Robert Mugabe Part 4: A Game of Thrones

On Big Lives, we take a single cultural icon, people like Jane Fonda, George Michael, Little Richard, and we pull apart the story behind the image. And we do this by digging through the BBC's vast archives. Discovering forgotten interviews that changed exactly how we see these giants of our culture. We're here for the messy, the brilliant, the human version of our heroes. I'm Emmanuel Jochi, and Kai Wright, and this is Big Lives. Listen to Big Lives wherever you get your podcasts. One. It's November the 7th, 2017, a little after midnight. We're on the border of Zimbabwe and Mozambique. A desolate, scrubby wasteland, littered with landmines. A 73-year-old man is about to attempt an illegal crossing. If he fails, it will almost certainly cost him his life. In one hand, he clutches a Louis Vuitton briefcase. It's critical that the content of the bag make it over the border with him. His two grown-up sons are with him, and also a guide, indispensable given the minefields all around. They follow a narrow dirt path into the bush, scrambling on his belly to avoid the glare of police searchlights. The man is living up to his old wartime nickname, the crocodile. He can scarcely believe it's come to this after decades at the heart of government. Forty-eight hours ago, Emerson Menengagua was the vice president of Zimbabwe. Now he's fleeing for his life, but he has a plan. Once the crocodile and his sons make it to safety, a letter will be released. Officially, it's addressed to President Mugabe, but the message is clearly intended for the Zimbabwean people. Let us bury our differences and rebuild a new and prosperous Zimbabwe, Menengagua will tell them. A country that is tolerant to divergent views, a country that respects opinions of others, a country that does not isolate itself from the rest of the world because of one stubborn individual who believes he is entitled to rule this country until death. He signs off, "I will be communicating with you soon and shall return to Zimbabwe to lead you." It's a bold claim, wildly optimistic, but as it turns out, accurate. Within a few weeks, Menengagua will be back in Zimbabwe to take up the mantle of president. After almost four decades, Robert Mugabe's reign of terror will finally come to an end. From Noiza, this is the final part of the Mugabe story and this is real dictators. Let's rewind three years to December 2014. In Zimbabwe, the crocodile has just been appointed Robert Mugabe's number two, but the circumstances surrounding his promotion would give anyone pause. The last vice president, a popular war veteran called Joyce Mijuru, has seen her political career collapse around her. The architect of her downfall has been none other than the first lady of Zimbabwe, Grace Mugabe. Ironically, the same Grace Mugabe who helped get Mijuru appointed in the first place. Dr. Chippaudendere. So Grace Mugabe is very influential in getting the first female vice president. They bring in Grace Mugabe to compete for the team. They groom her. And at some point Grace Mugabe is probably thinking, "Well, if you're grooming me to work for you, I could be grooming me to work for me. If she can do it, so I could do it myself." Over the past two decades, Grace has been known primarily as a profligate consumer. Her legendary shopping sprees and obsession with luxury brands have earned her the nicknames, the first shopper and Gucci Grace. But until now, there was no sign she had political ambitions of her own. I like to think of it as the transition from Gucci Grace to Conrad Grace. This one speech where she says, "People say that I'm greedy and I want to be president. But why can't I be? You know, I'm a citizen too." And it's like, "Oh, no Grace, you're a citizen, but you don't have any liberation credentials. In this people are not going to let you do that." For almost 40 years, Zimbabwe's ruling party Zanu P.F has drawn its legitimacy from the Liberation War. We kicked out the colonialists, therefore we are the fathers of the nation. So the thinking has gone. But Grace has allied herself with the group of more youthful politicians within the party. An association known as G40, because they were too young to have participated in the struggle. Dr. Sue Onzlo. Generation 40. This was a particular cohort of younger politicians with their own economic and political vested interests. So she fitted within the rivalries and factions and ongoing struggles within the political wing of Zanu P.F as a movement. A shameless narcissist graces competitiveness with Joyce Maduro, which is new heights when her rival completes a PhD. Fortunately, being a dictator's wife carries certain privileges. Professor Stephen Chan. When Joyce Maduro became Dr. Maduro, Grace instantly had to become Dr. Mugabe. The university was basically bludgeoned into insisting that this was a real PhD. I read it and I recognised immediately which academic enrichment. Quite clearly this is not her work, but she was so consumed by jealousy that her rival was now entitled to be called Dr. It just gave you a sense of what kind of prison she would have made. You know, they're glorious, one even more so that her husband. Douglas Rogers has closely examined Mugabe's final days in power. He is the author of Two Weeks in November, the astonishing untold story of the operation that toppled Mugabe. Rogers traces the dictator's ultimate downfall back to his wife's political meddling three years earlier. It was a sort of curtain raise to what would happen in 2017 because Grace Mugabe had the no-holds-barred attack