acos ASSOCIAnON OF CONCERNED AFRICA SCHOLARS BULLETin Produced at st. Augustine's College, Raleigh, Ne 27610-2298 Spring 1990 Nuaber 30

SPECIAL ISSUE: - TEN YEARS AFTER INDEPENDENCE

TABLB OF CONTBNTS

Note from the Issue Coordinator •••••••••••••••••••••••.•• 1 Lee Cokorinos, "Zimbabwe: For Whom Has The 'Luta' Continued?". •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 2 Ann Seidman, "A Note On Ziababwe and the Multinational Lending Agencies" ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 14 Steve Askin, "Education and Politics After Ten Years of Independence" •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 18 , "An Unfinished 'Sentence' of Hard Labor for .orkers"••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 28 Africa .atch Report on Zimbabwe •••••••••••••••••••••••••• 34

Additional ~ A Actions Human Rights Abuses in Zaire••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 51 1 ******************************************************* ******************************************************* NOTE FROM THE ISSUE COORDINATOR

This issue of the ACAS BULLETIN has the special theme of "Zimbabwe Ten Years After Independence". Many of the issues touched upon were also raised in connection with Nigeria in the last special issue of the BULLETIN (Fall 1989, No. 28) on "Structural Adjustment, Academic Freedom and Human Rights" in that country. Indeed the two issues can be read in conjunction with one another. Hopefully they can form a basis for discussion on constructing durable and effective ties with our beleaguered colleagues in the African academic and wider community struggling for social justice.

For this issue original articles'were ·contributed by Ann Seidman and Daniel Weiner, both ACAS members and longtime students of Zimbabwe. Steve Askin has graciously made his "reporter's notebooks" on the strife at tne available.

Four of the articles are reproduced from the excellent on-line information service Africa Information Afrique (AlA), which everyone who hasn't already done so should familiarize themselves with. Started in 1987 with head offices in , AlA is funded by a group of Canadian NGOs and works in partnership with a number of progressive media organizations in the region such as the MIRROR in , the REPORTER in Botswana, and NEW NATION and the WEEKLY MAIL in South Africa. Their coverage is cast not toward "mainstream" stories but focuses on women, education, labor, health and other subject areas usually ignored by tne dominant media in the West. AlA will soon have eight people on staff in the region and do all their work using computers and modems. This encourages both deeper understanding of the region, continuous updating, and two-way flows of information. They are available through "Peacenet" computer network, and have a printed edition ( CHRONICLE) which appears 22 times a year. For further information write Stephanie Wells, Box 336, Ayer's Cliff, Quebec, Canada JOB 1CO. The four articles reproduced here are part of a lS-part series AlA did on Zimbabwe's decade of independence.

Thanks are also due to Africa Watch for permission to reproduce sections of its report on Zimbabwe and to PARADE MAGAZINE for permission to reprint the article by Morgan Tsvangirai. People interested in following Zimbabwe regularly should consider subscribing to PARADE (address: Thomson House, 130 Harare st., P.O. Box 3798, Harare). Elizabeth Schmidt, Richard Saunders and Jim Cason also helped make this issue possible. 2 ******************************************************* ******************************************************* The following overview is by Lee Cokorinos, ACAS Political Action Co-Chair.

ZIMBABWE: FOR WHOM HAS THE "LUTA" CONTINUED?

Zimbabwe's celebration of ten years of independence on April 18 provides a good opportunity to look back not only on the achievements and setbacks of the past decade there, but also at those of the solidarity movement in the U.S. with respect to a key Frontline state. Much has been written recently about the dashed hopes and sobering effects of Zimbabwe's experience of majority rule, but less about the what might be learned by examining the effects independence on the ~airly potent movement in solidarity with the Patriotic Front that existed at the end of the 1970s. These lessons may be useful as discussion continues on how recent changes in the political terrain in South -Africa affect the strategic horizons of the anti-apartheid movement, and how progressive academics might contribute that debate. (1) When majority rule comes to that country they will become even more relevant.

