SECURITY SECTOR REFORM: STATE SECURITY AND HUMAN SECURITY RELATIONS IN ZIMBABWE. THE CASE OF ZIMBABWE DEFENCE FORCES (ZDF) 1980-2008. BY LUCKY BASSIE BANGIDZA R078170B A THESIS SUBMITTED IN FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY DEGREE DEPARTMENT OF POLITICAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE STUDIES FACULTY OF SOCIAL STUDIES UNIVERSITY OF ZIMBABWE APRIL 2016 DECLARATION I, Lucky Bassie Bangidza , declare that this thesis is my own work. All citations, references and borrowed ideas have been duly acknowledged. This study is submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Faculty of Social Studies, in the Department of Political Administration at the University of Zimbabwe. None of the present work has been submitted previously for any degree or examination to any other university except in publications done by the author in support of this Doctoral study. Candidate’s Signature ……………………………………………………….. Date …………………………………………………………… Associate Supervisors Signature …………………………………………… Date ………………………….……………………………… i DEDICATION I dedicate this thesis to my parents Amon Mureyani Bangidza, late Unice Bangidza (Nee Chiwambutsa) my wife Lilian Maonei Bangidza (Nee Muzambwa), my sons Anesu Vhusani Bangidza, Gondai Ronald Bangidza, my daughter Rumbidzai Audrey Bangidza, my grandson Anesu (Jr) Bangidza and all the liberation war heroes, freedom fighters, war collaborators, ex-detainees, those who died in the struggle for Zimbabwe and the next generation which considers themselves equally as ‘social reformers’. Through the powers and blessings of the almighty God, may this thesis forever remain a source of inspiration in security sector studies. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my appreciation to my supervisor, Prof Hasu H Patel for his consideration and training, constructive criticism and leadership from the day he stated supervising me as a DPhil candidate. His critiques, academic direction in assisting and perfecting the direction of my doctoral programme at the University of Zimbabwe are highly appreciated. I specifically appreciate the encouragement not to lose heart and hope during the challenging phase of writing and defending the thesis. I remain deeply grateful to the following individuals for their key inputs that made the beginning and completion of this thesis possible: Professor Levy Nyagura, Vice Chancellor of the University of Zimbabwe for the encouragement to register for the D Phil when I was the Director Centre for Defence Studies at The University of Zimbabwe. I humbly appreciate the regular positive encouragement from Secretary of Defence Comrade Rushwaya and General (Dr) C. G. Chiwenga the Commander Zimbabwe Defence Forces for the University fees, the research grant, authority to carry out the research in the defence forces; Major General Mugoba for the discussions on Gender Reforms in the Zimbabwe Defence Forces; Professors Gavin Cawthra of the Centre for Defence and Security Studies at the University of Witwatersrand for the encouragement to carry out an endogenous research from an Afrocentric perspective of Security Sector Reform (SSR). I also thank Professor Andre Du Pissani of the Department of Political Science at the University of Namibia for his encouraging words ‘If it were not for hope the heart would break”. I also thank Group Captain A.V. Murove and Paul Mangwana for their inputs in analysing the legal frameworks and its implications to the Zimbabwe Defence Forces from the Zimbabwe Constitution (2013). My sincere appreciation is also extended to Dr F. K. Chung for her suggestion to look into the ZDF’s future roles; and Mathew Paradza, Senior Science Laboratory University of Zimbabwe, for his assistance in the Computer Assisted Qualitative Data Analysis Software (CAQDAS) package. Inputs from Phyllis Johnson of Southern African Research and Documentation Centre are also appreciated. I respectfully respect and appreciate the participants’ responses to the quester-view and the focus groups’ discussions during data collection process and finally to Dr Augustine Tirivangana for his comments and critics. Therefore, the views expressed in this study do not; in any way represent the official policy of the Zimbabwean government and the ZDF. It is purely an academic prescription of the research report findings for a doctoral study, a case of the ZDF 1980-2008. iii ABSTRACT This thesis examined the origins, concepts and practices of the security sector reform (SSR), as the independent variable, using state security (SS) and human security (SS) as the dependent variables for analysis. The Zimbabwe Defence Forces (ZDF) period 1980-2008 was the main focus of the case study. Findings of the study showed that the ZDF senior officers perceive SSR differently from the external and internal Western drivers of the SSR, who popularise it. In its current form SSR is an externally and internally driven