on Joyce Maduro and basically destroyed her through media, through propaganda campaign, through threats. And it was horrifying to people like Manungarguer or the war veterans because Joyce Maduro herself was a war veteran. Who claimed to fame as a guerrilla fighter was that she had shut down a redision helicopter. Later on that was called into question by allies of Grace Mugabe. Former allies and comrades were now turning on each other and denouncing their own service in the Liberation War and saying, "Oh no, that person made that happen, that's not true." And it was brutal and very Shakespearean and these were friends turning on each other for things they had done 40 years earlier. So now you've got Joyce Mugabe's jewelry, she gets ousted. I think she wasn't well-liked within the son of P.F. male power dominance. Her husband is killed in a very painful death in a fire. He had been a top army general but also his wife was ambitious so he gets eliminated. I think there just a number of these eliminations, a number of top party people being kicked out. And then Grace Mugabe is rising and I think the question now was what do you do about Grace? While Grace Mugabe is making a name for herself on the political scene, her husband is very much in decline. Mugabe was very old and frail. He's in his 90s. He would like slur his speeches, he had fallen asleep and meet things, he'd fallen over. People knew he didn't have long. Jerry Jackson. You'd see him in an interview, he'd be propped up with cushions and slumped down and seat. Everybody was just waiting for him to die. He was a shadow of himself but was still being paraded up and down and out and about and his wife Grace was sort of fronting him when they went out and spoke and as he got more frail she came more to the front. Somehow by Fair means of foul, Zimbabwe's president keeps on going. No one could believe how long he was living. He was going to China all the time for treatment. So all he's rumours about, what is he being fed the blood of virgins or something because what is something weird is going on? How can he still be alive? The areas that we formed are consulting with doctors, cancer of some sort. Probably what was also involved in this treatment in Singapore was whole body blood transfusions. Just replacing his blood boxed up in barrel. The cocktail of anti-inflammatories steroids, certain forms of amphetamine, all kinds of hormones. So probably a whole cocktail which would keep him going for a couple of months softy caught back before he would need treatment again. In other words, this is a frail man. pretending not to be frail. Whatever it entails, Megabe's treatment is expensive. In one six-month period, he clocks up over 100,000 air miles, earning himself the nickname "President of the Skies", traveling with an entourage of 40 people at a cost of $6 million per trip, the builds of the exchequer approach is nine figures. By now though, Zimbabweans are used to a culture of excess from their rulers. The exclusive gated community of Borodale, where Megabe and Grace live, is a playground for the super rich, in the midst of one of the world's poorest countries. The ruling party leaders all lived in these mansions. It's a strange thing to drive around that area of Harari because you think that you're arriving in a poor, desperately impoverished country, and you see that it's actually quite beautiful and looks in some ways like Beverly Hills. It's completely mad. It makes no sense to walk in cars. They love cars. Lamborghini's, mesorauties, Rolls-Royce's. And the road, you've got to see the roads. The potholes are craters. You can't drive a mesorauty. They park them in their driveways and they sit on them and they have their mates ran and have a beer in their car and stuff. Over the years, Grace Megabe has become the poster girl for the materialism of the ruling elite. A woman who declared she could only wear $1,000 ferragamo shoes, because no other brand fitted her narrow feet. Compared to Megabe's first wife, Sally, Grace has never been popular. But she's been tolerated, as long as she stays in her lane. In turning against Joyce Maduro and the Zanopf Old Guard though, Grace has seriously blotted her copybook. Zimbabwe is a fairly conservative traditional society, very patriarchal. She was disrespectful of her elders. And again, respecting your elders, your tradition. That is part of Zimbabwe culture and she sort of blew that all up. The idea of Grace taking over was repulsive. I think she was going after everybody. She was addressing people in public. She was talking about how Ami generals, well, you know, we don't care that you fought the war. The war was many, many years ago. I have often wondered if Robert Mokabe had had a son who was a bit older or if he had nurtured somebody into a son, then Zanopf would have had a much smoother transition. I'm Ian Glenn and this is Real Vikings. A monastery on a remote Scottish island overrun with pagan warriors. The dragon shaped prowl the longboat, cutting through Canada's icy waters. A North trader in North Africa, exchanging furs for silver under a desert sun. The Vikings terrified the medieval world, yet they beguilers today. Who were they really? Real Vikings, from the Noiser podcast network. Listen wherever you get your podcasts. When Maduro is booted out of government, it's not Grace, but Emerson Manangagua who takes her place as vice president. For Robert Mokabe though, there are good reasons for Grace to ultimately take over, beyond the dictum of happy wife, happy life. Not only will it keep his family name