ZIMBABWE TEN YEARS AFTER

On "balance", if such concepts are ever useful, Zimbabwe's setbacks and difficulties over the past decade have been outweighed by its aChievements. Peasant agriculture under the ZANU(PF) government has experienced mixed but unmistakable success (at least for those who have land, credit and inputs); formal racial segregation in public facilities has been outlawed; clinics and schools became available for the first time for millions of poor people; regular elections were held which gave the population a voice in government they never had before; university enrollment skyrocketed; the labor movement, though rocked by scandal and repression, is beginning to consolidate itself; control of the jUdiciary has been taken out of the hands of racist Front-appointed judges. The Mugabe government on several occasions stood up to the Reagan administration on international issues like the Grenada invasion and destabilization of Nicaragua, and brought credit on itself by its effective stewardship of the Nonaligned movement. It has resisted American and British arm-twisting tactics against the Angolan government when other Frontline and African states displayed more flexible backbones. And the legal regime covering women's rights, while still leaving much room for improvement, has been made less repressive. Perhaps most importantly, the political/military contradiction that dominated not only the first decade of independence but the entire liberation struggle--that between ZANU(PF) and PF-ZAPU--was resolved by the merger of the two parties. 3 Nevertheless, serious problems confront Zimbabwe in all these areas. It has now become virtually predictable that any article or discussion of Zimbabwe will hasten to point out that although peasants bore the brunt of the Smith regime's repression, and provided the majority of rank-and-file guerrillas for the liberation movements, they have still not received the land and resources they were promised. Many ex-combatants who dropped out of school and sacrificed their education have seen others who sat out the war and credentialized themselves gain lucrative positions in the state and private business. Segregation has taken on new forms, more economically than racially based.

The most recent election, held in late March, was characterized by widespread intimidation, procedural irregularities and lack of a genuine popular opposition force. The head of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) ,Morgan Tsvangirai, was detained three times last year under emergency regulations inherited from the Smith regime. Women delegates to the December ZANU(PF) congress complained they had not been allowed an input into the draft party constitution. "Some of the women at the central committee meeting were booed before they could even make their contributions," according to , deputy secretary of the united ZANU party's Women's League. Young people face massive unemployment, with some 100,000 school-Ieavers chasing about 7,000 new jobs a year. The decisions of the judiciary have been repeatedly challenged and ignored by the government. The student movement at the university and polytechnic is being severely repressed, and its leadership was detained for daring to protest the discrepancy between socialist words and capitalist deeds. Even grumbling about the lack of benefits from the unity accord is being heard.

MIXED ELECTION RESULTS

For the solidarity movement one of the more vexing questions regarding the March elections was the absence of an effective opposition that clearly articulated the interests of poor peasants, workers, women, the unemployed and the radical intelligentsia. By now there is ample evidence that ZANU(PF), while containing within its ranks dedicated and honest representatives and members of these strata, is also dominated by what Tsvangirai has called "the old African nationalist leadership" seeking to "close off challenges to their long-term benefits." The "wait and see" attitude vis-a-vis Zimbabwe which many in the solidarity movement had in the early 1980's, and which in some ways paralyzed it politically, has clearly become untenable. The opposition (ZUM), on the other hand, stands for an even more vigorous and free-wheeling capitalism the Zimbabwean downtrodden could hardly be expected to vote for, and had concluded a foul alliance with the 4

Conservative Alliance of Zimbabwe, the party of . Before his desertion of the rUling party, it should be added, Tekere had also distinguished himself as one of the most feared intellectual authors of the atrocities in Matabeleland in the mid-1980's. Who does one support in such a situation?

Much of the limited information available about Zimbabwe in the West came through the distorting prism of the dominant media, which frequently cast 's (ZUM) as a persecuted southern African equivalent of the "movements for democracy" in eastern Europe. Not that there are no parallels: to take two examples, in the election campaign Tekere made liberal use of comparisons between the government's support for a one party state and the experiences of eastern Europe; and a day before the events which lead to the overthrow of Ceausescu, Mugabe made warm and subsequently embarrassing re~erences to his Romanian "friend", who by the way shares (or shared) the freedom of Harare with Nelson Mandela as the result of a 1983 visit.

Yet the contending parties in the election have grown out of Zimbabwe's distinctive society and history, and cannot be understood be referring to examples elsewhere. Senior united ZANU figures like , the former military leader of PF-ZAPU, public service minister Eddison Zvogbo and the current Minister of State for National Security, , have vocally opposed both "dogmatic socialism" and the one party state. The experiences of the past decade certainly have had an effect in shaping such attitudes, since establishing a one party state would involve banning opposition parties like ZUM, and of course preclude the formation of parties to the left of ZANU(PF). Dabengwa has been drawing huge crowds, while the campaign appearances of some other ex-ZAPU officials associated with government policy were virtually ignored. The point here is that Zimbabweans are paying attention to what their politicians are saying, and do not relate to the candidates as interchangeable commodities. This also casts a different light on the widely-touted voter apathy in the elections.

