WHEN Donald Trump vowed last week to ‘deal’ with Presidents Robert Mugabe and Yoweri Museveni if he wins America’s forthcoming polls, he could not have imagined the extent to which his utterances would expose what has now become a common feature of recent American presidential aspirants – that of using the Zimbabwean leader as a ladder to the White House.
George Bush did it with aplomb and won successive elections.
And Barack Obama completes his second and final term on the back of his relentless attacks on President Mugabe from his campaign and right through his disastrous tenure as America’s president.
A few years after President Mugabe denounced Bush and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair as ‘the two unholy men of our millennium’ and Obama for trying to dominate Africa through imposing gay rights, American arrogance seems to be getting cruder by the day.
“The US and Britain have taken it upon themselves to decide for us in the developing world. Even to interfere in our domestic affairs, and want to bring about what they call regime change,” said President Mugabe in Rome in 2005.
“Where are their democratic tenets? Where is their morality? Where is their compliance with the salient principles of good governance?”
The entrance of the maverick Trump, a hardcore personification of white interests in global politics and his attack on President Mugabe is a calculated move to whip up emotions of American voters who have been persistently coerced by the Bush and Obama administrations into resenting the Zimbabwean leader for his steadfast stance on matters to do with sovereignty.
In President Mugabe, Trump believes he has found easy prey in America’s quest to retain its self-assumed position as the village policeman.
It was no surprise Trump chose his address to American war veterans in Washington to launch his diatribe against President Mugabe, himself a veteran of Zimbabwe’s struggle for freedom.
Trump has no regard for Zimbabwe’s liberation struggle, its war veterans and what the two mean to Zimbabweans.
While our war veterans, a vital cog of Zimbabwe’s institutional memory, were in the bush, dismantling the arrogant Ian Smith regime, Trump was making money through the chrome supplies America was given the freedom to loot from Zimbabwe by Smith while America’s war veterans were terminating other nationalities.
“I want to re-iterate here before America’s greatest heroes that I will not condone any dictatorial tendencies exhibited by dictators around the world, especially the two old men from Zimbabwe and Uganda,” said the non-conformist Trump.
“Mugabe and Museveni must be put on notice that their days are numbered and that I am going to arrest them and lock them in prison. If the past American administrations have failed to stop these two despots, I will personally do it.
“Mugabe and Museveni have given the world enough troubles and it’s about time someone puts to an end all this madness for peace to prevail. 
“If Obama fears them, I will never fear them. If Clinton and Bush feared them, if the Pope kneels before them, I will never be reduced to that level. I will never be cowed. I promise to clean all the political mess around the world and promote international justice.”
Lost on Trump was that Bush never feared Robert Mugabe, but failed to dislodge him because former US Assistant Secretary for African Affairs, Chester Crocker’s request to American Senators in September 2001 to use sanctions ‘to separate that man Robert Mugabe and ZANU PF from the people’ failed to produce the desired results.
Despite making illegal economic sanctions one of his first major global policy, Bush departed office a frustrated man after Zimbabweans endorsed President Mugabe as their leader in elections held during Bush’s two terms.
The punitive US sanctions law, the so-called Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act came into existence on December 21 2001.
It was on that day that he issued a revealing statement that would keep him in office for two terms while destroying the economy and lives of the people of Zimbabwe.
He said:
“Today, I have signed into S. 494 [“S” means Senate “law” because it originated in the Senate], the “Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act of 2001. This Act symbolises the clear bipartisan resolve in the United States to promoting human rights, good governance and economic development in Africa. My administration shares fully the Congress’ deep concern about the political and economic hardships visited upon Zimbabwe by that country’s leadership. I hope the provisions of this important legislation will support the people of Zimbabwe in their struggle to effect peaceful, democratic change, achieve economic growth and restore the rule of law.”
Obama tried it, maintaining the sanctions and anti-Mugabe rhetoric but he suffered the same fate.
He vacates office with President Mugabe still standing tall and having been recently overwhelmingly endorsed by the majority of Zimbabweans.
Trump will be no exception with his claim to glory being using President Mugabe’s name as a passport to the American presidency.