twin with that of Zimbabwe, but if he lives long enough to see her come to power, she can protect him from prosecution and corruption charges. By 2017, Grace has her sights set on Manangagua. The dispute between her G40 faction and the Zanu old guard reaches epic proportions. It was a game of thrones within the ruling party and Grace had her faction and Manangagua had his faction and those were the warring parties when things came to her head. Seeing off Maduro was one thing, but in going after the crocodile, Grace and her team have bitten off more than they can chew. For almost 40 years, Manangagua has been at the heart of Mokabe's regime. Manangagua had been a close ally in Mozambique where the guerrilla camps were. He had sort of run his security detail. After independence, he was always by Mokabe's side. Manangagua was his protector and Manangagua through the succeeding 37 years had held pretty much every position in government. So yeah, they were comrades and allies. But what's a 50-year friendship when your wife doesn't like your old war buddy? The campaign against the vice president begins in July 2017. G40 slicks Bengali, Jonathan Mojo, hijacks a Politburo meeting. He screens a devastating video that alleges Manangagua has been plotting a coup. Manangagua's response is to sue Mojo for $3 million and write a long letter to Mokabe proclaiming his innocence. But the rumor refuses to go away. A few weeks later, Reuters publishes leaked intelligence documents that suggest a secret pact between the crocodile and Morgan Changarei, leader of the movement for democratic change. After four years of power sharing came to an end in 2013, the MDC have slipped back into their traditional role as Zimbabwe's beleaguered opposition party. Is it possible that Changarei has agreed to work with one of his old Zanu enemies in order to get back into power? Meanwhile, Manangagua has received numerous warnings that an attempt on his life is imminent. In Zimbabwe, car crashes are the usual modus operandi for dispatching political opponents. So when Manangagua starts projectile vomiting at Zanu P. F. Raleigh, it's not immediately clear what the cause is. Air lifted to hospital in South Africa, he's found to have high levels of arsenic in his system. The ice cream served to speakers at the rally came from Grace Mokabe's dairy farm. The first lady is forced to deny accusations that she deliberately poisoned her rival. Why should I kill Manangagua she asks dismissively? Who is Manangagua on this earth? A month later though Grace's language is rather different. We must deal with this snake, she tells a crowd at Rufaro Stadium, where Zimbabwe's independence day was celebrated 37 years earlier. The snake must have his head crushed. In the same way as it had happened against Joyce Majuri, there was the sort of increasing crescendo of personal attacks on Manangagua. And she would often do this on stage, political rallies when he was sitting a few seats away from her. And people in Zimbabwe watched this was like horror, it was like a car crash. It was a soap opera. And Manangagua just politely would just sit there taking it all and people considered him weak, unable to fight back. The fact that she could stand on stages across the country and say this guy is a dead man. She literally said at one point like you're a walking dead man for challenging my husband. For the most part, Mugabe studiously avoids getting involved in the battle between his old friend and his wife. But when the crowd at a bullawayer rally begins to heckle Grace's latest tirade, the president steps in to defend her. Tottering up to the microphone, Mugabe raises a finger in the air, summoning the authority of the stone headmaster. We are denigrated and insulted in the name of Manangagua, he asks theatrically. Did I make a mistake appointing him my deputy? Because if I did, I will drop him as soon as tomorrow. At that point, a decision had to be made, was Mugabe going to side with her or side with Manangagua. And what happened was he sided with his wife Grace and he fired Manangagua. And it was announced on the national broadcaster that Manangagua was being dismissed. So yeah, he was fired and in the normal circumstances in a normal country, that would have been it. He would have been replaced and retired to his house in the country, right? But this thing is in Mugabe where he got word that he was going to be assassinated. It was going to be arrested. Police were coming for him. Manangagua knows better than anyone that such warnings are not to be taken lightly. Manangagua is from Zonipiyet, right? He had himself been responsible for taking people out or giving orders to take people out. So he knew how the system worked. He knew what was going to happen to him. If he stayed, he had to either leave the country or sort of take his chances by staying and he chose to get out. Within 48 hours, Manangagua has made it safely to South Africa. With him is the Louis Vuitton briefcase whose contents were remain a state secret even today. Now, I never found out what was in the briefcase. Jonathan Moyer, who was a sort of finger-arly of the G40 faction, he claimed that there'd been this long plot by Manungagwa to overthrow Manungagwa and it had been sort of meticulously laid out in this document and that could have been what's in it. Could have been money cashed diamonds, who knows. Seeking refuge in South Africa, Manungagwa joins the ranks of the millions of Zimbabweans who fled Mugabe's regime. It was again another irony that now Manungagwa, who was part of this party, ruling party