Zimbabweans pay a final national tribute to former President Robert Mugabe, the acclaimed "hero" of a country's independence on Saturday, 14 September, which he finally let go of at the end of an authoritarian reign of thirty-five years. seven long years.

About 20 African heads of state, in office or retired, and several tens of thousands of people are expected in the morning in the stands of the national sports stadium of the capital, Harare, for a funeral in great pomp. Robert Mugabe passed away on September 6 at age 95 in a luxury hospital in Singapore where he had been seeking treatment for years.

Forced to resign two years ago by a coup by the army and his party, he left behind a country battered by repression and ruined by an endless economic crisis that plunged a large part of his population in misery.

"Despite some doubts about what some have called errors (...), the position of the government is very clear, the late president is an icon," told the AFP on the eve of the funeral the current minister Foreign Affairs, Sibusiso Moyo. "He has done a lot of good, and from the government's point of view he is nothing more than a national hero," he added.

Burial in a month

But his praises are far from being shared in the streets of the capital, Harare, by the average Zimbabwean fully absorbed by his daily survival, between unemployment, three-digit inflation and shortages of basic necessities. "Why be in mourning when you suffer like that? He destroyed this country," says Ozias Puti, 55, one of the many street vendors who occupy the streets of the capital.

"Things were much better under Mugabe," retorts a 27-year-old unemployed man, Daydream Goba. "Commodity prices were lower, now we can not get it and the police are chasing us when we try to sell in the streets."

Cleansing throughout his reign, Robert Mugabe still managed to divide his country after his death, on the issue of his burial. For several days, his family fought hard for him to be buried in his village in Zvimba district, about 100 kilometers from Harare. The government of his successor, Emmerson Mnangagwa, wanted instead to send him to the "Field of Heroes", the local Pantheon.

The quarrel finally found its epilogue Friday. "Comrade Bob", as the leaders of his party called him, will be well buried in the Harare National Monument but not for a month until he builds a mausoleum for him. "It will only be buried once the construction of this mausoleum is finished," said President Emmerson Mnangagwa.

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Since the fall of Robert Mugabe, the relations of the former president and his family with Emmerson Mnangagwa, whom he had publicly described as "traitor", are notoriously bad.

In November 2017, the army pushed Robert Mugabe to the exit after his decision to sack Mr. Mnangagwa, then vice president, at the insistence of his wife Grace Mugabe. The first lady of the time then coveted more and more openly the succession of her nonagenarian husband.

With AFP