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Zimbabwe: Update / Analysis
Zimbabwe: Update / Analysis
Date distributed (ymd): 020225
Document reposted by Africa Action
Africa Policy Electronic Distribution List: an information
service provided by AFRICA ACTION (incorporating the Africa
Policy Information Center, The Africa Fund, and the American
Committee on Africa). Find more information for action for
Africa at http://www.africaaction.org
+++++++++++++++++++++Document Profile+++++++++++++++++++++
Region: Southern Africa
Issue Areas: +political/rights+ +economy/development+
SUMMARY CONTENTS:
While Europe and the United States are steeping up pressure on
Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe to allow free elections and reduce
violence, it is Zimbabweans and their neighbors in southern Africa
who will have the most weight in determining what happens, and who
will bear the brunt of further deterioration in that country.
Hesitating to impose sanctions, neighboring states are nevertheless
alarmed, and have repeatedly called for Mugabe to change course. So
far, however, Mugabe shows little sign of heeding calls for
restraint from any quarter.
This posting contains excerpts from a recent article by Patrick
Bond, plus an announcement of the new book just released by Bond
and Zimbabwean economist Masimba Manyanya: "Zimbabwe's Plunge:
Exhausted Nationalism, Neoliberalism and the Struggle for Social
Justice." Bond is an associate professor at the University of the
Witwatersrand Graduate School of Public and Development Management.
Masimba Manyanya was formerly a chief economist for Mugabe's
finance ministry but quit to join the trade union movement in 1999.
While much of the press coverage of the crisis in Zimbabwe has
highlighted Mugabe's attacks on white farmers and the confrontation
between the Zimbabwe government and Western powers, Bond and
Manyanya are among the many in Southern Africa whose critique
targets both the Mugabe regime and conventional Western
prescriptions for the country. Joining the international consensus
in calling for an end to violence and repression of human rights by
the Zimbabwean government, they also stress that Zimbabwe's plunge
into chaos was fueled by the government's willing embrace of the
structural adjustment programs imposed by international financial
institutions in the 1990s. The book provides a historical review,
as well as documents on internal debates within both the government
and the opposition on economic policies.
Manyanya and Bond are among the authors of a report released last
week by the Zimbabwe Coalition on Debt and Development (Zimcodd),
which calls on the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank
to accept shared responsibility with the government for the
debilitating effects their policies had in Zimbabwe. (See The
Herald, Feb. 22, 2002 at
http://allafrica.com/stories/200202220325.html; the full Zimcodd
report is not yet available on-line).
For additional background and links on Zimbabwe, see
http://www.africafocus.org/docs02/zim0201.php>
A longer article by Bond on Zimbabwe is available at:
http://www.zmag.org/ZMag/articles/jul01bond.htm
Additional Znet commentaries by Bond can be found at:
http://www.zmag.org/bios/homepage.cfm?authorID=108
(Announcement for readers in the Washington area: Patrick Bond will
be at a book launch reception for Zimbabwe's Plunge, as well as for
Bond's earlier book Against Global Apartheid, at Luna Books, 1633
P St. NW, third floor, Wed., Feb. 27, 7-9 pm.)
+++++++++++++++++end profile++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Zimbabwe: On the brink of change, or of a coup?
By Patrick Bond
Znet Commentary
http://www.zmag.org/sustainers/content/2002-01/30bond.cfm
January 30, 2002
[Commentary adapted from concluding chapter of "Zimbabwe's Plunge";
reposted here with permission of the author]
Here comes the most fascinating election of 2002: Robert Mugabe,
who led Zimbabwe through guerrilla war to liberation from
Rhodesian colonists in 1980, facing a presidential vote in March
where the challenger is Morgan Tsvangirai, who led the Zimbabwe
Congress of Trade Unions from 1988-2000.
