[Peace-discuss] Fwd: Zimbabwe: Update / Analysis

[Al Kagan]

Here is a good article that addresses the Zimbabwe situation.

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>Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2002 11:46:46 -0500
>Subject: Zimbabwe: Update / Analysis
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>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
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>+++++++++++++++++++++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.africaaction.org/docs02/zim0201.htm
>
>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 big-
>business 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 political-
>economic 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.
>
>
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-- 


Al Kagan
African Studies Bibliographer and Professor of Library Administration
Africana Unit, Room 328
University of Illinois Library
1408 W. Gregory Drive
Urbana, IL 61801, USA

tel. 217-333-6519
fax. 217-333-2214
e-mail. akagan at uiuc.edu