by Guy Arnold
How effective will an EU intervention be? It raises interesting questions about motives. For four years, until the French offer of intervention, the Europeans studiously ignored the developing Congo tragedy where entanglements appeared to offer more problems than rewards. The change of attitude requires explaining. The West’s record in the Congo from King Leopold’s brutal genocidal regime through the years of Belgian rule to the crisis of 1960 and the murder of Lumumba has been universally bad while its support for Mobutu, who claimed to be anti-communist, sat on a storehouse of minerals and gave the CIA a base from which to interfere in Angola, was shameful in its self-serving hypocrisy. Has a real change of heart and motive occurred in the West? There is both irony and danger in the spectacle of the two greatest former imperial powers in Africa – Britain and France – deciding to work together to sort out the Congo. This sudden Anglo-French interest in saving the Congo needs to be appraised with care. There are now unmistakable signs from both Britain and France that they are embarking upon a new phase of scramble, the neo-imperialism of the twenty-first century. The old colonial predators may claim that they are going back to Africa to save it from itself, but is there another agenda? Western corporate greed has fuelled the fighting in the eastern Congo ever since 1998 and the interest in this remote region is the mineral coltan and the other resources of this rich area rather than any sudden sense of duty to prevent massacres and genocide. Both Rwanda and Uganda, predators in their own right, have opposed the French peacekeeping mission and many in the region remember the 1994 French intervention in Rwanda in support of the murderous Hutu regime and would prefer not to see French troops in the region again. The collapse of the Congo state created a power vacuum while the Congo’s resources have attracted both regional and external powers to intervene in a country that has experienced more interventions with less benefit to its people than any other on the continent.
CHAPTER THIRTY - EIGHT
Mugabe’s Zimbabwe
Following his election victory in March 1980, Robert Mugabe addressed a divided and apprehensive Rhodesia in a statesmanlike and conciliatory speech in which he said:
We will ensure there is a place for everyone in this country. We want to ensure a sense of security for both the winners and the losers… I urge you, whether you are black or white, to join me in a new pledge to forget our grim past, forgive others and forget, join hands in a new amity and together, as Zimbabweans, trample upon racism.1
In retrospect, it has to be asked whether this was just the politics of a shrewd manipulator whose control of the levers of power had yet to be tested and entrenched or whether, at that time of his political triumph, Mugabe meant what he said. If so, what went wrong over the following 20 years?
The background to the Zimbabwe tragedy at the end of the twentieth century is to be traced to the British arrogance and racism that pervaded the history of Rhodesia, far more so than elsewhere in Africa. Britain allowed the white settlers almost complete freedom to behave as they pleased in Rhodesia, which they turned into their own style of apartheid state as they adopted the attitudes of the ruling whites in their larger neighbour to the south, giving the lie to those Britons who argued for decades that the white racists of South Africa were the Afrikaners rather than the British. In the years since 1960 much rhetoric about the evils of colonialism has come out of Africa to turn such accusations into a political cliché, a convenient weapon to be used when the occasion demanded some form of exculpation for immediate political failures. As a result, attacks upon the legacy of colonialism have come to be dismissed outside Africa as a sign of weakness, endless excuses for the here and now of politics. This is a mistake for though, of course, past colonialism has been used in this fashion, its bitter legacy runs deep and the worst of that legacy is racial and cultural arrogance. Neither Britain nor France in the years since 1960 have truly understood the damage they did and when the subject of colonialism and its effects is raised they dismiss it as no more than the excusing rhetoric of the weak, that old ‘chestnut’ again, for seriously to recognize the depth of the anger and hurt that they left behind is also to admit the abomination of the system they controlled at a time when ‘empire’ is being given a new gloss in the history books. When Britain’s Prime Minister, Tony Blair, in his missionary mode, described Africa as a scar on the conscience of the world it is doubtful whether he paused to consider why that was the case.
In a BBC interview of 1984, Lord Soames, who had been appointed Britain’s last governor of Rhodesia following the 1979 Lancaster House Conference, reminisced about the election that brought Mugabe to power in the following terms:
You must remember, this is Africa. This isn’t Little-Puddleton-on-the-Marsh and they behave differently here. They think nothing of sticking tent poles up each other’s what nots and doing filthy, beastly things to each other. It does happen, I’m afraid. It’s a very wild thing, an election.
This passage is quoted in David Blair’s book Degrees in Violence and the author says how Lord Soames colourfully expressed himself.2 Colourful is hardly the term to use. At the time of independence it was reported that Soames and Mugabe had achieved a rapport that greatly eased the transition from a white-ruled Rhodesia to an independent Zimbabwe. In retrospect one must wonder how much of Lord Soames’ attitude came across to Mugabe at the time. Later, he must have been made aware of this BBC performance. Just the short extract quoted above reveals all the arrogance, sense of racial and cultural superiority and sheer contempt that, all too often, was the stock in trade of white Britons in Africa.