Coverage focusing on the one party/multi-party issue has also obscured the fact that the process for selecting ZANU(PF) candidates, while centrally controlled, did take place under new rules which made for some sharp contests over pOlicy and program. The double standard that enables Western political analysts to spill vast amounts of ink over, e.g., closely-fought primary campaigns in a one-party town like New York City, while ignoring the fact that important issues were at stake in some ZANU(PF) candidate selections or deselections, was alive and well. The independent Zimbabwean monthly PARADE, by contrast, did note that in some cases these contests "enabled the grassroots organs of the party to deliver a clear

/ 5 message against complacency to their representatives", though the experiment ultimately ended a fortnight later "with tears, joy, tribalism, fights, regionalism, feasting ... and finally dictatorship prevailed".

Several patterns emerge from the elections. The first of these is that ZANU(PF) 's influence in the eastern part of the country, along the border with , is declining. Votes for opposition candidates in one district in the border town of chipinge totalled over 15,000 to the ZANU(PF) candidate's 7065. The candidate for former "internal settlement" leader 's ZANU-Ndonga party (Sithole lives in Maryland) won in chipinge South. Overall, however, the number of opposition MPs only rose from two to three, though Tekere is likely to win a delayed poll in one district.

Alarm bells are ringing because the security forces and villagers are reportedly concerned at signs of stepped up collaboration between MNR bandits and some locals in Manicaland. Although more complaints are being heard along the border about the lack of security force presence than abuses, the U.S.-based human rights organization AFRICA WATCH, citing MNR activity and the government's eviction of peasants from their land, recently drew a parallel between the situation in the east and in Matabeleland in the mid-1980's. (See excerpts from their report below). "Instead of making a clear distinction between legitimate political dissent and armed opposition," Africa Watch said, the government "is amalgamating ZUM, RENAMO and South Africa, in precisely the same manner as it did in Matabeleland." The report asks whether "the lessons of Matabeleland have been learned--or whether the human rights emergency is destined to be repeated in eastern Zimbabwe."

Nonetheless, ZANU(PF) won the election resoundingly (see AIA's election analysis below). The ruling party's margin, it should be said, exceeded the widely-quoted predictions of some "independent observers", such as the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace. Although Mugabe stated that he took the results as a mandate for a one party state, this plank had been quietly left out of his party's election manifesto. The manifesto instead warned that "any division or split in the ranks of the main producing classes must be resisted and prevented as such division will provide the petty bourgeoisie with the opportunity to defeat the objectives of socialism. The workers and peasants have thus everything to gain and nothing to lose by uniting under the umbrella of ZANU(PF) ... The next phase of our revolution will seek to give the people economic power and independence."

Another pattern emerging from the poll was ZUM's national showing particularly in the larger towns. While generally taking a drubbing in rural areas not on the eastern border, 6

Tekere's party was able to attract some significant support from disaffected urban voters. This demonstrates once again the danger of drawing simple equations of class support for particular parties, since many who voted for ZUM's candidates did so more out of protest at declining purchasing power and the slow pace of ZANU(PF) 's transformation of the economy than out of agreement with ZUM's commitment to the "free-market" and "democratic pluralism". In a medium of social crisis, political dissent seems to have expressed itself either in a protest vote for ZUM, or, more frequently, in a boycott of the poll altogether: the turnout was only 54% of the reported 4.5.million registered voters (which is probably, as the British historian Terence Ranger has noted, an inaccurately high figure). Where these voters would have gone if an opposition party standing firmly for, say, more spending on education and job creation, distributing land to poor peasants, or opening up the collective bargaining process,' cannot be known. But almost certainly the ruling party would have gotten more of a run for its money.

0°

STRUCTURAL CONSTRAINTS

In a very real sense, however, thinking along those lines involves more idealism than sober reflection. For a party to the "left" of ZANU(PF) to emerge, some necessary conditions would obviously have to exist. First, leaders with credibility among poor and working Zimbabweans would have to be willing to bolt from the ruling party. While some have done so, or, as in the case of many militants from the war, simply gone home and dropped out of politics, by and large genuine socialists have stayed in ZANU(PF) while cOmbining their party membership with activity that consolidates and hopefully extends mobilization along class lines. There have been, for instance, reports that some senior ZANU(PF) figures not wanting to compromise their positions in the state remained secret members of ZUM. Others have said that such accusations are a smokescreen for intra-party witch-hunts.

