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Today is the birthday of Zimbabwe’s president, Robert Mugabe and a multi-million dollar bash is being organised in Victoria Falls where up to 20,000 guests are expected.
Game farmer, Tendai Musasa, has donated two elephants for the occasion. One young bull elephant, was shot Thursday and has been cut to pieces and taken to the organizers of the feast. A second, yet to be killed, will be handed out to members of the community.
Musasa, whose lifelong dream is to meet Mugabe, said his main motive for donating the elephants, as well as a lion trophy, a crocodile trophy and a small herd of live impala, was gratitude. He’s a beneficiary of Mugabe’s land reform policy, a program that saw white farmers ousted from their holdings without compensation after 2000.
He spoke so highly of the world’s oldest leader, who has been in power for 35 years.
His words: “We regard him as our father. Our provider, our hero. We regard him as a very courageous man”.
Musasa originally planned to donate a wild buffalo or two, to be slaughtered for the feast. However, recent rains made it difficult to find any, so he donated five live impala to breed in the president’s game reserve. The lion, which he recently hand-picked, and a crocodile are to be stuffed as trophies, not eaten.
He said there was a strong cultural obligation for Victoria Falls to show hospitality and thank Mugabe for celebrating his birthday in the town.
Musasa, director of the 31,000 acres Woodlands Conservancy near Victoria Falls, said it was better to kill one elephant for the Mugabe feast than 20 cows. “It’s one life versus 20,” he said.