“Robert Mugabe was a liberation hero turned tyrant. He killed more black Africans than the evil apartheid regime in
South Africa. His massacre of up to 20,000 people in Matabeleland in the 1980s was the equivalent of a Sharpeville
massacre every day for nine months," said human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell.
He twice attempted a citizen’s arrest of President Mugabe on charges of torture – in 1999 in London and again in
Brussels in 2001. During the latter attempt he was beaten unconscious by Mugabe’s henchmen, leaving him with brain and
eye damage.
“The world had so much hope for the freedom fighter who suffered imprisonment and later rose to power on a promise to
build a new, democratic, non-racial Zimbabwe. But the truth is that he betrayed it all for a repressive, dictatorial,
self-serving regime that boosted his personal wealth while impoverishing his own people."
"He fell well short of the moral stature and accomplishments of Nelson Mandela; becoming a megalomaniac, power-hungry
leader who subjugated his own people while purporting to be emancipating them," added Mr Tatchell.