President Robert Mugabe’s Zanu-PF party mourned the death of North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il, while other parties celebrated it.
Zanu-PF administrative secretary Didymus Mutasa described Kim as a “lovely man”.
He said Zanu-PF remained “grateful” that the dead leader had helped train an exclusive Zimbabwean military brigade soon after 1980 independence.
The Fifth Brigade was trained by North Koreans outside Zimbabwe National Army structures or control.
On Mugabe’s orders, it slaughtered thousands of members of the opposition Zapu (Zimbabwe African People’s Union) in the southern and western Matabeleland provinces.
Mutasa said Zanu-PF had nothing to be ashamed of for associating with the late leader or his father, Kim Il-sung, who died in 1994. “Who says he was a dictator? He was a popular leader who was chosen by his people,” Mutasa said.
Mugabe has refused to apologise for the massacres of so many of his countrymen from 1982 until Zapu was absorbed into a one-sided government of national unity dominated by Zanu-PF five years later.
Zapu and the two Movement for Democratic Change parties all said they welcomed news of Kim’s death.
“He should go to hell,” said one. “We are celebrating his death. He was a brutal dictator,” said another.
Zapu spokesman Methuesli Moyo said: “2011 has been a bad year for dictators. We pray that God also calls to heaven the few remaining ones.”