that had forced these people into exile, was himself now looking for sanctuary in South Africa. A man named Justice Maposa, who was a very wealthy businessman in Johannesburg and given him sanctuary, it is home outside Pretoria. And that's where Manungagwa was laying low for the next two weeks. Manungagwa doesn't know it yet, but among the ex-pat community in Johannesburg is a group of Zimbabrians who've been preparing for this moment for years. One of them is human rights lawyer Gabriel Schumberg, who fled the country after he was kidnapped and tortured by Mugabe's police in 2003. More than a decade on, having brought his wife and children to join him in South Africa, Gabriel has grown used to a life at exile. But when he's approached to join the so-called Northgate group, a kind of Ocean's 11 working to bring down Magabe from Johannesburg, he agrees to lend them his legal expertise. - I can't go into details because some of the issues regarding my involvement obviously are very sensitive, but there was a coalescing around the idea that Mugabe's time was up. The Northgate group is an extremely broad church, comprising MDC activists, Zanopf Stolwitz, disgruntled intelligent agents, and more. It's a testament to Mugabe's capacity for making enemies that such a wide range of people are willing to work together to depose him. The group takes its name from an unlikely source, the car park of the Northgate Shopping Center in Johannesburg, where it's two found remembered Shokhan's late one night in the summer of 2016. There's is perhaps the most improbable alliance of all. A white South African businessman would links to the MDC and the Black Zimbabwean Intelligence agent who Mugabe sent to kill him. - One of these agents was sent down by his bosses to Johannesburg to assassinate a white businessman who helped fund the MDC. And what ended up happening was this businessman, I call him Tom Ellis, it's not his real name. He knew he was being followed by these guys pulled over on a street in Johannesburg and approached the vehicle behind him and said, "I know you're following me. Let me buy you a drink." And he spent several months courting them, meeting up with them, talking to them, finding out about their lies. And after several months, one of them eventually admitted to Tom Ellis that he had been sent to assassinate him and he'd asked him, "Well, why didn't you do it?" They formed this sort of parking lot pack called the Northgate Declaration in which they basically say, "We're gonna work together to make sure that Mugabe is removed and replaced by Emerson Minigagua." - The intelligence agent, and Douglas Rogers calls Casper, is a disillusioned veteran of Mugabe's Congo War almost two decades earlier. Still on the payroll of Zimbabwe's central intelligence organization, he now becomes a double agent, working with Ellis to bring down the regime. One of Casper's first jobs is to persuade Gabriel Schumbert to join them. Given his history, Gabriel is understandably wary of anyone attached to the CIO. After a few tense enigmatic encounters, Casper does something that really grabs his attention. One evening, they go out for a drink. Casper motions to a man sitting a few tables away to come and join them. Gabriel looks into this strange his face and begins to shake. It's the man who tortured him for three days, more than a decade earlier. And he's standing there with tears in his eyes. (soft music) Casper's shock tactic works. After meeting with several more disgruntled Mugabe insiders, war veterans, army officers, intelligence agents, Gabriel decides to come on board. His job will be to provide legal legitimacy to the operation to remove Mugabe. It's crucial that no one uses the word coup. My role was to ensure that even amongst those who'd see things differently, that there would be some or at least a fundamental adherence to human rights and respect for divergence of opinion. We may differ even in how to execute whatever is going to happen, but we need to agree that certain principles are respected. Gabriel knows that working with Casper is a risky business. On Christmas Eve 2016, while still debating whether or not to join the Northgate group, doesn't unexpected knock on his front door. I opened the door. I just assumed that it was the security that was at my place, but it wasn't. Somebody came in and started speaking to me in Shona, which is my home long way. I asked what he was, therefore he started crowding me inside and then he closed the door. So I shouted to my wife and the children to go in the hide in the bedroom. And I realized that I wore on my hands. He was holding a knife. He pulled out a knife, so I was holding it, but I had some martial arts training. And I wanted to kick the knife out of his head. But unfortunately, when I kicked it and I was going for it, he picked up a sculpture, a stone sculpture that was in the house on the table. And he hit me on the head. And I fell down. He hit me again on the back of the neck and I passed out. Gabriel wakes up in hospital, lucky to be alive. On the third, he continues meeting with Casper's contacts. Among them is Morgan Changurai, who's in South Africa for medical treatment. The MDC leader has colon cancer and it's terminal. He reassures Gabriel that he's confident Casper and his team can be trusted. But it's not until late summer 2017, after Emerson Mann and Gagwiz suspicious bout of vomiting, that Gabriel attends his most important meeting. Casper invites him to a guesthouse in a leafy Johannesburg suburb where he finds three smartly dressed in babrians waiting