Robert Mugabe’s 100,000 closest friends to attend his 93rd birthday in Matobo
Farmers in Matobo have been urged to ‘donate’ a beast each, as a way of demonstrating their ‘appreciation’ for Mugabe, and 150 cattle are targeted for slaughter
About 100,000 guests are expected to attend Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe’s 93rd birthday celebrations later this month. Mugabe was born on February 21, a date that has spawned "the 21 February Movement", whose main task is to organise a birthday bash for its patron annually. This year the celebrations are due to be held in Matobo, a scenic and popular but underdeveloped tourist area about 40km from Bulawayo. It is also where Cecil John Rhodes is buried. However, traditional leaders in Matobo are not pleased with the choice of venue as Matobo is a few kilometres from Bhalagwe, where victims of the Gukurahundi massacres lie in shallow graves. The Gukurahundi deaths are a blight on Mugabe’s rule, with thousands having lost their lives in the mid-1980s following the targeting of innocent Ndebele-speaking villagers when the state was fighting an internal revolt. The cost of Mugabe’s birthday party is unknown, but in the past such celebrations have cost millions of dollars. Farmers ...
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