By R.W. Johnson
From the late 1990s until 2008 I made innumerable visits to Zimbabwe – both to conduct opinion surveys there and to write for the (London) Times and Sunday Times. Amongst all the various kinds of merry hell going on, there were always bits of gossip about Mugabe and the Libyans. Gradually I pieced together the picture.
By 2000 Mugabe had effectively thrown the IMF and World Bank out, after refusing to pay his debts to them – thus losing all sympathy from Western donors. He had also lost a constitutional referendum and the just-born MDC was on the rise. He was now internationally isolated and badly needed oil and foreign exchange, so he appealed to Gaddafi for help. Gaddafi responded positively, the two men became close friends, and soon Libyan MIGs and transport planes were stationed in Harare and Mugabe and Gaddafi frequently visited one another’s countries.
Gaddafi was then heavily involved in training Islamic terrorist groups, notably the Algerian FIS (the Islamic Salvation Front), Hamas and the Taliban, though Reagan’s 1986 air strike on Libya had badly frightened him, so most of the training was done in third countries. Mugabe was already very close to Yasir Arafat, who had visited Harare in 1998, bringing with him six members of Islamic Jihad greatly sought by the Israelis. They had stayed two weeks, had been fitted out with papers and had slipped away to Zambia and thence to Libya.
This dramatised the usefulness of Zimbabwe as an unsuspected haven for terrorists, so in September 2000 Gaddafi asked Mugabe to receive Ayman Muhammed al-Zawahiri, one of the world’s most wanted men, the al-Qaeda No 2. For Gaddafi had links to al-Qaeda, though it was unusual in being a terrorist group he could not dominate or control – Bin Laden had plentiful funds of his own.
Zawahiri was a very big fish indeed. Known as ‘the Doctor’ (he had been a paediatrician), he was known as the brains of al-Qaeda. Fully one third of al-Qaeda’s fighters came from Zawahiri’s Al-Jihad group. He was already wanted by the US for the East African embassy bombings which had killed 262 people, and he already had several Egyptian death sentences hanging over him for various suicide bombings, including the assassination of Sadat. Having anything to do with al-Zawahiri was very risky indeed.
Nonetheless, Mugabe received him. It is possible that this was not Mugabe’s first contact with al-Qaeda, which had been trafficking in blood diamonds in the Congo since the 1990s – when Mugabe had launched a military expedition there, which often seemed to have the looting of mineral resources as its main motive. At one point some South African mercenaries offered to sell me a photo of the present Zimbabwean president, Emerson Mnangagwa, shaking hands with an al-Qaeda luminary in the Congo, with child soldiers all around. I didn’t buy the photo, though the images linger.
At that stage (September 2000) al-Qaeda was already far advanced in planning 9/11, and al-Zawahiri had already realised that if they destroyed the Twin Towers the US would hunt them high and low – in Sudan, Afghanistan, Yemen and Somalia. But Zimbabwe would not occur to them. It wasn’t a Muslim country. Yet it had good links for air travel and banking – essential for al-Qaeda – and was close to Durban, Cape Town and Nairobi, all with substantial Muslim populations, including some sympathisers. Indeed, Durban’s International Islamic Centre bears a plaque showing that it was endowed by Osama bin-Laden.
Zawahiri spent four or five days in Harare and met a number of the top Zanu-PF leaders. He apparently offered Mugabe large sums of money; what was needed was a remote al-Qaeda base, far from public attention, where it could train and hide its fighters and plan more attacks, though Zawahiri doubtless told Mugabe nothing of his plans.
Mugabe knew he was risking supreme US displeasure, but he needed the money. Remote farms were found for al-Qaeda in the Zanu-PF heartland of Mashonaland Central, and they also acquired a Harare safe house. Later, I discovered, Zawahiri had returned for a second visit of two weeks, presumably to inspect those properties and to make further arrangements connected with them.
Mugabe was fairly desperate. The MDC had gained much ground and the polls were showing that in a free election it would romp to victory. Sam Nujoma had always been a devoted disciple of Mugabe, so Mugabe began exploring plans for exile in Namibia. His nephew, Innocent, was sent to Windhoek to acquire a suitably large and secure property – but almost immediately he was killed in a car crash. Instead, a large cattle ranch was acquired.
When he heard of the disaster, Gaddafi offered Mugabe a large and luxurious property in Tripoli. Mugabe flew to see the property and to accept a large gift of money from Gaddafi, and then returned for a ten-day visit with his young wife, Grace. Not long after, the Mugabes came for another week-long visit.
Mugabe had, indeed, become infatuated with Libya. Gaddafi had endless money and was profligate with it. Nujoma was a devoted admirer but he couldn’t compete with that. Mugabe even began to ape Libyan styles of art and architecture in his Harare dwelling. Moreover, Gaddafi had given him an armoured stretch limo and several 4x4s.
Mugabe increasingly copied Gaddafi’s lifestyle, using his doctors and getting his gardeners and interior decorators to come out to re-fashion his Harare mansion. Gaddafi also sent military and intelligence personnel to prop up Mugabe. For Gaddafi, this was an opportunity to virtually take over an African state and increase his position of strength within the African Union. (He was already paying the membership dues of several African governments.)
Moreover, Libyans arrived in Harare to buy up promising assets, including a share of Noczim, the national oil company – though Gaddafi wanted to buy it outright. Gadaffi also wanted to set up Koranic schools and advance the cause of Islam in Zimbabwe. The Libyans became a notable presence around Harare.