The Zimbabwe crisis at the end of the century raised many questions that were not addressed in the West. It was, of course, about a dictatorial ruler using every weapon at his disposal to hold onto power: these included violence and intimidation of his opponents, altering the constitution or ignoring it; destroying the independent judiciary; and seeking popular support by deploying as weapons the two highly emotive issues of land redistribution and the control of land by the white farmers. But Mugabe was also using as a weapon the deep underlying resentments of past colonialism and the ingrained bitterness resulting from a century of the racial arrogance and contempt that had been second nature to the majority of the white settlers. The fact that, despite the exercise of intimidation, many Zimbabweans willingly voted for Mugabe has to be taken into account. Many people in Zimbabwe and elsewhere in Africa saw him in a totally different light to the British in particular or, more generally, the West. Among other things, he stood for a much-needed and admired defiance of the all-pervasive influence of Western power. Africans, quite simply, had become tired of being told how to govern themselves by non-African outsiders. African unwillingness to condemn Mugabe had as much to do with African resentment of external interference in the affairs of the continent as it did with tolerance of Mugabe’s excesses.
The beginnings of the end of century crisis may be traced to a brutal massacre in Matabeleland of November 1987 that helped precipitate a unity agreement between Joshua Nkomo’s ZAPU and Robert Mugabe’s ZANU-PF. In theory, this healed the split that had divided the two parties since the beginning of the independence struggle in the early 1960s; in practice, it signalled the defeat and subordination of ZAPU to ZANU-PF and an end to Nkomo’s ambitions to lead the nation. The two parties agreed to merge and this agreement came into force in April 1988. The new single party was committed to the establishment of a one-party state adhering to a Marxist-Leninist doctrine. Mugabe was to be its leader while Nkomo became one of two vice-presidents and was offered a senior cabinet post along with two other of his ZAPU colleagues. An amnesty brought an end to what had been known as the ‘Dissidents’ War’ and a rapid easing of the tensions, and an improvement in political and security conditions in Matabeleland followed. In September 1987 the reservation in the assembly of 20 seats for whites was abolished and in October the 80 remaining members of the assembly elected 20 candidates, each nominated by ZANU-PF, including 11 whites. Ten candidates to the Senate, als
o nominated by ZANU-PF, included four whites. In a further change to the constitution the President became an executive as opposed to ceremonial head of state and Mugabe, the sole candidate, was inaugurated in the post on 31 December. Two years later, in November 1989, the House of Assembly voted to abolish the Senate while the single chamber was expanded from 100 to 150 members of whom 30 were to be non-elective (eight provincial governors, 10 chiefs and 12 presidential nominees). Thus, by the end of the 1980s the authoritarian nature of the Mugabe government had become clear. Edgar Tekere, an opponent of the government, founded the Zimbabwe Unity Movement (ZUM) at the end of the decade but it made little headway. Various conflicts during 1990 challenged the authority of the ruling party and, for example, a clash with students in July led the government to close the University of Zimbabwe from October 1990 to April 1991. When the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) issued a statement in support of the students, its Secretary-General, Morgan Tsvangirai, was arrested and imprisoned for six weeks. Targeting ZUM, ZANU-PF fought the 1990 election on the theme of national unity and though some violence occurred the result was declared ‘representative’ of the people’s wishes and was seen as an overwhelming endorsement of Mugabe and ZANU-PF, which obtained 117 of the 120 seats with voter participation ranging from 55 to 65 per cent. It was an apparently solid endorsement of the new one-party unity created in 1988. Mugabe made few changes to his cabinet and kept three whites in it. There were looming problems for the future, including rising unemployment, while with 50 per cent of the population under 25 appeals to the nationalism of pre-independence days seemed likely to prove an increasingly irrelevant political tactic. Some progress had been made on the land issue. ‘By the end of the first decade of independence, a total of 52,000 families, some 416,000 people, had been resettled on the 6.5 million acres of former white land the government had bought for the purpose. This was a worthy enough achievement, but it came nowhere near tackling the scale of the problem: each year the communal areas alone produced an additional 40,000 families, compounding the problem of overcrowding.’3
In 1991 Zimbabwe adopted an economic structural adjustment programme (ESAP) and, a nod in the direction of momentous changes elsewhere in the world, Marxism-Leninism was replaced in official discussions by ‘pragmatic socialism’ and ‘indigenous capitalism’. In May there were student demonstrations over increased government supervision of universities. The Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM), chaired by the host country’s President Mugabe, was held in Harare that October and issued the Harare Declaration of Commonwealth principles that reiterated those laid down at the 1971 CHOGM held in Singapore. There was widespread industrial unrest in 1994 although the ZCTU made little progress in its demands, partly due to the resignation of its Secretary-General Morgan Tsvangirai.
The government became increasingly preoccupied with the land issue through the decade. The Land Acquisition Act (LAA) was drafted following the expiry of the Lancaster House provisions that protected white ownership of land and was passed into law on 19 March 1992. The new law permitted the compulsory purchase of 5.5 million hectares of the 11 million hectares then still held by the white farmers. The stated intention was to use the purchased land to resettle small-scale farmers from the communal areas. The Act did not specify fair compensation. In April 1993 the government announced that it was to acquire 70 farms covering a total of 190,000 hectares; there was an immediate outcry and an appeal by the Commercial Farmers Union (CFU). In March 1994 it transpired that a former cabinet minister and other senior politicians had acquired leases to some of these farms. Mugabe abrogated the leases and announced a detailed study of the land tenure and land lease system. In mid-1996 Mugabe requested financial assistance from Britain to pay for land sequestrations.