for him. Their white shirts and pressed suit jackets belive their military status. They are a major, a colonel, and a brigadier general than his in Babrian army. Pretty much top brass. The soldiers tell Gabriel they're planning an important military operation. And they'll soon be calling on him for advice. Advice on what is and isn't legal. Was it a coup? It's a coup that wasn't a coup. Once upon a time, a coup is all over Africa, right? But by 2017, coups were a no-no. You needed legitimacy. You wanted world governments to support your government. Casper knew that they needed someone who understood the law. And Gabriel was central to that. Whatever the dictionary definition, any action against McGarby would rely on the strength of the military. Fortunately, the head of the Zimbabwean Armed Forces, General Constantine Chiuenga, is already on side. An old friend of Emerson Manungagua. Chiuenga is in China on government business when the crocodile is sacked as vice president. And there is no way that that was not intentional. McGarby would not have fired Manungagua unless Chiuenga was out the country. Because Chiuenga was obviously the most powerful man in the country, really. He ran the military, right? And they did plan to arrest him when he flew back. But Chiuenga hasn't made general without knowing how to spot a trap. A burly man in his early 60s? He's a veteran of the Liberation War. And he's more than prepared for whatever McGarby's goons have in store for him. On Sunday, November 12, less than a week after Manungagua arrives in South Africa, Chiuenga boards an Emirates flight bound for Harare. That afternoon, McGarby's loyal police chief, Augustine Chiuhuri, sends a dozen cars to the airport. His manner under orders to arrest the general as soon as he gets off the plane. But Chiuenga is way ahead of them. An 18 man's special forces The team, loyal to him, not Mugabe, has already infiltrated the airport, disguised as baggage handlers. Their guns are concealed under their overalls. As Chewengers plain begins taxing towards the terminal, his undercover team make their move. Simultaneously, all 18 men draw their weapons. Each one is aimed at the head of a police officer. Meanwhile, out in the parking lot, a second team clumps the wheels of every police car and sight. In a matter of moments, Mugabe's forces have been stood down without a single shot being fired. Chewengers men escort him off the plane to a convoy of vehicles waiting on the runway. They storm straight through a police roadblock outside the airport, heading for the Army barracks in Harari. After following afternoon, Chewenger gives a press conference. He says that the Army stands ready to save Zanupi F, from those whose agenda is to destroy it from within, meaning people like Grace Mugabe and her friends in G40. He's laying down the Lord Mugabe saying you don't come after the war veterans and you don't end over our revolution to usurpers like your wife Grace. When that happened, you just knew that things were going to go down because you're not the head of the armed forces of Zanupi making idle threats. Robert Mugabe though seems blissfully unfazed. The next day at his weekly cabinet meeting, the general statement doesn't even come up. It's not until later on Tuesday that things start to get real. The business at the airport was just a taster for what is to come. One of the slickest military operations in Zanupi in history. Its code name is Operation Restore Legacy. It started on an overcast, drizzly afternoon. People started noticing there were tanks in the streets, soldiers moving into position. It's important to understand that the police at this time were allied with Mugabe and Grace. The military were allied with Manangagua and Chihuenga. What they did is they basically shut down the police, closed off their barracks, shut down the armories, and then over the course of the next few hours, they then took over the national broadcaster. Now it's nighttime. Rain is starting to fall. It's lightning starting. Perfect sort of mythology for Zanupi that this happened on this night of thunder and lightning in Aarari. As soldiers storm the studios of the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation, journalists cower in terror under their desks, but Chihuenga's men reassure them they're in no danger. They're being advised by Gabriel Schumber in Johannesburg and he's given them the strictest instructions. When they struck that evening he was literally on phone calls as it was going down, telling them don't be journalists, don't shoot civilians, don't do any of this. If you do that, your coup is a coup and it's not going to be accepted by the world. By midnight Chihuenga's tanks and armoured personnel carriers have arrived in Boradale, the exclusive gated community where Mugabe and his cronies all live. But now though, it's the homes of the G40 in a circle that the army are interested in. Finance Minister Ignatius Chumber, political commissar, savior Kasika Were, and the group's enigmatic puppet master Jonathan Moyo. One of the most real aspects of the coup that was not a coup was that it took place in the suburbs. It took place in this wealthy neighborhood. It was a bit like if the special forces, if the SAS in Britain had staged a coup and taken out the leaders in Hampshire and in Mayfair, or like American soldiers that raided kind of the mansions in Chevy Chase and Beverly Hills. That's how this operation went down. It took place in the wealthiest square mile of the country and one of the wealthiest square miles of the entire continent. At 