ZIMBABWE CRISIS REPORTS Issue 1 ■ March 2007 Fresh insights into the Zimbabwean situation NEWS IN BRIEF A SENSE OF IMPUNITY ■ March 11 — Police arrested around 50 opposition leaders and supporters to prevent them attending a prayer meeting at Zimbabwe Grounds, Harare. A rank-and-file supporter, Gift Tandare, was shot dead. People who saw the detainees after their first night in custody reported that they had been brutally beaten. ■ March 13 — The detainees appeared before a court, many of them showing visible signs of abuse. They were released into their lawyers’ custody as police had not formulated charges — this was done later in the week. Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the Movement for Democratic Change, MDC, spent time in intensive care with a head injury. Credit: Lazele Credit: ■ March 15 — Tanzanian MDC Deputy Secretary for International Affairs Grace Kwinjeh showing her bruised president Jakaya Kikwete held body and bandaged ear after suffering police beatings in Harare (14/03/2007) emergency talks with the Zimbabwean leader in Harare. After the meeting, a defiant A legacy of international then savagely assaulted in police cells Mugabe told western critics inaction encourages on March 11. they could “go hang”. In a subsequent TV interview, he Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe promised police would continue to believe there is no price The images of a badly beaten Morgan to “bash” opponents. Tsvangirai, president of the Movement to pay for his crackdown on for Democratic Change, MDC, that ■ March 16 — Tsvangirai was opponents flashed round the globe this week may released from hospital and have jolted the international commu- went home, still in poor By Benedict Unendoro in Harare nity from its slumber. physical shape. ■ March 18 — MDC spokesman Zimbabwe’s main opposition leader, Nelson Chamisa was beaten by The universal condemnation of the Tsvangirai was in intensive care after an unknown groups of police assault on Zimbabwean sustaining serious head injuries from a assailants at Harare airport, opposition leaders on March 11 is police beating. Other prominent opposi- preventing him from leaving unlikely to move President Robert tion figures also suffered serious injuries. the country. Other opposition Mugabe. Ordinary Zimbabwean members had also been interviewed by IWPR say their presi- Tsvangirai left hospital on March 16. He prevented from travelling, dent has got away with this kind of and others had been released into the including Grace Kwinjeh and Sekai Holland, who were injured thing for decades, and the interna- custody of their lawyers three days in the March 11 police action tional community has done little earlier as police had not completed the and were seeking medical more than issue protests from a safe paperwork relating to possible charges. treatment abroad. The US State distance. Department has said it holds Yet the new international outcry seems President Mugabe “personally Fifty opposition leaders on their way to unlikely to alarm President Mugabe, responsible” for attacks on attend a prayer meeting at Zimbabwe given that he has not been swayed by opposition leaders. Grounds in the working class suburb similar criticism of his past actions of Highfield, Harare, were arrested and over the last 27 years. MARCH 2007 ■ 1 THE INSTITUTE FOR WAR AND PEACE REPORTING “Mugabe’s story since independence in commission of inquiry, but Mugabe particular, to take decisive measures 1980 is a bloody trail of mass murder ignored the demand and instead to curb Mugabe’s policies. and the torture of political opponents,” praised the soldiers who held the men said Thompson Zhou, a teacher in the captive. The Mugabe government “We know there is no one who can farming town of Kadoma. went on to launch wide-ranging save us,” said a woman at the wake attacks on whole sections of the popu- held for Gift Tandare, killed by police “With such a track-record, why would lation, defying critics abroad. as they moved to head off the March Mugabe lose sleep over the recent 11 meeting at Highfield. “We can’t round of condemnation over the In 2000, Mugabe loyalists embarked even save ourselves because of the torture of Tsvangirai and company?” on a campaign to force white farmers brutality of the state machinery. So we off their land, using violence against have no choice but to leave this in the In the Eighties, Mugabe began consol- workers as well as owners and their hands of the Creator.” idating his position by sending North families. Several farmers were killed Korean-trained troops into and more than a quarter of a million Matabeleland and the Midlands to farmworkers lost their jobs and homes. Within Africa, Mugabe has attack supporters of ZAPU leader been under little pressure Joshua Nkomo. The official rationale was that the farms were needed for landless to change from fellow- Zimbabweans, but many believed the leaders Mugabe’s story… is a government was punishing the bloody