Although discontent with the government was increasing, ZANU-PF won the 1995 elections decisively; considerable violence was reported, however, and eight opposition groups boycotted the election. Even so, there was a 57 per cent voter turnout and ZANU-PF received 82 per cent of the votes and won 118 seats of the 120 seats of which 55 had been uncontested. Most international monitors agreed that the elections had been free and fair though they also enumerated various shortcomings. In a reshuffle of his cabinet, Mugabe increased its numbers by 13 against the wishes of the World Bank and IMF on the grounds of increased expense. Presidential elections were held in March 1996: Mugabe won with 92.7 per cent of the votes cast as opposed to his two opponents – Bishop Muzorewa with 4.7 per cent and Ndabaningi Sithole with 2.4 per cent – although the turnout of voters had only been 31.7 per cent. When Mugabe reshuffled his cabinet in May, Dennis Norman, the white Minister of Agriculture, resigned. Over August–September thousands of civil servants went on strike for salary increases and then over October–November nurses and junior doctors went on strike. ZANU-PF formally announced that it was abandoning Marxism-Leninism. As the economic situation deteriorated over 1997–98 the government was criticized for its arrogance at a time of economic hardship. A major corruption scandal surfaced in 1997 concerning unfair tendering for official contracts and the use of ministerial funds to finance the construction of houses for ministers and Mugabe’s wife. Mugabe was obliged to admit that corruption existed in government ranks. Many of the increasing number of discontents that surfaced at this time were economic but there was also growing anger at the government for its perceived arrogance and corruption. The much-anticipated Land Redistribution Bill came into effect in mid-November 1997. It listed 1,503 white farms that were designated for compulsory purchase and uncompensated reallocation to ‘the landless people of Zimbabwe’. The farms listed included some of the largest and most profitable in the country, including one that was described as the most productive tobacco farm in the world. In response, the farmers threatened a reduction in agricultural output of up to 25 per cent that would be worth Z$6,000 million over the next three seasons.
Land reform during the decade was implemented in chaotic fashion: ‘No attempt was made to consult farmers, rural communities, or even the government’s own agricultural specialists.’4 As land became the most important political issue during the 1990s, so the language employed by Mugabe in defence of the takeover from white farmers became more extreme. Addressing the ZANU-PF central committee in September 1993, Mugabe bitterly denounced Western governments that criticized his land policies: ‘How can these countries who had stolen land from the Red Indians, the Aborigines and the Eskimos dare to tell us what to do with our land?’5 This was not simply rhetoric; the anger and feeling behind such words is too easily ignored. However, much of the righteous justification for these land policies was undermined by the fact that the black elite loyal to Mugabe continued to get their hands on the land to leave ‘the redistribution exercise contaminated with corruption’. Britain, which had provided £44 million for land resettlement, now cut off further support. By 1997 it was legitimate to ask: how much did Mugabe control the ‘war veterans’ or how much was he their prisoner? The ‘war veterans’ were the young men who invaded white-owned farms and threatened the farmers with violence, in some cases forcing them to leave their farms. He had unleashed a demand and with it a sense of grievance that could not be bottled up or contained.
By the beginning of 1998 Mugabe and his government were deeply unpopular and the economy was in crisis. A sudden increase in food prices, following the collapse of the currency the previous November, led to riots and looting in Harare on 19 January. The currency collapse was the result of a government decision to compensate ex-combatants from the independence war; it had meant an additional unscheduled expenditure of Z$3,600 million which came on top of a budget deficit of Z$15,000 million. As a consequence, the World Bank and IMF suspended their balance-of-payment and structural adjustment support. Demands for Mugabe to step down followed and in February a two-day strike organized by the ZCTU achieved a 75 per cent turnout. In September a conference of 12 leading aid donors (the World Bank, UNDP, FAO, EU, Britain, USA, Australia, Denmark, Germ
any, Japan, Norway and Sweden) met in Harare. The conference approved the principle of land redistribution provided it was financially sustainable, transparently fair and geared to the reduction of poverty. This represented perhaps the last opportunity for Mugabe to engage realistically with the international donor community. However, no action was taken following the conference and the proposed technical support unit was never formed. In November, without warning, the agriculture minister, Kumbrai Kungai, announced the seizure of 841 white-owned farms; Mugabe wrote to the 841 farmers to say that their properties were immediately forfeit without compensation. There was an immediate response from the IMF, which declared that discussions on loans to Zimbabwe had ended ‘as of now’. Without external funding, the land redistribution was unenforceable and the named farmers were still in possession at the end of the year, uneasily awaiting the government’s next move. On the other hand, the withdrawal of donor money merely accelerated the next stage of the operation, which was seizure without compensation.