The confused, radical rhetoric associated with the Zimbabwe
African National Union's (Zanu's) dying nationalism is
contrasted with the confused, good-governance-plus-
neoliberal-economics programme of the Movement for Democratic
Change (MDC).
Hopes that Mugabe's repressive streak would fade after the June
2000 parliamentary elections, when each side won nearly 50%,
proved unfounded. According to a report by Amani Trust, a
reputable monitoring group, `27,633 people have fallen victim to
human rights violations in Zimbabwe and 20,853 have been forcibly
displaced by violence' between January and October 2001.
State harassment has actually worsened since then:
one day absurd (arresting Tsvangirai for not having a
walkie-talkie license), the next comic (labeling any anti-
government provocation as `terrorist' apparently in lip-synch
with Bush's rhetoric), the next tragic (periodic murders of
opposition party activists, frame-ups and intensifying
paramilitary activity), the next counterproductive (having the
Malawian secret police arrest civil-society visitors to a
Southern African Development Community meeting on Zimbabwe's
crisis last week), the next ominous: the announcement on January
9 of military insubordination if Tsvangirai is elected
president.
That threat came from a motley junta-in-waiting, led by Zimbabwe
Defence Forces commander Vitalis Zvinavashe:
"We wish to make it very clear to all Zimbabwean citizens that
the security organisations will only stand in support of those
political leaders that will pursue Zimbabwean values, traditions
and beliefs for which thousands of lives were lost, in pursuit
of Zimbabwe's hard-won independence, sovereignty, territorial
integrity and national interests.
"To this end, let it be known that the highest office in the land
is a straitjacket whose occupant is expected to observe the
objectives of the liberation struggle. We will, therefore, not
accept, let alone support or salute, anyone with a different
agenda that threatens the very existence of our sovereignty, our
country and our people."
Tsvangirai interpreted (accurately, I think):
"If one takes into account the recent spate of repressive laws
and the general negative public sentiment towards the ruling
party, it would seem Zanu is running out of legitimate ways to
perpetuate its misrule. The party itself acknowledged this when
it sent the top brass of the military to give some bizarre
advance notice of a coup d'etat when they lose."
Panic was indeed in the air at Zanu's Harare headquarters.
According to a reliable press account, a `confidential Zanu
central committee report' of December 2001 had included `a
submission by the party's security department' which warned:
`Corrupt leaders within the party are seriously endangering and
eroding the party's fortunes in the forthcoming presidential
election.'
In a major city, Masvingo, the potential loss of one faction's
support for Mugabe would potentially `cost the party the
presidential election.'
A variety of overlapping strategies, combining carrots and
sticks, have suddenly came in to play to prevent what would seem
to be a certain Mugabe loss in a free, fair poll. To prevent the
vote itself being free and fair, voter registration has been
limited to those current Zimbabwe residents (i.e., no absentee
ballots permitted) who showed proof of residence such as credit
accounts, or verifiable letters from their landlords.
Everything possible was done to dissuade urban residents from
registering, while Zanu-aligned rural chiefs and headmen were
permitted to vouch for `their' constituents during registration.
Just as important as vote rigging, government vote-buying has
begun in earnest. Populist price controls were applied late last
year. State patronage was stepped up, from the capital city
across the countryside. Urgent work orders were given so as to
show the electorate some progress by March.
In December, the Supreme Court reversed earlier rulings so as to
support Mugabe's `fast-track' (but by all accounts chaotic) land
acquisition programme. Mugabe's ally, chief justice Godfrey
Chidyausiku, replaced Anthony Gubbay, a white judge who resigned
last year under threats of violence from war veterans
responsible for occupying more than 1,000 farms owned by wealthy
whites since February 2000. Mugabe now claims dramatic land reform
successes: 250,000 households resettled in recent months, compared
to the total of 70,000 families who gained land over the previous
two decades.
But although any improvement in access for the landless masses
is to be applauded, independent media investigations found these
stats to be wildly inflated. Moreover, land minister Joseph Made
is maintaining a two- decade old practice by allocating the best
farms to top government and Zanu officials.
