With Mugabe you must not only show your support, but you have to be a slobbering yes-man. When the ship is sinking, you have to say it is not, and deal ruthlessly with anyone who so much as shows the wrong facial expression.

Please, do not construe that I or any other Zimbabwean miss Smith or wish to make excuses for him. My contention is that oppression is oppression, doesn't matter who is doing it. The views I am getting from people in this board is that it's OK for Mugabe to reign with an iron fist because he is Black, and that he owns Zimbabwe and so on. I believe our country has a long future ahead of it, after Mugabe someone else will come, and someone else after. All I am saying is that the people should have the power to choose, and that the people should have the power to call that person to account.

Mugabe's good side

- He expanded education.

- He maintained good relations with all nations, ensuring that Zimbabwe's public image as an all round great country was established.

It has been so long since he actually did anything for the country that I cannot immediately think of a long list. Or maybe there isn't a long list of his good side.

Bad side

- Did nothing to deal with kleptocracy, nepotism, corruption. Surrounded himself with international gangsters like Tiny Rowland, Bredenkamp, Rautenbach, the British Royal family- who own shares in many multi-national corporations, the Oppenheimers etc. Some of these people are today using Zimbabwe as a base for their forays in to the Congo ( confirm, Sista Bantu)

- Did nothing to foster the emergence of a Black merchant/industrialist class. He maintained the colonial legacy, as reflected in the education system, which saw Black people as useful only to other people.

- Imposed restrictions on the media. The result is that sometimes he doesn't have a clue, because his own sources only tell him what they think he wants to hear.

In other words, all that he accomplished in the 80s, he began to reverse the gains in the 90s onwards.

Let me say that my fear is that after Mugabe, we will still have such oppression. So, I am not anti-Mugabe as such, but anti-oppression.