President Robert Mugabe’s own confession detailing how he and other kids were taken to a river by his father figure Father Jerome O’Hea for swimming has raised suspicion whether he was abused as a young boy.
In a bizarre interview in 2008 Heidi Holland, who spoke to Mugabe described Robert as shy , lonely and bitter man abandoned by his father.
Father O’Hea predicted that Robert was going to be an important somebody and went out of his way to help the shy Mugabe child he described as having “unusual gravitas”.With “an exceptional mind and an exceptional heart”, he believed the boy merited extraordinary attention. In return, Robert Mugabe agrees that O’Hea was a father figure to him: “Yes, yes. And every Thursday he used to carry us on the lorry; drive to the river, to a pool, where he taught us how to swim. Some youngsters used to sit on him [gestures to his chest] as he did backstroke. He was a nice Irishman, yes. Only an Irishman could do that; an Englishman couldn’t.”, wrote
With “an exceptional mind and an exceptional heart”, he believed the boy merited extraordinary attention. In return, Robert Mugabe agrees that O’Hea was a father figure to him: “Yes, yes. And every Thursday he used to carry us on the lorry; drive to the river, to a pool, where he taught us how to swim. Some youngsters used to sit on him [gestures to his chest] as he did backstroke. He was a nice Irishman, yes. Only an Irishman could do that; an Englishman couldn’t.”, writes Holland.