Likewise, to curry favour with his most vital constituents,
Mugabe offered security personnel a 100% pay raise a few weeks
ago, the same as the inflation rate; most workers had to settle
for increases closer to 50%.
Worse state repression was also threatened when four laws were
introduced in parliament earlier this month, aiming to tilt the
electoral playing field by barring monitors and banning
distribution of leaflets and posters; to impose absurd new
security restrictions, including making it an offense to
criticise the president; to shackle the media by imposing
licensing requirements, barring foreign journalists and making
it illegal to publish news that would `cause alarm and
despondency'; and to repress labour by denying rights of
assembly and the right to strike.
Under these conditions, there is no way that any observer can
legitimately call the upcoming presidential election `free and
fair.' Virtually all the minimum conditions were sabotaged by the
ruling party months prior to the poll. Virtually all political
unrest is catalysed by informal Zanu militias, with MDC members
(including members of parliament) as victims, some fatal.
Not only is the threat by Mugabe to make `real war'--uttered at
December's Zanu party congress in Victoria Falls--being taken
seriously by his loyal cadres. The political misery of the masses
has been amplified by a rash of pre-election shortages: maize,
cooking oil, sugar, fertilizer and even milk in some sites.
Are shortages the result of hoarding by mainly white wholesale
firms, as Mugabe regularly alleges? Or does scarcity logically
follow the widespread imposition of excessively-strict price
controls?
To justify their interpretation that controls were not
unreasonable, officials point to the consistent availability of
cheap bread (whose regulaged price per loaf was lowered from the
equivalent of US$0.16 to US$0.13 a few months earlier). But
private-sector suppliers of many other essentials can't keep up
with demand, given the shrunken and in some cases negative
profit margins. Zanu isn't ready to try either nationalisation
of these suppliers, or provide sufficient subsidies to cover the
gap.
The economy continues to decay, with output down more than 15%
over the last two years. To pay for vital imports such as
gasoline and medicines, Mugabe was reduced in late 2001 to
emergency band-aid measures, including trade deals with
Malaysia, Nigeria, Thailand and Vietnam, and import finance from
the Arab Bank for Economic Development in Africa, the Libyan Arab
Foreign Bank, Afreximbank, the African Preferential Trade Area
Bank and the People's Republic of China.
Still, he announced in his December 2001 State of the Nation
address,
"US$150 million of privatisation proceeds will go towards
repayment of the external debt'; in relation to the electricity
company Zesa, Zimbabwe allocated scarce foreign exchange to
South Africa to cover `supply arrears and service debt,
equivalent to US$259.9 million, as well as paying for current
power imports.'"
These boasts provide hints about how the ruling party would bust
sanctions, were they to become more serious than already exist
due to non-payment of foreign debt and the Western donor's aid
boycott.
After the Southern African Development Community's summit in
Malawi last week failed to generate sufficient pro-democracy
rhetoric, Tsvangirai angrily told the BBC that he expected far
more from Big Brother to the South:
"The threat to undermine the elections by the military, by
President Mugabe himself, should actually send shock waves to
South Africa and say, under those circumstances, we are going to
cut fuel, we are going to cut transport links. Those kind of
measures, even if they are implemented at a low level, send the
right signals."
South African deputy foreign affairs minister Aziz Pahad quickly
dismissed the request to turn his government's failing
`quietly-quietly' strategy into more concrete solidarity:
"We've been working at this for a long time, trying to convince
(people), that what is called (for is) quiet diplomacy. Calls for
sanctions are misplaced. Effectively sanctions have been applied
in Zimbabwe. All foreign aid has been terminated. There is
effectively no new development aid. Investment has been frozen
and exports from Zimbabwe have been stopped, I think. Sanctions
are not the way to go."
