There have been so many brilliant articles written recently about the demise of Robert Mugabe. Peter Godwin's in the Telegraph was riveting, there is Alex Magaisa's thought provoking blog, and I am sure everyone is thoroughly sick of this disturbing 'non event', but I felt I must add my tuppenceworth.
My thoughts go immediately to the millions of Diasporans living lives of quiet desperation all over the world, chased out by circumstances wrought by one man and one man alone.
Those folk who shiver in Europe, trying to feed themselves and to send money back to their families in Zimbabwe. Feeling the cold winds lash their shoulders and yet trying valiantly to remember the warm Zimbabwe sun caressing their cheeks.
Those who have moved north or south of Zimbabwe, stayed in Africa as the African soil was all they knew. They have struggled now for forty years since independence, day in day out remembering their homes, seldom seeing their children, trying to scrape an existence in alien, hostile climes.
Those folk who lost their lands, their homes, their furniture, their farm implements, their very existence, separated from their families, their loyal workers and driven away from everything they had ever known.
Those folk who even lost their lives, countless thousands who died at the hand of a despot. Countless graves dotted throughout the veldt, unprotected, unnamed, unloved due to fear and repression.
How many old people still survive this holocaust, living from hand to mouth. If they were privileged enough to have a pension, their pensions decimated, not once but twice now, scraping a meagre living on handouts, without electricity and running water.
What does God know that we Zimbabweans don't know What will the history books say What do the remaining Zimbabweans say as their lives are being eroded even more and more When will there be absolutely nothing left of this beautiful country that held so much beauty and so much promise