence of Mugabe's ire whenever her questioning hit on controversial subjects such as the Gukurahundi (the killing of up to 30,000 Ndebeles in the 1980s).
"Gukurahundi, what was it? You had a party with a guerrilla force that wanted to reverse democracy. And action was taken. And yes, there might have been excesses, on both sides. There is no regret about the fact that we had to defend the country. But excess, where it happened, yes. Any death that should not have happened is a cause for regret," Mugabe said.
Some interviewees told Holland that the land invasions that began in 2000 and have deprived hundreds of whites of their farms may have been initially supported by Mugabe but got out of hand.
"He denies this, of course," Holland said. "But what is most interesting is that ... he really thought the British government would do something."
But Britain, under former prime minister Tony Blair, proved the equivalent of a disappointing parent, quick to scold and unwilling to listen. When the Labour government made it clear it felt no obligation to subsidize further programs of land acquisition because previous compensation had been misused, Mugabe went ballistic.
"He was nearly crying when he told me that Blair `even poisoned Prince Charles and the Queen against me,'" Holland said.
"I think he granted me the interview because he feels he is getting old and it's time to put certain things on the record. But he expects to win the election and probably will," she said.
Asked how he would like to be remembered, Mugabe told Holland: "Just as the son of a peasant family who, alongside others, felt he had a responsibility to fight for his country and was grateful for the honor that the people gave him in leading them to victory over British imperialism."
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