2.30am, three raids allonged simultaneously. Outside Chumber's residence, the front gates have blown off their hinges. Two private security guards are shot dead as troops storm the building. They find the finance minister trembling in a bedroom, along with his wife and their maid. Meanwhile at Moyo's house, soldiers go from room to room, trashing the lavish mangear. And he is nowhere to be seen. Fearing just such an assault, Moyo has taken his wife and kids to the even grander of his neighbour, Savia Kasakawari. The two men are in the study trying to get some sleep when an explosion rips apart the steel front gates. The soldiers scale the properties imposing walls, dropping gunfire and grenades down in Kasakawari's private security. But the house is reinforced walls and bulletproof glass by the inhabitants some time. Frantically, they place a call to Grace Mugabe, begging her to intervene. Exactly what happens next remains shrouded in mystery, but within 15 minutes, the assault is called off. A government car pulls up outside the mansion. Moyo and Kasakawari scramble inside. Soon they're making a dash for the Mozambique border, the latest in Barbians heading for a life in exile. Meanwhile, tanks have taken up positions around Mugabe and Grace's home, the Blue Roof. They maintain a respectful distance, but the message is clear. The president is under effective house arrest. At 4 a.m., a major general in a barren army for Teagues appears on state TV. We wish to assure the nation that his excellency, the president of the Republic of Zimbabwe, comrade Araji Mugabe and his family are safe and sound and their security is guaranteed. We wish to make it abundantly clear that this is not a military check over of the country. With his house cordoned off by tanks, Mugabe would seem to be out of options, but getting into relinquish power is easier said than done. Still, no one is using the seawood. When the coup happened, as I'm going to call it a coup, not allowed to be called a coup inside Zimbabwe. When the coup happened, the political theatre of persuading Mugabe that he needed to step down continued for nearly a week. They kept pushing and pushing and pushing to get into resign because they didn't want him to be removed by the military. They wanted him to go on his own accord so that it would not be seen as a coup. They could have gone in there and saying, "We're arresting you, putting you in jail. Your wife is going to stand trial for her crimes and theft." That could have resulted in a civil war in Zimbabwe. Instead, they pretended that Mugabe was still in power. The next week was this shadowy game where one impression is being given but something else is happening behind the scenes. Really, it's politics is high art. Things are still on a knife edge because it could go either way. And bear in mind, if it failed, here's the other thing. They are in big trouble. You could be executed for treason, right? So if it didn't work, they're dead. Or in jail for the rest of the lives. When Mugabe stalls, the Northgate group go into overdrive. From the holiday in in Johannesburg Airport, they launch the spin campaign to end all spin campaigns. Meanwhile, sympathetic Xanopeiaf stalwarts sweet talk friends in foreign governments. Around the globe, political leaders agree to wait and see what happens. But with Mugabe refusing to budge, the Northgate group realise they'll need another big push to gain the legitimacy they require. And it will have to be organised in record time. One of the big things that group did was organise in the space of 48 hours the biggest march that had ever taken place in Harari, the march to get Mugabe to step down, where approximately close to a million people sort of hit the streets of the country. For lawyer Gabriel Schumber, it's time to come in from the cold. With Casper's help, he smuggled across the border in the boot of a car, the same method that he used to flee the country 14 years earlier. Back in his homeland, Gabriel is hit by a mix of emotions. You look at beautiful Zimbabwe. I think there are very few countries that are as beautiful as that country. It was just something very overwhelming. Just to see that the distraction that had taken place would take many years to prepare. You know, there was a moment when I also nailed down just after we crossed the border. I started crying, I also kissed the ground and it was something that was just automatic. It just it just failed so much of a relief that I was back inside the country of my bed. Douglas Rogers too finds himself back in Zimbabwe for the big day. I'd been on a trip in Mozambique researching a book. I returned to attend that march. It was a euphoric time quite an extraordinary thing to witness soldiers of the Zimbabwe National Army respectfully allowing people to protest and to march and to demand that Wagabi step down. Another very clever thing that the organizers of the coup did, apart from not stringing up Wagabi and his wife, they also allowed international media to cover the march. So journalists who'd been pan use organizations like the BBC were suddenly overnight allowed into the country to cover this march and it was quite a remarkable event. I remember thinking there's no way Wagabi stays after this. You know, the euphoria was even more than 19-H I guess. You can't explain it but everybody was really, of course the way those that were close to him who felt ad Danba, who felt that it was an illegal regime change and all that. And of course they have the rights to think what they think but I think during that time it's indisputable