Secondly, the experience with ZUM means that any militants contemplating such a move would need double assurances that they were not being led into some trap involving careerism or alliances with big corporate interests or racists like Smith. Some politically quite sound people were badly burned by Tekere.

Finally, any serious Zimbabwean militant would have to ask him/herself what scope exists for making a direct challenge to the existing social structure. Could Zimbabwe cope with a cutoff of loans from international agencies like the IMF and World Bank? What would be the effect of an end to commercial lending? Would the agricultural and manufacturing sectors be 7 able to survive outside pressure? Is the degree of political unity among socialist forces--and between these forces and their "mass base"--strong enough to withstand such pressures until the economic benefits of self-reliance, diversification of trade and increased domestic production came on line?

The degree of triumphalism in the West over events in eastern Europe has predisposed many in the solidarity movement as well to give automatic "no" answers to all the above questions. Many in Zimbabwe knowing the costs of the present economic strategy, however, feel the answers might be yes, though perhaps to less dramatically posed questions. Zimbabwe's industrial base is already under attack by the Bretton Woods institutions. Its financial system is fairly sophisticated. If people need your products, such as maize and tobacco, and the price is right, they will buy them, as they did ~efore 1980. And "structural adjustment" can place strains on political unity at least as bad as imperial wrath. There were and are, e.g., serious debates about "the lessons of Nicaragua". Virtually no one, least of all Zimbabwe's workers and peasants, who cherish access to regional markets, wants autarky.

SOLIDARITY WITH WHOM AND WHAT?

Before independence in 1980 there was a vibrant and well organized Zimbabwe support movement in the United States which was taken seriously by the Washington policy establishment. That is no longer the case. One inescapable reason for this is that as the basis of solidarity shifted from morality to economics, from opposing white minority rule to opposing the logic of "structural adjustment" in Zimbabwe, the movement not only shed support but literally disappeared. The irony in this is that many of the same issues that animated the liberation struggle itself and galvanized overseas support--disproportionate white power in Zimbabwean economy and society, unequal distribution of land, inequality in educational opportunity, lack of labor rights, political disfranchisement and scorn, remain in some cases at the same or even worse levels than they were in the 1970s.

In the meantime, elsewhere in Africa some World Bank and IMF officials have begun to talk about the need to "rethink the question of national sovereignty". One senior World Bank official remarked last year on what he saw as the need to "rethink the viability" of Niger as a nation. Going almost unnoticed as the dramatic struggles of the continent's "last colonies" are reaching their conclusion is a trend toward the recolonization of the rest of Africa. By this I mean not the indirect economic "neocolonialism" of the type Kwame Nkrumah wrote so eloquently about. But political colonialism--"direct" and "indirect" rule. The massive presence of "bilateral", World Bank, and IMF personnel WITHIN the African st~te. They are said 8 by these institutions to be bringing, as in days of old, "good governance" to Africa. The rapidity with which many scholars who consider themselves progressive have bought into the language of "governance", "developing civil society" and "promoting democracy in Africa" raises real questions about how well we have played a critical role in shaping discussion of the problems of contemporary Africa in the U.S. The sharpening of class conflict in Africa has problematized concepts like these in ways that have not been adequately reflected by those who like to invoke Gramsci, Laclau and Mouffe in analyzing contemporary African politics.

Talk about rethinking national political viability has yet to reach Zimbabwe (though it is being more frequently heard just over the Zambesi). But it is reasonable to begin thinking about whether this is to be the future of all of southern Africa as well in a few decades time. If so, what will become of the "happily ever after" scenarios by which the solidarity movement has often guided its vision, sentiments which we again recently saw in. abundance in Windhoek? Has nothing been learned? If this course is to be resisted, a shift of emphasis must take place from simply fighting racial domination to fighting imperialism, which though often confused are not one and the same thing.

Two tasks stand out here: reconstituting the political and social base of the solidarity movement at horne (involvement in the fight against cutbacks, racism, capital flight, plant closures, slashing the social wage, etc.); and linking up with grassroots movements fighting austerity and the economic destruction of Africa. Both tasks will be exceedingly difficult to bring off.

