www.africa-confidential.com 15 June 2001 Vol 42 No 12 AFRICA CONFIDENTIAL ZIMBABWE 2 ZIMBABWE The military-financial complex The hand of Lucifer Three sudden deaths transform the political scene and President Zimbabwe’s soldiers won’t be leaving Congo-Kinshasa for a while Mugabe’s election campaign yet. Their commanders are To lose one lieutenant may be regarded as a misfortune, to lose two looks like carelessness, to lose three committed to President Robert Mugabe’s government through a could spark a political crisis. Whether or not President Robert Mugabe is the target of a plot by party web of business ventures there. rivals, he has been shaken by the deaths of party political commissar Border Gezi on 28 April, of Defence And a few diamonds can brighten Minister Moven Mahachi on 26 May, and of the ‘war veterans’ leader Chenjerai ‘Hitler’ Hunzvi on up a tour of duty no end. 4 June. Mugabe’s heir apparent and parliamentary speaker Emmerson Mnangagwa, not known to like any of the deceased, suggested unearthly forces: ‘We don’t know what is hitting us. It’s not natural. We UK/AFRICA 3 fear the hand of Lucifer is at work.’ John Makumbe of the anti-corruption watchdog Transparency International has a more naturalist The Blair mission interpretation but reckons that the deaths will derail Mugabe’s campaign for next year’s presidential election. More disruptive still for Mugabe will be the 74 per cent rise in petrol prices announced on 13 Britain’s new government promises more focus on Africa than in its June. The rise will stoke inflation across the economy and worsen conditions in the towns where public previous four-year term. Trade transport is nearing collapse. But Finance Minister Simba Makoni had little choice with the Zimbabwean and investment are centre-stage, dollar under heavy pressure after last year’s devaluation and the government struggling to meet foreign but development and humanitarian obligations with arrears to suppliers in South Africa mounting fast. The fuel price hike raises the prospect issues also get a budget increase. of street protests against the government and trades union action – a public show of strength that will Watch out for Nigeria, South Africa, Zimbabwe and Sudan. further damage the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front. It could easily turn into a bloody trial of strength between ZANU-PF’s war veterans (although many will be hit by the price increase) and opposition Movement for Democratic Change supporters. CHAD 5 ZANU-PF has hitherto been united in the grip of its leaders, and none of its heavyweights have defected to the MDC. Senior ZANU dissidents prefer to take a flight and fax their resignation note from Fraud storm a foreign capital, as the Minister for Industry and International Trade, Nkosana Moyo, did from South President Idriss Déby is used to Africa last month. Some oppositionists insist the three sudden deaths presage war within ZANU-PF. But managing elections and his victory, Mahachi and Gezi died in car accidents, and Zimbabwe’s drivers rank among the world’s most dangerous; confirmed this week, surprised no Hunzvi is said to have had HIV/AIDS. one. New, however, is the growing challenge from civil society as Chadians also get used to voting. Mugabe’s cheerleaders And the World Bank finds itself Gezi and Hunzvi were the main cheerleaders in ZANU-PF’s brutal campaign for the June 2000 caught between tough oilmen and an even tougher Chadian parliamentary elections, which left 31 dead. Gezi, as provincial governor of Mashonaland Central, ran government. the campaign there, and his party won every seat, including Gezi’s own in the provincial capital, Bindura. He was rewarded by promotion to Minister of Youth, Gender and Employment Creation, as well as party political commissar. He then organised the first test of the party’s rural dominance, in the crucial CAR 6 Marondera West by-election, which ZANU won; next, at Bikita West where the party had lost by 500 votes to the MDC in June, he helped ZANU to a 6,000 vote victory in February. Plot and panic By leading invasions of farms and factories, Hunzvi had become the man white Zimbabweans loved CAR can no longer count on the to hate. He was both foe and ally to Mugabe, winning concessions from the government for his ‘war French military to save them. So veterans’, and latterly helping the President to regain some rapport with the landless poor and ZANU-PF. when President Patassé suffered yet another coup attempt last Gezi was a regional leader; Hunzvi could mobilise veterans anywhere in the country, from Matebeleland month, it was from across the (where the MDC won all the seats) to Manicaland, Masvingo and ZANU’s Mashonaland stronghold. border that rescue came. This Gezi generously disbursed his ministry’s slush fund for development projects, but could not buy a fuelled rumours that behind one status equal to Hunzvi’s. People bought party