prescriptive exercise which differentiates civilians from the military. The ZDF senior officer’s perception is that SSR is a process with its origins from the liberation struggle (historical) as an indigenous and non-prescriptive process. In 1980 the Demobilisation, Disarmament and Reintegration (DDR), the amalgamation of the Zimbabwe African National Liberation Forces (ZANLA), Zimbabwe People’s Revolutionary Army (ZIPRA) and the Rhodesian Security Forces (RSF) into a single force was one of a successful SSR process as the second level of consciousness. Operation dissident flash in the 1980s, regional operations and peace support operations in the 1990s, ‘Operation Murambatsvina or Restore Order’ of the 2000s and the professionalization process of the ZDF thereafter, remains an SSR process which is indigenous. The Ubuntu philosophy shapes the major theoretical conceptual framework of this case study. This case study used quester-views, participant observation and focus group discussions as major data collection instruments. The data was managed with the use of the Computer Assisted Qualitative Data Analysis Software (CAQDAS) package, which is a qualitative data-management and analysis tool. This thesis found that the way in which security sector reform (SSR) was introduced to Zimbabwe betrays the motives of internal and external Western drivers of the concept and its ideology as a donor-driven security model. Findings showed that separating the ZDF from direct national, regional, international, security and political involvement is seen as tantamount to militating against the ideas of the liberation struggle. Effective functioning state structures are prerequisites and preconditions for successful defence management system. These should be based on the essentials of defence institution building process. As a result, the concept of the ‘apolitical’ soldier is a euphemism for something else because the gun cannot be divorced from the cause for which it stands. For that reason, the ZDF is part of the state security machinery and therefore is co- dependent on the politics from which it derives its authority. On the contrary the current character of SSR is such that it is based on Western formulae and hence has caused the development of massive mutual mistrust and suspicion. And yet properly understood, SSR was mooted during the liberation struggle in Zimbabwe as a concept and continues to be so as a process uniting civilians and the military. Thus, SSR is not an issue because it is being practised as a process in the ZDF. As a word SSR is new in its content, philosophy and ideology but as a concept in the ZDF it is not new. The thesis showed that realism in some cases is the means, as in the 1980s on national reconciliation, operation dissident Flash, the Unity Agreement of 1987 and the Global Political Agreement of 15 September 2008, and Ubuntu as the process and goal in SR, SS and HS relations in terms of uniting the population as a family in SSR, SS and HS relations. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iii ABSTRACT iv LIST OF TABLES xii LIST OF FIGURES xiii DEFINITION OF TERMS xiv RELATED TERMS xv LIST OF ACRONYMS xvi LIST OF APPENDICES AND PUBLICATIONS xx CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION AND METHODOLOGY 1 1.1 INTRODUCTION 1 1.2 BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY 1 1.3 OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY 4 1.4 AREA OF STUDY 6 1.5 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM 7 1.6 SIGNIFICANCE AND JUSTIFICATION OF THE STUDY 7 1.7 PURPOSE OF THE STUDY 9 1.8 HYPOTHESES 9 1.8.1 The null hypothesis 9 1.8.2 The alternative hypothesis 9 1.9 SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES 9 1.10 CRITICAL RESEARCH QUESTIONS 9 1.11 DELIMITATIONS 10 1.12 LIMITATIONS 10 1.13 EXPECTED OUTCOME 11 1.14 METHODOLOGY 11 1.15 PHILOSOPHICAL APPROACH 13 1.16 RESEARCH STYLE AND TECHNIQUE IN SSR 14 v 1.17 METHODOLOGICAL JUSTIFICATION 15 1.18 RESEARCH DESIGN MATRIX 16 1.19 ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS 17 1.20 QUALITATIVE APPROACH 18 1.20.1 Quester-views 18 1.20.2 Direct observation 18 1.20.3 Focus group discussions 18 1.20.4 Data collection and sampling 19 1.20.5 The sample 19 1.20.6 Justification of the sampling procedure 20 1.21 FIELDWORK DURATION 21 1.22 FIELDWORK TOOLS 21 1.23 DATA ANALYSIS 21 1.24 CONCLUSIONS 21 CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW AND THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK 23 2.1 INTRODUCTION 23 2.2 LITERATURE REVIEW 23 2.3 CONCEPTUALISING SECURITY 26 2.4 ORIGINS AND IMPLICATIONS OF SSR 28 2.5 UNITED NATIONS’ SSR CHALLENGES 32 2.6 CHALLENGES OF THE AFRICAN UNION IN SSR 33 2.6.1 African ownership 34 2.6.2 SADC and SSR settings 37 2.7 THE POLITICAL SECTOR 39 2.8 STATE SECURITY AND HUMAN SECURITY LINKAGES 41 2.9 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORKS 55 2.9.1 Realism 55 vi 2.9.2