Heading the Libyan team was Mustapha Khaled, known as Hossan. I was assured by my sources that Hossan was one of the most powerful men in Zimbabwe, and that if anyone gave him the slightest trouble they would immediately be brought to heel by Mugabe’s CIO (Central Intelligence Organisation). On arrival, Hossan had stayed at the Meikles Hotel in central Harare for two weeks, but had then left for the Mashonaland farms. Thereafter, any arriving Libyans went straight to the farms.
One of Hossan’s key duties was to see that Mugabe successfully won the 2002 presidential election. His men trained Mugabe’s youth militia, the notorious Green Bombers, teaching them torture techniques, providing them with their distinctive green ‘Third Chimurenga’ T-shirts, and also providing the kids with drugs to make them sufficiently aggressive to inflict their beatings and tortures – this was, I discovered, veterinary PCP, a heroin derivative, generally known as Angel Dust. Hossan was apparently told that if Mugabe somehow lost the election or if there was major trouble, he had to spirit him away to Tripoli right away.
One of my sources mentioned that Mugabe had made another visit to Tripoli in early September 2001. This stirred a vague memory of something I had read in the Zimbabwe Herald – the dreadful, state-owned and only newspaper. I realised that I must somehow go to the Herald’s building in Harare and look through old copies of the paper.
This posed a problem. The Herald was part of the empire of the Minister for Information, Jonathan Moyo. Moyo had an office in the building, and he hated me. I had once watched a half-hour programme on ZimTV in which Moyo denounced me at great length as the wicked foreigner who had created all the trouble in Zimbabwe with my opinion surveys and my journalism. It was clear that Moyo hadn’t realised that I was in the country (I always had to sneak in a back way since it was clear I wouldn’t be allowed through the airport).
The Sunday Times had pleaded with me to write up that incident. I protested that this would only advertise that I was already in the country, and that I might suffer a grisly fate as a result. I had already had a near-brush with ‘Hitler’ Hunzvi’s torture clinics and was in no hurry to repeat the experience. But London insisted, so in the end I did it. But then London began demanding a photograph of me. I said the last thing I wanted was a mug-shot which would only help the Zim police to find me. They promised not to use the photo. So why on earth do you want it, I asked. ‘It’s for your obituary,’ I was told. I had to laugh.
In the end I made my way to the Herald building, counting on the fact that no one would expect me to go there, and after a great deal of difficulty I found what I was looking for, the Herald of 1 September 2001. Mugabe was in Tripoli as Gaddafi’s guest for the 32nd anniversary of Libya’s ‘national revolution’. And there was the Herald’s rendition of Gaddafi’s speech, including the following paragraph:
‘We no longer wage war with the old weapons. Now they can fight you with electrons and viruses. The crazy world powers that have invested huge amounts of money in weapons of mass destruction have found themselves unable to fight the new strain of rebellion. As a simple example, the USA is unable to fight someone called Osama bin Laden. He is a tiny man weighting no more than 50kg. He has only a Kalashnikov rifle in his hands. He doesn’t even wear a military uniform. He wears a jalabiyah and turban and lives in a cavern, eating stale bread. He has driven the USA crazy, more than the former Soviet Union did. Can you imagine that?’
Mugabe might not have realised the significance of what he was hearing. Gaddafi had clearly been in touch with al-Qaeda, might even have met Bin Laden, and certainly knew about him. He obviously knew about the East Africa embassy bombings and he seems to have picked up at least the rumour that al-Qaeda was planning something else pretty big, using non-conventional means of warfare. All this just ten days before 9/11.
And the first airliner to crash into the World Trade Centre was flown by Mohammed Atta, one of the Al-Jihad fighters Zawahiri had brought into al-Qaeda. It’s possible, of course, that Gaddafi told Mugabe more privately. Certainly, once 9/11 happened, Mugabe would have been able to put two and two together.
When 9/11 happened, Gaddafi quickly distanced himself from it, clearly fearful of American reprisals. In Harare, my sources told me, there was utter panic as a number of CIO officers realised the significance of Zawahiri’s earlier visits. Thereafter I picked up a number of fragmentary reports of a number of Afghans arriving in Harare, though sometimes these were said to be Libyans. (They apparently arrived on Libyan passports.) They may have been either Taliban or al-Qaeda men, quickly getting away from Kabul before the Americans descended there in fury.
But from what I could pick up later they stayed only a week and then departed, doubtless fitted out with Zimbabwean passports and fresh identities. That is, it became clear that Mugabe had been cautious enough to limit the deal to one of transit and ‘laundering’ rather than full bases.
This was almost the end of the story – except that a little later I noticed posters put up by the US Embassy in Harare wanting information about Haroun Fazil, the mastermind behind the East Africa bombings. This suggested that the US had got wind of an al-Qaeda connection to Zimbabwe. And indeed, it transpired that Fazil had travelled to Nairobi to carry out the bombings from Harare – and on a Zimbabwean passport. Despite the offer of a $2 million reward for his capture, Fazil was not found.
When 9/11 took place, ex-President Mandela condemned al-Qaeda bell, book and candle. But ANC opinion quickly shifted, and overwhelming pressure was brought to bear on Mandela to withdraw his previous condemnation of Bin Laden. Once that was done, Deputy President Jacob Zuma announced that the ANC government no longer saw 9/11 as a terrorist act but as a progressive blow in the wider struggle against imperialism. This drew little attention at the time, but in light of the ANC’s later involvement with Hamas and Hezbollah, it now seems like a pointer which should not be missed.
FEATURED IMAGE: The Libyan ruler Colonel Muammar Gaddafi with the Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe. (Africanews.com)