Ideologically speaking, this means fighting the language and mentality of "competitiveness" at horne, and "structural adjustment" in countries like Zimbabwe. One lesson of the past is that the intellectual tools to do this are not necessarily sharpened in a fight against racial domination, not least since all classes of oppressed African populations suffer from white minority rule, and the rUling classes of the West have easily supported such struggles under the guise of "democracy". They are doing so once again with millions of welcome "National Endowment for Democracy" dollars for the ANC. How should North American activists respond when Nelson Mandela approaches James Baker for a handout?

Nor have the organizational alliances been adequate. Solidarity work will have to be restructured on the basis ofa critique of production relations in Africa, and an understanding of how the world economy has changed since the 1970's and 1960's when many of the original critiques of neo-colonialism and imperialism were formulated. What is POLITICALLY at issue in these struggles can only be learned through direct links with both 9 the grassroots and larger, umbrella organizations doing the same work in Africa. Solidarity work with university communities in Africa fighting the effects of government corruption, capitalist orientation and "structural adjustment" must be stepped up. In the past year universities have been closed in Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Zaire, the Sudan, Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda and elsewhere with very little evidence of support or concern in the U.S. universities, despite the many links that have been created, e.g., with South Africans fighting the apartheid system from within their institutions of .

At home campus organizing must also be stepped up against the activities of the IMF and World Bank, in an attempt to gum up, disrupt, and discredit their work as thoroughly as the formal and informal "public relations" Cipparatus of the apartheid regime was undermined by the divestment movement during the last decade. It also involves being more vocal and analytically sharper in criticizing the many corruptions of socialist ideas in African "liberation movements" and in the solidarity movement. Judging by events, these will have to be more rigorous and thoroughgoing than those being currently deployed in eastern Europe, where the depredations of capitalism are less directly familiar than they are in Africa.

Regarding Zimbabwe itself, reconstructing systematic and regular relations of solidarity will involve a prodigious task of hooking up with both rural and urban cooperatives, the alternative press, the students' movement, and the trade unions. The links forged with South Africa along these lines show that they can be made, despite official skepticism or resistance.

Besides creating and strengthening movements to press for the political and economic liberation of our own countries, the soundest form of solidarity we can extend to the poor and exploited in southern Africa is to make the leap with them from the struggle against racial domination to that against global marginalization and domination. Judging from the past decade's experience regarding Zimbabwe this will not occur by itself. In fact it suggests we may well look back on the early 1990's as the high point in intercontinental solidarity, which would be a tragedy. ******************************************************* ******************************************************* Zimbabwe: Election analysis

Harare, April 6, 1990 (AIA) -- The rUling ZANU-PF party of President has emerged from Zimbabwe's three-day elections (March 28-30) with an overwhelming majority of votes 10 cast, amid speculation that it will quickly move to establish a one-party state. ZANU took 116 of the 119 seats at stake. In a separate ballot, President Mugabe outpolled his only challenger, Edgar Tekere of the recently formed Zimbabwe unity Movement (ZUM), by a wide margin.

Mugabe received 2.5 million votes to Tekere's 413,000. But for political watchers, the results also contain signs that nagging dissatisfaction with the 10-year-old ZANU government could get in the way of ZANU plans for one-party government. Many observers believe ZUM's popular vote of 15 percent was substantial, given alleged intimidation. communications workers say complaints that ZUM was receiving too much coverage from the official media led to an unofficial boycott of opposition politicians. There were also charges that the opposition was harassed by the ruling party's Youth and Women's Leagues as well as Zimbabwe's security agencies.

In the eastern Manicaland province, ZUM received a qubstantial vote. ZUM picked up two seats and came within hundreds of votes of ZANU in several more constituencies. One other party, the regionally based ZANU-Ndonga of exiled dissident and right-wing nationalist Ndabaningi Sithole, captured a single seat. The opposition seems set to take another seat in a postponed election in the eastern district of Chimanimani. The by-election will be held in a few months and defeated Presidential candidate Tekere will likely stand.