that the majority felt otherwise. You know, the excitement was just indiscribeable. But amidst the jubilation there's room for cynicism too. The march after all is no spontaneous gathering. It's been organized for a specific political purpose. And despite the broad base of Zimbabweans taking to the streets, that purpose is fairly limited. The replacement of one Zanupriyev veteran, Robert Mugabi, with another, Emerson Manangagua. You know, the guy who took over Manangagua, he was sort of head of the Gochurrundi in the 80s and they'd all been just plundering the country. So they all knew where the bodies were buried. They were all as guilty as hell. My father had a great line where he said, "I can't believe I'm cheering on Manangagua. It's like cheering on a snake eating another snake." But that's how a lot of people felt. Like, what do you choose the lesser of two evils? For now though, the more poisonous snake is still refusing to budge from his nest. At 93 years old, Robert Mugabi is determined to cling on to power. He even tries to bribe General Chiwenga to back down, offering to make him his successor. But the general knows better than to trust any promise coming from Mugabi. As the secret negotiations continue, Zimbabwe holds its breath. For some, the stakes are terrifyingly high. Gabriel Schumber has returned to the country to celebrate the end of a dictatorship. Now it seems that dictator might be sticking around after all. Casper, meanwhile, has blown his cover as a double agent, exposing himself to retribution from his colleagues in the intelligence service. Finally, on Sunday evening, the day after the march, Mugabi appears on state television, flanked by General Chiwenga and his men. Around the world, almost a billion pairs of eyes are glued to their TV screens. Pundits are confident about what will happen next. Reliable sources within a negotiating team have told them the moment is finally here. After 37 years in power, Mugabi is about to resign. But as the president prepares to speak, the sheath of papers he's carrying falls to the floor. He goes on to deliver a speech very different to the one everyone's expecting. There was a very rambling incoherent speech. Everyone expected him to be contrite. But in fact, about 15 minutes, he starts talking about the economy and it begins this boring state of the union address. And he acknowledges nothing, basically, about what's been happening. And I remember turning to a friend of mine who was watching it with in this room and we both looked at each other and said he's not resigning. And it was that again, like fear, terror. Oh my god, like this is going to go horribly wrong. A joke begins doing the rounds on social media. How do you put a champagne core back in the bottle? Ask 8 millions in burbweans. Less than 24 hours later, Douglas Rogers is on a plane out of the country. I make you know secrets. I'm not a war reporter, a conflict reporter, that stuff terrifies me, that a wife and young children. This thing is not going to go down the way we've thought it is and things are going to get very ugly. The high stakes poker game between Magabe and Chewenga could hardly be more tense. If the generalism is willing to force the president out of office, then it's up to Magabe to fold. His political future is clearly untenable and yet for some reason, he just won't go. Experts try to divine what's going on in the old man's head. I think to a large extent, Magabe became trapped by power. He made the statement that only God would remove him. I do think he became trapped with his own sense of indispensable. Because he surrounded himself with psychopaths, but he also spelled he was surrounded by lesser people and he couldn't hand over. He couldn't hand the revolution safely onto these people. He had many university degrees, many of which were gained in prison. So he valued that kind of validation, that kind of credentialization. The presidency was one more great credentialization that he didn't want to let go of. I think the dictators are so complex. They're not. People just love power. They love the benefits that come with it. They love everything about it. Whatever the cause of the political psychodrama, clearly, it's time for Plan B. Fortunately, the Northgate group have one more card to play. And it's in the hands of Monica Machanga, a Zanupi F member of Parliament. Her husband, Christopher Machanga, is by now the public face of the Northgate group. On Tuesday morning, Mrs. Machanga tables a motion of impeachment against Mugabe. 37 years ago, he came to power through parliamentary democracy. And if needs be, he'll be taken down the same way. He's in barbed wire though. Politics is a dangerous business. Monica Machanga was the one who tables the motion. And basically, it says that Mugabe is too old. He's lost the faith and the trust in the nation and he must step down. And as she does this, she is approached by a man named Happy Tin Bon Young, who is at that point the head of the central intelligence organization. And he basically says, you're a dead woman if you go through with us. But Monica Machanga isn't easily intimidated. From the age of 15, she was a fighter in the liberation war. And five decades on, that grit remains. She says, I went to war, you don't scare me. She isn't the only one whose life is on the line. Gabriel and Casper have come to watch the impeachment proceedings in person. And they know that if Mugabe pulls another rabbit out of the hat, they are done for as well. The future of Zimbabwe rests on a knife edge. But then, just as the impeachment