What Might Paul And Jeannette Kagame Be Thinking After The Fall Of The Mugabes?

By David Himbara

Dictatorship is a weird thing. It is an elephant and a rat at the same time. The difference between an elephant and a rat is massive. An elephant weighs 100,000 times more than a rat.

Robert Mugabe was an elephant, towering over the nation of Zimbabwe for 37 years. One arrogant mistake transformed Mugabe from an elephant into a rat – dumping his Vice President, in favour of his wife, Grace Mugabe. The big Zimbabwe elephant is now a small rat trapped in the very mansion from which he terrorized the people of Zimbabwe for nearly 40 years.

The elephant has lost his power. Gone. Forever. The revolutionary hero has exited from the throne straight into the dustbin of history.

Now to the Kagames – what might they be thinking about? It is paranoia time in the Rwandan Republic. The Kagames will now begin to imagine all sorts of things. The Kagames will see danger signs everywhere believing that Rwandan generals are about to do a Zimbabwe.

I bet Kagame will start purging his generals in panic.

Kagame need not worry though. Rwanda does not have an a real army. It is a mere puppet. No backbone. There is hardly any general that Kagame has not abused and humiliated into a self-hating obedient zombie. So doing a Zimbabwe is unlikely in Kagame’s Rwanda.

Doing a Zimbabwe requires a decent military that does not kill people; that has not even abused Mugabe the dictator but Is attempting to persuade him to formally leave power peacefully.

Am I saying that Kagame the elephant will not turn into a rat as all dictators do? No I am not saying that. The mostly scenario based on Rwandan history is how Kayibanda and Habyarimana exited. A new strongman eliminates the old elephant-turned-rat. And a new cycle then begins.