trail of mass murder farmers, who were seen as part of the and the torture of political opposition to a controversial constitu- Although the European Union and opponents tion, which was defeated in a North American countries have referendum in February 2000. imposed sanctions on Zimbabwe, including an arms embargo, the The broadest attack of all came in May country has other sources of military The Catholic Commission for Justice 2005, when the Zimbabwean leader and security equipment. China and Peace subsequently found that sent police and soldiers into poor provides weapons while Israel has more than 20,000 people — most of suburbs to destroy homes and shops supplied water cannons. them from the Ndebeli ethnic group in what he called Operation which was ZAPU’s constituency — Murambatsvina (“Sweep Away the Zimbabwe’s cosy relationship with died or disappeared during a five-year Rubbish”) and characterised as an China has obstructed moves to reign of terror known as “Gukurahundi” urban regeneration project. Once address concerns at the United — which roughly means “sorting the again, critics said the authorities’ real Nations Security Council, as Beijing chaff from the grain”. intention was to destroy or disperse simply exercises its veto. communities seen as potential The killings received universal recruiting-grounds for the opposition. Within Africa itself, Mugabe has been condemnation, but no international under little pressure to change from action was taken to stop them. fellow-leaders. South African president Victims of Operation Thabo Mbeki, for example, refuses to In the run-up to general elections in Murambatsvina called it condemn Mugabe’s actions and 1990, the head of the Central “Bob’s Tsunami” because its instead promotes a policy of “quiet Intelligence Organisation, CIO, in the diplomacy”. Midlands region, Elias Kanengoni, and scale was comparable to a senior ZANU-PF Youth League official natural disaster Mugabe has distanced himself from Kizito Chivamba shot opposition candi- the African Union’s New Partnership date Patrick Kombayi, who had made for Africa’s Development, NEPAD, the mistake of running against Mugabe’s United Nations special envoy Anna dismissing it as a western ploy to re- deputy, Simon Muzenda. Even though a Tibaijuka reported that 700,000 people colonise the continent. Zimbabwean court found the two men lost their means of livelihood and 2.5 guilty of attempted murder and the million their homes as a result of Tanzanian president Jikaya Kikwete Supreme Court upheld the conviction, Operation Murambatsvina. Victims flew into Harare for emergency talks Mugabe promptly pardoned them. called the campaign “Bob’s Tsunami” on March 15. As expected, little because the scale of the population came out of the meeting. Mugabe In 1999, two journalists, the late Mark dislocation was comparable to a emerged as defiant as ever, saying Chavunduka and Ray Choto, were natural disaster. that his critics in the West could “go tortured by the military for a week after hang”. publishing a report about a failed plot Many Zimbabweans remain frustrated within the Zimbabwean army. The with the failure of the international Benedict Unendoro is the pseudonym international community called for a community, and other African states in of a journalist in Harare. ■ 2 ■ ISSUE 1 ZIMBABWE CRISIS REPORTS MUGABE LIKELY TO ACCEPT 2008 BALLOT Under fire from all sides, including his own party, the ageing leader faces an increasingly narrow set of choices By Joseph Tachiona in Harare As pressure mounts for him to go, President Robert Mugabe appears to have accepted that his controversial plan to postpone the next presidential election for two years is unworkable, although he still appears undecided whether to stand again or anoint a successor. Selling Mnangagwa as Mugabe’s successor has Robert Mugabe in Harare, August 2004 proved problematic his preferred successor, Rural Housing after saying he had information that Mugabe, in power since Zimbabwe Minister Emmerson Mnangagwa, fails she and her husband Solomon were gained independence in 1980, has to garner unanimous support within plotting a move against him. In a been pushing for the presidential the ruling ZANU-PF by the time the birthday interview broadcast on ballot scheduled for 2008 to be party holds its annual conference in national television last month, Mugabe delayed until 2010 so that it can take December. took pot shots at the “Mujuru faction” place at the same time as the parlia- which he alleged was leading an mentary election due that year. In the same newspaper interview, internal revolt aimed at “getting rid of Mugabe said he would be ready to me”. Official sources within the government stand as the ruling party’s candidate if and ZANU-PF told IWPR last week that it selected him to do so. The fact that even regime Mugabe had now acknowledged the open rebellion to this plan within the Selling Mnangagwa as his successor insiders have no appetite regime.