motion is about to be debated, something extraordinary happens. All eyes are on the speaker of the house, as he's handed a piece of paper by Happerton Bon Youngwe, the same Mugabe loyalist who just threatened Machanga's life. It's a letter from Robert Mugabe. The speaker reads it out and Mugabe has finally stepped down. I assume to avoid the humiliation of being impeached. At long last, the time has finally come to pop the champagne. The celebrations begin in Parliament. Even the G40 MPs as soon on their feet, along with the rest of the house. After decades of dictatorship on the Mugabe, it's a moment that tastes like freedom. But for the Northgate plotters who helped bring about this extraordinary turn of events, the story still isn't over. Gabriel Schumber spends the rest of the day with Casper and a couple of his intelligence colleagues toasting the success of their operation. The following morning, more than a little worse for where the three men set off on a celebratory road trip. But what they don't know is they're being followed. Gabriel was on a hit list because of his activism decades before they're being followed by intelligence operatives who know that these are the guys who've been part of this whole operation in Johannesburg and they end up getting stopped on a road following day in a suburb south of Harari. Gabriel escapes, Casper's arrested and tortured for several days and they want to find out who else is involved where they can track them down. And it actually takes the return of Managagua a day or two later before he's finally released. On November 24, 2017, less than three weeks after his frantic scramble across the Mozambique border, the crocodile, Emma some Managagua, becomes Zimbabwe's second post-independence leader. In his inaugural address, he has nothing but kind words for his predecessor. Robert Magabe, he says, "is the only surviving founding father of our nation." Seemingly forgetting the death threats you received less than a month ago, Managagua declares, "To me personally, he remains a father, mentor, comrade in arms, and my leader." He concludes with no apparent sense of irony, "I trust that history will grant him his proper place." Certainly, Magabe's generous severance package reflects his status as Zimbabwe's most valued public servant. He's granted a $10 million pension. He engrays the free to enjoy their political retirement in their 25-bed mansion, which is technically still the property of Zanopief. After record, they've also been given lifetime immunity from prosecution. The former president's birthday, February 21, even becomes a national holiday. Despite the unorthodox way he came to power, Managagua pains himself as an agent of continuity, rather than change. After all, Zanopief remain in charge. After four decades, no other party, officially at least, has managed to supplant them. But it's a mixed legacy to say the least. journalist Nathan Dodzo When 1980 came Zimbabwe was seen as a bread basket for southern Africa. To go from a bread basket to now, it's dependent on those countries surrounding you. It's a big shift. How do you live with that? You know, it's sad. It's sad. I've seen enormous deprivation here. People die from treatable diseases every day. The education system is shocking. There's an estimate of 80 to 90 percent unemployment. I don't think that's a legacy to be proud of at all. So over the years, they've really eroded the things that kept the country and cut. And in a very sad turn of events, that sort of destruction is what keeps dictators thriving. Dictators thrive in states that are in disarray. That have a lot of disorder. It works for them. Robert Mugabe, the teacher, turned revolutionary, turned dictator, lives out the rest of his life in luxury. But he's not long for this earth. In September 2019, less than two years after leaving office, he dies at a hospital in Singapore. There's some disagreement about what to do with the former president's body. President Manangagua wants to bury him in heroes Aka, where luminaries of the Liberation War are traditionally interred. But Grace Mugabe has other plans for her late husband. She is determined that he should be buried in Kutama, the tiny village, where almost a century earlier, he and his brother Michael grew up under the watchful eyes of their grandparents and the local Catholic priests. This time, the former first lady gets her way and the crocodile backs down. Within Zimbabwe Mugabe's legacy as a complicated one, a tyrant despised as much as he was feared. He was also the man who liberated the country from the brutal white regime of Ian Smith. If he had left office a few decades earlier, his reputation might have been very different. He did well in certain aspects, especially education in the health during the first years of his rule, but he then introduced some of the very things that he was blaming Smith's government of doing. And unfortunately, the world wanted so much to believe him that when we were crying out, trying to behead nobody believed us. And we were left to fight our own world. That's all they knew in terms of liberation. He is all they knew. He is all they had. He was their savior, but that savior did not come bearing gifts that led them to the promised land. It was a totally different gift. You just have to look and see where the country is heading and just pray that one day the people of Zimbabwe will actually be in a position to celebrate the independence that they supposed have been enjoying for the past 42 years. One day. Real dictators will be back soon. Stay tuned. [Music]