Such condescending `I know better' tone and content remind me of
capitalist-class rhetoric against the African National Congress
during the 1980s, when Pahad was a vociferous proponent of
anti-apartheid sanctions. The ANC began its sanctions-campaigning
during the 1960s, and Pahad and his comrades always argued that
even if black South Africans were hurt in the process, the
short-term pain was justified by the long-term gain: removing
the illegitimate regime. Is Pahad now merely self-interestedly
hypocritical--or could a case be made that Tsvangirai's call for
a more serious targeted-sanctions threat from Pretoria will
backfire?
The main reasons Zimbabwean democrats debate this very point
are, firstly, Mugabe will use tightened sanctions as a whitewash
excuse for his own economic mismanagement; and secondly, while
Zanu can retain power especially through its monopoly of
military might, sanctions will mainly disrupt the white-owned
business sector, which supports the MDC financially, and employs
most of its core working-class loyalists.
These points are valid. Yet at some stage in a struggle for
political justice, a people must decide what kinds of pressure
points they are willing to ask others, acting in solidarity, to
impose upon their enemy, even if there are detrimental side-
effects. And what they ask of those of us who are able to help,
we must respect.
Did Tsvangirai's call for a serious South African sanctions
threat reflect a full-fledged debate amongst Zimbabwean democrats
(or even amongst MDC leaders)?
Was the decision arrived at through as much reflection and
consensus as is probably required?
Apparently not, yet the need for the MDC to ratchet up the
pressure is obvious, especially in the event Mugabe
illegitimately clings to power, or Zvinavashe carries out his
threatened treason.
The mass of Zimbabweans need all the support that they can get
under such circumstances, including sanctions, once popular
organisations advocate them in the wake of mass consultations.
But indeed that remains the most important variable, namely, the
independent, critical capacity of the progressive movements:
labour, residents' associations, human- rights advocates, left-
leaning churches, women's groups, the National Constitutional
Assembly, and many others which attended the National Working
People's Convention three years ago.
After nearly 15 years working in and around the beleaguered
Zimbabwean Left, I think the question remains: can enough
ordinary people align with progressive civil- society challenges
to *both* Zanu's repression and the MDC's orthodox economic
policies, to make a real difference to their own country's
future?
Or are radical rhetoric and ideological confusion associated
with the exhaustion of both African nationalism and Zimbabwe's
capital accumulation cycle, going to close the current window of
opportunity for social change?
Excerpts from book abstract and announcement:
The premise [of this book] is that fatigue associated with the
ruling Zimbabwe African National Union's (ZANU's) malgovernance and
economic mistakes has finally reached break point.
But then what? Can the society shift from rule by an exhausted
nationalist clique, replete still with terror and intimidation, to
"neoliberalism"--i.e, a free-market economy and withering welfare
state, as advocated by international financiers and the bigbusiness
wing of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change
(MDC)?
Taking the plunge in either direction may depend upon whether
voters can cast ballots in a free-and-fair March 2002 presidential
election. But no matter who wins, the authors of this book believe
that Zimbabwe must explicitly confront the myriad of politicaleconomic
contradictions that bedevil both the nationalists and
neoliberals. Such frank talk is too rare, at times when the two
faction-ridden sides seek temporary internal unity, at the cost of
serious debates over policies and programmes.
But the choice is not necessarily so limited and pessimistic. An
alternative political project is sketched out, drawing upon the
Zimbabwean povo's [people's] own struggles for social justice. For
if the MDC continue winning the urban vote, and rural people keep
backing Robert Mugabe, the tensions between the three very
different perspectives will continue to mount, well beyond the
presidential election.
This material is being reposted for wider distribution by
Africa Action (incorporating the Africa Policy Information
Center, The Africa Fund, and the American Committee on Africa).
Africa Action's information services provide accessible
information and analysis in order to promote U.S. and
international policies toward Africa that advance economic,
political and social justice and the full spectrum of human rights.
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