Before the poll ZANU, and particularly Mugabe, had pressed hard for a large turnout to give the government a clear mandate for the creation of a one-party system. But although ZANU won the election convincingly, the large turnout failed to materialize even after an unscheduled third day of polling was hastily announced on the second day of voting, March 29. Of the officially estimated 4.8 million eligible voters, only 2.587 million (54 percent) showed up to cast ballots. This was dramatically down from the turnouts of well over 90 percent seen in the 1980 and 1985 elections. Officials have since claimed that the original estimate of the electorate was inflated, and that there was probably a 60 percent turnout. But this is still a low poll by Zimbabwean standards. Alongside this stayaway, the unusually high incidence of spoilt ballot papers (more than 146,000 in the Presidential poll) has added to speculation about Zimbabweans' diminished enthusiasm for politics, barely 10 years after independence.

It now seems clear that hundreds of thousands of disillusioned Zimbabweans have turned their backs on the political process, and the parties which engage in it. Such apathy and disaffection has been concentrated in urban enclaves, and it is there where the opposition picked up most support. In the 11 Harare region ZUM alone received roughly 30 percent of the valid vote, while in other urban centers it did nearly as well. In Harare and , several senior ZANU members, like and the powerful Finance Minister, , received dramatically reduced counts amid opposition support and large-scale abstentions. It seems likely that some of these officials would have been defeated in the election had the poll not been extended to a third day, allowing mobilization of ZANU party faithful.

In the rural areas, where 80 percent of Zimbabwe's 10 million people live, the ruling party racked up overwhelming support. This has confirmed the rural peasantry as the heartbed of ZANU's political strength. It has remained consistent since the days of the rural-based liberation struggle. It also underlines ZANU's success over the past 10 years in uplifting rural society by means of improved social services and other development programs.

At the same time, the renewed challenge to ZANU in Zimbabwe's sprawling urban townships underscores the growing economic and social crisis confronting the next administration. Real wages have fallen to levels of the mid-1970s (and are still slipping back), unemployment is spiralling upwards, and hazy government talk about socialism is no longer seen as meaningful in the wake of recent corruption scandals. ZUM capitalized on these issues, without offering concrete alternatives to the ZANU status quo. Most of all, ZUM hammered ZANU on the idea of the one-party state, vowing to maintain a multi-party, free enterprise Zimbabwe. Of those who turned up to register a protest vote, ZANU's plans for a "one-party democracy" was without doubt the main instigating factor.

Before the poll, the consensus among observers was that an opposition vote above 18-20 percent would make it difficult for ZANU to rush headlong towards a one-party state without encountering organized dissent. Both voter apathy, and ZUM's strong showing in urban areas, won in the context of alleged intimidation and virtually no effective pUblic organization, now raise questions about the government's nerve in pursuing its cherished goal.

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ZIMBABWE: Money Makes Money But Investment Drops

Harare, April 17, 1990 (AlA/Patrick Bond) -- In the 10 years since independence here investment in production has dropped but the stock market and finance industry have generated more surpluses than ever. It is a contradiction that is stagnating development and could defeat attempts to turn this nation's 12 degenerating economy around.

While international stock markets have shuddered through periodic collapses during the late '80s, the local market increased in value by a factor of five during the past six years. Yet the rest of the economy has been flat.

At the same time the banking system has got away with making the vast majority of its loans - 97 percent by one leading conservative economist's estimate - to white borrowers, in a country that is 98 percent black.

The social tensions created by 50 percent unemployment and underemployment, double digit inflation, and a highly skewed income distribution are obvious.

But the economic mechanics behind Zimbabwel's stagnation and speculation are just as important. In fact, after a decade of what is still inexplicably labelled "Marxist-Leninist" rule, Zimbabwe's white business elites continue to contro~ the commanding heights of the economy - the financial markets - and the results are not encouraging. Nor is the reform program currently being designed, in part by emerging black business leaders. The problem is capital investment. No one seems interested in putting money into production.

On the balance sheet Zimbabwe has been making ends meet. When not badgered by drought, the economy usually idles along at a 2.5 percent annual growth rate, just a bit less than the rate of population growth (as a result, the average standard of living fell during the 1980s). Mining and agriculture continued to produce well. Export earnings rose despite falling world prices.

Yet since 1983, the 48 large companies listed on the Zimbabwe stock Exchange (ZSE) - two-thirds of which are foreign controlled - have invested just ZIM $70 million (CON $34.3 million) per year (in 1980 dollars), as compared with ZIM $155 million (CON $75.95 million) per year from 1980-83.