cards to qualify for loans, but did not necessarily stay loyal coup attempt lay another – by at the ballot-box. In rural areas the ‘veterans’ were regarded with awe. Some believed Hunzvi had Mobutu’s old barons in Congo- Kinshasa. become so powerful that his opponents, however popular, could not stand up to him – and that, contrary to assertions after his death, his political ambitions extended far beyond the reform of land ownership and Zimbabwe’s economic structure. POINTERS 8 His power was such that, at times, he felt himself second only to Mugabe; but he knew when to press his demands, and how to withdraw without losing face. At the end he was starting to win over some urban Mali, Algeria, Sudan workers, especially the low-paid and those who had lost their jobs. His tactics brought instant justice (and & Southern Africa gratitude); in these hard times that made him a hero, even when some of his lieutenants were extorting 15 June 2001 Africa Confidential Vol 42 No 12 The military-financial complex Zimbabwe’s soldiers will not soon pull out of Congo-Kinshasa. Their when the former United States’ envoy Andrew Young supported commanders are committed to President Robert Mugabe’s government President Mugabe last week. through a web of business ventures there. The links run between the Mnangagwa has a successful business alliance with the Omani Zimbabwe Defence Force, the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union- businessman Thamer bin Saeed al Shanfari, whose firm, Oryx Natural Patriotic Front party and selected private businesses. The key players are Resources, partners the ZDF in Oryx Zimcon’s investments in Congo-K the ZDF Commander, Lieutenant General Vitalis Zvinavashe, and and pursues the Sengamines project despite falling out with its South Parliamentary Speaker Emmerson Mnangagwa. Recently, when three African partners, Adonis Pouroulis and Petra Diamonds. companies from Five Brigade were withdrawn from Congo, they were Business, diplomatic and logistical help also comes from John replaced by troops from Three Brigade. Hundreds more troops are ready Bredenkamp, who helped the Mugabe government by backing attempts from One Commando Regiment. by farmer Nick Swanepoel (a fellow Afrikaner) to fix up a deal with the Lt. Gen. Zvinavashe is a director of Osleg (Pvt) Limited, which has a Commercial Farmers’ Union on the resettlement of white-owned farmland. joint venture with Comiex-Congo Sarl, in which senior members of the In March, Bredenkamp’s Tremalt company formed a joint venture, Congo-K government have interests. The joint company, Cosleg, owns Kabankkola Mining Company (KMC), with the Congo-K government’s 100 per cent of Sengamines, which claims title to the Tshibua kimberlite Gécamines. KMC is owned 80 per cent by Tremalt, 20 per cent by deposits in Congo (AC Vol 41 No 11) and the Senga-Senga alluvial Gécamines. KMC’s Managing Director, Colin Blythe-Wood, insists diamond mines, once reputed to be Africa’s biggest. that the partnership is ‘strictly business’. On President Joseph Kabila’s Mnangagwa, known to Zimbabwean intelligence officers as ‘SOG’ recent trips to Western capitals, he often sat with Bredenkamp at private (son of God, for his closeness to Mugabe) is ZANU-PF’s Finance meetings; they are said ‘to get on famously’. Secretary and a member of the party’s Joint Economic Committee with the In the Congo-K war, Zimbabwean soldiers (like their Rwandan and ZDF. Not popular, he was easily defeated by John Nkomo for the party Ugandan opponents) have a business stake. The Senga-Senga mine is chairmanship and lost his Kwekwe Central seat in last June’s elections. depleted but its diamonds are said to have been looted by elements among Yet many of the new, younger, ZANU-PF members of parliament worked the Zimbabwean troops who were supposed to be on guard against under him when he ran the Central Intelligence Organisation in the 1980s. Rwandan forces and their Congolese allies in the Rassemblement Mnangagwa helped to build up ZANU-PF’s holding company, Zidco Congolais pour la Démocratie. There are rumours that officers are Holdings, which has stakes in Zidco Motors, Midland Motors, Treger, involved. The Harare newspapers reported that Private Mahachi of First Zidlee, National Blanket and Catercraft. Zidco’s Managing Director, Infantry Battalion told the ZDF Army Commander, Major Gen. Jayant Joshi, a voluble Indian trader with strong international connections, Constantine Chiwenga, about gem looting in Mbuji-Mayi last October. periodically taps his overseas friends for party funds. This is the money Mahachi was then beaten up by soldiers from the Intelligence Corps. A that paid for hiring Cohen & Woods International to polish Zimbabwe’s few diamonds can make a tour of duty in Congo-K brighter than tarnished image in Washington DC (AC Vol 42 No 10), an effort rewarded defending the government against discontented compatriots at home.