It's not an easy thing to have on your conscience that you were personally responsible for putting Robert Mugabe in power but Wilfred Mhanda has had to live with that knowledge for the last 24 years. You might think the last year, which has seen 32 murders, countless cases of rape, torture, arson and beating, all to help Mugabe steal an election, would have made it even harder, but the reverse is true. 'It's a relief now that Zimbabweans realise at last what sort of man he is,' Mhanda told me recently. 'It became obvious very quickly that we'd made a terrible mistake: that he was paranoid, authoritarian and ruthless, a man believing only in power. He hasn't changed. What's changed is that other people have his measure at last.'

LRB 22 February 2001 | PDF Download