A Final Show of Respect to a Deposed Revolutionary - Robert Mugabe Appears

In a final show of respect to ousted Zimbabwean leader, Robert Mugabe, the African nation's army has allowed the aged-revolutionary to leave house-arrest in order to complete a ceremonial rite he has done for many years, to confer degrees upon graduates at Zimbabwe Open University, where he stands as chancellor.

Ousted by the army on Wednesday after his actions to replace standing-in-waiting revolutionaries, to pave the way to the presidency for his wife Grace, 52, Mugabe has been under arrest and involved in talks toward his respectable resignation of the leadership of the nation.

However, Mugabe, 93, according to media reports, has been defiant per his immediate departure. That he has not been harmed or jailed is a testament of the respect he still has among members of the military and civil population for his past revolutionary years and for leading the nation to independence out of colonial era and white-minority rule.

Mugabe has clearly overstayed his time as the head of Zimbabwe at age-93. Two years-ago, five-years-ago, 10-years-ago, he could have given up the presidency and leadership and walked off into history with a solid legacy in tact. But his desire to keep power and to install his wife, some 40-years his junior, into the leadership of the economically-challenged African nation, was obviously something those who fought alongside Mugabe, were not going to accept without defiance.

Today's university graduation ceremony was perhaps the army's way of allowing Mugabe to end his tenure with some dignity and respect. As reported by the BBC-News, one of those graduates he conferred a degree upon, was the wife of the General Chiwenga, the army chief who took Mugabe under house-arrest on Wednesday.

And so in essence, Zimbabwe's Defense Force(ZDF) has allowed an old revolutionary to bid goodbye and farewell to his nation and to Africa - both places where, he has certainly made a mark in the past 37-years. 

If the streets of Harare become swollen with Zimbabweans in a call for change on Saturday, then it would mark the end of Robert Mugabe, an old revolutionary who has certainly done his time in service to the people.