Robert Gabriel Mugabe

South Africa's and Botswana's military intervention in the mountain kingdom follows a public row among SADC members over the decision by Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe and Angola's President José Eduardo dos Santos to send troops and air power to prop up Congo-Kinshasa's President Laurent-Désiré Kabila...

Yet President Robert Mugabe is unlikely to be asking for their votes again...

By 26 August Kabila could count on varying degrees of support from: • Zimbabwe: President Robert Mugabe was the strongest supporter of military backing for Kinshasa and was equally keen to assert his regional leadership credentials at a time of acute domestic unpopularity; Zimbabwe was a major arms supplier to Kabila before and after he gained power and has growing business interests in Congo; • Angola: fearful that Congo's instability will help Jonas Savimbi's União Nacional para a Independência Total de Angola forces it was persuaded by Mugabe to help shore up Kabila as a means of securing the Congo-Angola border and cutting UNITA supply lines; on the back of Angola's involvement we hear that South Africa's Executive Outcomes are also working with Kabila with one report suggesting they might organise a cross-border attack into rebel-held territory in Eastern Congo from Central African Republic; • Namibia: helped persuade Angola's President José Eduardo dos Santos to join the pro-Kabila alliance; is giving logistical support but few if any troops; • Kenya: Daniel arap Moi's government has pledged diplomatic support for Kabila and hasn't ruled out military help; Moi instinctively distrusts any cause backed by Uganda's Yoweri Museveni and Rwanda's General Paul Kagame; • Mozambique: facilitated disguised transhipments of Chinese arms for Congo through Beira corridor to Zimbabwe and on to Lubumbashi; • Tanzania: unease among some ministers about growing Tutsi influence military and diplomatic in the region but is also keen to maintain congenial relations with neighbouring Burundi and Rwanda; it hurriedly withdrew on 24 August some 600 troops and 200 policemen it had sent to Congo for training; • Congo-Brazzaville: has pledged total commitment to Luanda (whose troops help keep President Denis Sassou Nguesso in power) and by extension to Luanda's allies...

He does not appear in public; President Robert Mugabe continues to retain him in his post when he himself would rather be resting on his farm near his birthplace at Kezi in Matabeleland South or at his dream estate Mwenezi Ranch in the Masvingo low-veld...

President Robert Mugabe was due to open the Lusaka Trade Fair this week - also with domestic considerations in mind: visiting the many graves of freedom fighters which Zimbabwe has been refurbishing...

President Robert Mugabe heads SADC's military/security apparatus which he has argued should have more ad hoc powers and the right to call summit meetings...

Business has never liked President Robert Mugabe's government for promising land reform (hitting commercial farms in favour of poor peasants) and paying fat pensions to liberation struggle veterans...

Having been handed the baton by outgoing Chairman Robert Mugabe Compaoré opened the 34th OAU summit in Ouagadougou with a call to redefine the organisation in order to cope with the economic and political pressures of globalisation...

Britain expected by President Robert Mugabe's government to help pay for the scheme may wash its hands of the whole thing due to ‘lack of transparency' ...

But in the first week of May Labour Minister Florence Chitauro asked the ZCTU to submit its grievances in preparation for a meeting with President Robert Mugabe...