Mugabe is playing the politics of self preservation.
In 1980, it was advantageous for him to make peace with the Whites, and have his new Zimbabwe be the beneficiary of World love and foreign aid and foreign investment.
Mugabe doesn't dare step down now for fear that he and his family would face retribution from the people he has done wrong and brutalized all these years. Let make it clear I'm talking about the Ndebele and the various Bantu tribes, not the Whites.
Mugabe did the land grab to pay off his old buddies from the revolutionary movement and to weaken White influence further. Now Mugabe thinks that his opposition is unable to effectively organize and contest his ZANU Party for power. His attacks on Whites and White land ownership coincide with the growing black opposition. I am convinced he sees the Whites as the "brains" behind the movement and has calculated that he can hoodwink the other black Zimbabweans with bullschitt, rhetoric, and thuggery is the Whites are completely out of the picture. Mugabe is eliminating his enemies by cutting off the head.
He is no longer worried about cultivating favorable World opinion because he has the Chinese there buy raw resources. The Chinese are likely advising him to rid the country of Whites, especially the landowners for twofold reasons:
First, running off the Whites makes it easier to strip the resources from the land without extraordinary buyouts or court challenges. Second, alienating the Whites brings Western Sanctions thus pushing Mugabe further into bed with the Chinese.
