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Rocket man takes aim at Mugabe
Christina Lamb, The Sunday Times (London)
March 05, 2006

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-2069969,00.html

A ZIMBABWEAN rocket scientist has swept back into his country after 15 years abroad and launched himself as a radical opposition leader, vowing to bring down President Robert Mugabe and end the misrule that has left millions on the edge of starvation. “We can’t expect the outside world to bring about change,” said Arthur Mutambara, 39, in his first newspaper interview since being named leader of a breakaway faction of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).

“As a Zimbabwean, I’ve had enough of seeing my fellow citizens suffering. The game’s up. I’m going to remove Robert Mugabe, I promise you, with every tool at my disposal.” Zimbabweans have been astonished by the sudden arrival on the political scene of one of the country’s most eminent expatriate academics. His last involvement in politics was in leading the first student protests against Mugabe in 1989. Since then he has completed a doctorate in robotics and mechatronics at Merton College, Oxford, and worked on the American space programme. He has been a professor of robotics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and other American universities and a management consultant for McKinsey & Company. He recently moved to South Africa, from where he has been travelling to Zimbabwe as a consultant, and says he has been horrified by its deterioration. Violent “redistribution” of farms to Mugabe’s cronies has caused food production to plummet so low that people have been fighting with dogs over scraps in rubbish dumps. Inflation is more than 600%.

Teachers send pupils out to sell sweets to supplement their salaries and students are on strike after a 700% increase in fees. “I felt ashamed that my country, which has so much potential, has become the basket case of Africa,” said Mutambara. His decision to intervene was prompted by a crisis in the opposition. After contesting three rigged elections the MDC split in November when its leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, decided not to fight for seats in a new senate, even though the party’s national executive had voted to participate in the poll. “I felt we were going backwards,” Mutambara said. “It’s all very well to keep analysing the situation but I decided to walk the talk and actually get involved.” Last week the so-called “pro-senate MDC” held a congress in Bulawayo at which the split was formalised and Mutambara emerged as leader. His backers include the MDC’s secretary-general, Welshman Ncube.

He claims the support of 24 of the party’s 40 MPs. The so-called “anti-senate” faction led by Tsvangirai will hold its own congress next week and a legal battle is underway over the use of the party’ s name and funds. The division seems to be playing into the hands of Mugabe, who celebrated his 82nd birthday last weekend with a lavish party while many of his countrymen went hungry. But Mutambara insists that the MDC needed to be overhauled. “How do you talk about a regime which is criminal and violent when you yourselves are carrying out violent acts and violating your own party rules?” he asked. “We won’t be qualified to fight Mugabe if we are little Mugabes.” Mutambara, the father of two boys under the age of two, says he is well aware of the risks of taking on the president. As a student activist he jumped out of a window in a vain attempt to escape from the police during the unrest that brought Tsvangirai to prominence as a union leader.

Tsvangirai was the target of three assassination attempts after he founded the MDC in 1999. “I’m not worried about me,” said Mutambara. “I’m worried about where Zimbabwe will be in 50 years or 30 years from now. It’s about making a difference and leaving a legacy. My wife, Jacqueline, understands that.”

Although Zimbabweans are desperate for change, it is not surprising that this fresh-faced figure promising to “rebrand” the opposition has aroused suspicion. One of his professors at Zimbabwe University was Jonathan Moyo, who became Mugabe’s spin doctor before being elected as an independent MP. One Tsvangirai loyalist suggested that Mutambara might be a Mugabe “plant”. Mutambara said: “I respect that some people think that I have come from nowhere, but I represent the opportunity to have fresh ideas and fresh strategies to change the regime. I am the opportunity for change that’s untainted.” But Nelson Chamisa, the MDC’s youth chairman and spokesman for Tsvangirai, said: “That’s absolute rubbish. The struggle is not for the untainted, it’s for the tainted — those of us who have been tainted by Mugabe’s handcuffs, by his killings, by his destruction of houses.”

Mutambara says his aim is not just to oust Mugabe. “After 26 years the Zanu-PF system has become a culture and Mugabe is just a symbol of that,” he said. “It’s not just a political party, it’s a way of doing things that has corrupted and destroyed every sector of society.” Mutambara, whose parents were teachers, has three sisters, all with doctorates. “I’m coming from a tradition of academic excellence where if you came second in the class you were seen as a failure,” he said. “I don’t accept defeat.” With no elections due until 2008, Mutambara said his first aim was a new constitution. “Even if we have to fight elections under the current constitution, we will build an opposition so strong and formidable that if Mugabe tries to rig elections, it will be impossible for him to get away with it.”

Mutambara, who hopes some of the 3.4m Zimbabweans believed to have left their country will return to join him, is eager to be seen as a revolutionary. He offers no reassurances to white farmers who have lost their land and believes any expressions of support from western leaders such as Tony Blair would be counter-productive. Asked if his plans might include a Ukrainian-style mass mobilisation of opponents of Mugabe’s regime, he replied: “We’re going to use every tool we can get to dislodge this regime. We’re not going to rule out or in anything — the sky’s the limit.”

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