Mugabe"s war machine
Subtitle: saving or savaging Zimbabwe?
By: Paul Moorcraft
Publisher: Pen & Sword
Published: 2011
Place of publication: South Yorkshire, [UK]
Language: eng
Number of pages: 208
ISBN-13: 9781848844100
Subjects: Politics and government; Military History; Military leadership; Biography; Presidents
Description: "Mugabe's dictatorship in Zimbabwe has survived only because of the vicious suppression of all internal dissent. At the same time, the dictator fought in external wars, regardless of the domestic costs. This revealing book tracks the rise of Mugabe and decodes his psychology in the context of Zimbabwe's military history. His leadership of a guerrilla army against white rule explains how Mugabe continued to rule Zimbabwe as though he were still running an insurgency. Mugabe used military power -- the armed forces, militias, police and the dreaded Central Intelligence Organization -- to enforce his will against a series of perceived enemies. Along with inflicting massacres in Matabeleland in the early 1980s, Mugabe's forces also fought a covert war against apartheid South Africa. A large army was sent to intervene in the civil war in Mozambique. After 1998 Zimbabwean troops engaged in the massive conflict in the Congo, dubbed Africa's First World War.  Domestically, Mugabe crushed all his alleged opponents from the Ndebele to white farmers, and then the media, judiciary, civic groups, churches, unions and homosexuals. The book recounts South African attempts to keep the current government of national unity alive, despite the growing oppression. It also considers how Zimbabwe can be saved from its own self-destruction.  Mugabe's War Machine is the first full account of one man's military ambitions. It contains shocking stories of massacre and murder at home and powerful accounts of neighbouring wars and international intelligence intrigues."--
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [197]-200) and index.
Table of contents: title: Mugabe : a revolutionary tyrant; title: White conquest of the land : the first Chimurenga; title: The 'second Chimurenga' : internal and international dynamics; title: Mugabe's liberation war; title: Mugabe comes to power; title: Civil war and ethnic cleansing; title: Foreign fronts; title: The self-destruction of Zimbabwe; title: Days of the generals; title: Zimbabwe after Mugabe; title: Mugabe's legacy.