President Robert Mugabe would have acquired the honourable status of Africa’s hero if he had stepped down in the early 80s. He, an way, liberated Zimbabwe from colonization after a pitiless war against British colonizers.

Mugabe’s struggle – and Joshua Nkomo’s – were noble, and there is no doubt about that. That struggle was part of a regional move to get a freer Africa. Zambia, Namibia and South Africa were suffering the same difficulties and a regional solidarity was more than logical at that time.

Where were ANC’s ‘military’ bases? Who helped ANC fighters for their travels and other freedom-related transactions? The answer is Mugabe. Who condemned Mandela and other ANCers calling them terrorists and communists and encouraging the apartheid system to maintain them in jail? The West, the one now pushing Mbeki to abandon his freedom-war companion.

You can forget friends but when it’s under your yesterday’s enemy pressure, you can’t. The West, especially the US and UK should first account for their support to the Apartheid regime which created all those land issues in southern Africa before they ask Mbeki to be like Brutus stabbing his father Caesar.

In my opinion, the SADC support to the Mugabe is totally logical. The only thing worth criticizing is why Mbeki and other SADC leaders are not rescuing Mugabe from drowning. They can do so by advising him to be less brutal with his own people and to be more democratic. They can also rescue Zimbabwe as a whole by advising the opposition to be quiet and not to poor more oil on fire, because, at the end of the day, it is Zimbabwe that will end up in ashes and not Mugabe who still has a maximum of 5-10 years to leave before he “naturally” renders his soul.

This is perhaps Mbeki’s and South Africa’s strategy. To keep indifferent and let time do its job. Whatever longevity Mugabe might have, he will not reach 100 years. However, the West, which blindly sided with Bulgaria for the liberation of the medical workers from Libyan jails – and never demanded a fair trail in Libya or in even Bulgaria (any way 400 kids got infected) – should not accuse Mbeki and SADC of blindly supporting Mugabe. History is much more powerful that some might think. And an African saying warns: “You tend a trap to your step-mother, and it is your own mother you falls into the trap”.