At the height of former president Jacob Zuma’s “nine wasted years” in power in 2017, an incident occurred in which then Zimbabwe’s first lady Grace Mugabe allegedly assaulted a South African model and girlfriend of her son with an electrical cord.
In what can only have been the highest form of abuse of office, the Zuma administration granted Mugabe diplomatic immunity which allowed her to escape arrest in SA.
AfriForum, the Afrikaner lobby group, has since gone to court and got that revoked, leading to an arrest warrant being issued for the now former first lady who lives in Singapore.
Fate has somehow intervened to provide South Africa a chance to extract some sort of justice for Gabriella Engels, the model Mugabe assaulted.
One of the Mugabe boys, Bellarmine, was reportedly arrested last week following a shooting at his Hyde Park residence.
The shooting of one of his employees is yet to be heard in court but the general sentiment is that the privilege extended to his mother back then cannot be extended to him and his co-accused now, because SA has worked hard to distance itself from that kind of abuse of power.
Africa as a continent has suffered a huge problem over the years with the family members of the ruling elite in most countries being shielded from taking accountability for their illegal actions in their own countries.
It really is a George Orwell’s Animal Farm existence for members of Africa’s ruling elite: “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”
What makes it worse is that the money this ruling class has siphoned off from their countries, depriving their compatriots of better government services, has been used to buy luxurious lives throughout the world.
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Holding Bellarmine Mugabe accountable for any wrongdoing that can be proven to have been perpetrated by him will go a long way towards showing all families of despots their ill-gotten wealth will not grant them immunity from prosecution in a democratic South Africa.
The Mugabe boys have a string of run-ins with the law in their own country that also include drug charges, arrests for damaging property and assaulting police officers.
These are not just random acts by members of a powerful ruling elite, these are incidents that are premised on them having seen in the past that their money and proximity to power has afforded them immunity.
Any ordinary Zimbabwean or South African would be guaranteed jail time for shooting a person (allegedly in the back).
And this is why many citizens here and in Zimbabwe want to see what will become of this latest Mugabe case.
The National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) is acutely aware its officials have been accused of yielding to political influence in the past, resulting in either the bungling of cases where influential figures are involved, or the inexplicable dropping of cases against such individuals.
The NPA knows AfriForum is watching. And even though some kind of controversy is already being generated by the police’s failure, so far, to secure the weapon that was used in the shooting involving Mugabe, the prosecuting authority will want to show the country that the “wasted years” era is a thing of the past.
Although President Cyril Ramaphosa’s government will not want to be seen to be interfering with the functioning of the courts, they will surely not abuse their official powers to shield Robert Mugabe’s family.
The president’s legacy is not a stellar one, but he will not want to be seen as extending the “wasted years” era.
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