The turn from productive investment has happened because profits from the ZSE and real estate are just too enticing for private capital. The shift to speculation became clear in 1984 when big business concluded that the decade-old economic slump would not be reversed through production. Since then the value of the ZSE industrial share index has increased more than six~fold (in terms of 1984 currency rates) .

The mining share index has increased by five times. Urban real estate prices in many exclusive areas have increased by three or four times. In contrast, manufacturing output has increased by only 22 percent while the cost of living has risen by 75 13 percent over the same period.

Much of the blame must go to Zimbabwe's major banks. They include: Barclays, Standard Chartered, Grindlays, locally-based Zimbank, and the Bank of Credit and Commerce Zimbabwe). Together they control four billion dollars (CON $1.96 billion). But they have not been energetic in providing funds for new productive enterprises.

USA-based finance economist Ann Seidman has observed of Zimbabwe, "Even in the brief post-independence boom (1980-81) the banks could not find enough borrowers with profitable projects to dispose of all their loanable funds." As many countries have found since the early 1970s, this means that capital is underutilized while the pool of unemployed labor grows.

According to Mike Humphrey, the chief economist for the Confederation of Zimbabwean Industries (CZI), there is nearly a billion dollars (CON $490 million) in exc~ss liquidity in the banking system.

There appears no clear means by which the private sector can put excess capital and unemployed labor together while the structures for income distribution remain skewed and speculation is more profitable than production.

Government and local private sector economic planners are hoping a new "trade liberalization" strategy will stop the speculation trend. They are taking their lead from the World Bank. The bank was once just a lender for development projects. Today it uses 25 percent of its funds to boost "Third World" countries' general revenues, much of which is then used to repay western commercial bank loans. SUbsequently, the World Bank imposes its own IMF-style adjustment policies using the rhetoric of environment and development.

In the early 1980s the prescription for Zimbabwe was agricultural and mineral exports alongside benign neglect of­ the manufacturing base. This ran into serious local opposition from the CZI, especially the large foreign-owned companies which were increasingly managed by influential black executives.

The allocation of scarce foreign exchange to farmers and mining companies and devaluation of the currency reduced access to foreign imports, complains Humphrey. "It had all sorts of effects on the transport situation, on the ability to re-equip factories, on raw materials.

"The government decided not to reschedule the foreign debt (in the mid-1980s) , in order to maintain a good credit rating," 14

Humphrey continues. "There is a debate about whether this was good or bad for industry. In CZI we were fairly split. But now we have a lot more bargaining power, compared to other African countries."

Thus, rather than doing an about-face against the export-oriented approach, a new strategy was soon developed by key local policy makers in conjunction with CZI. It immediately won the World Bank's blessing. That five-year "trade liberalization" strategy will only be formally announced in July, but its thrust is already clear.

Many new imports will be allowed in, thus undermining the overprotected, high-priced, low-quality local manufacturers. But at the same time, exports of non-traditional commodities such as horticultural products and of smal~ manufactured goods to the southern African regional market will be stressed. Much more foreign exchange will be made available to export manufacturers, and red tape on imports will be slashed.

In short, the CZI and the World Bank want Zimbabwe to become similar to Latin American and Asian states which have grown fast during the past decades through emphasis on low-priced exports. These nations are dubbed "Newly Industrialized Countries" (NICs).

But University of Zimbabwe Economics department head Logan Pakkiri scoffs at the idea, saying similar preconditions would have to be created like "extreme labor repression, extensive state intervention against foreign direct investment, and land reform.

"These restrictive conditions and the more protectionist policies of the developed countries appear to rule out the export-led option for Zimbabwe," Pakkiri concludes.

Worse still, the companies speculating in stocks and real estate may just ignore the new policy. ******************************************************* ******************************************************* The following article is by Ann Seidman, who teaches at Clark University and is a member of the ACAS Board of Directors. Among her most recent books are APARTHEID, MILITARISM AND THE U.S. SOUTHEAST, published by Africa World Press.

A NOTE ON ZIMBABWE AND THE MULTILATERAL LENDING AGENCIES

Zimbabwe attained independence a decade ago as the most industrialized nation in sub-Saharan Africa. Landlocked, and with a population of about 8 million, from 1965 to 1980, it had 15 nevertheless attained a growth rate of 4.4%(2)--and even more excluding the last five years of heightened civil war. In 1980, it enjoyed an investable surplus of about $1.7 billion, about 45% of its Gross Domestic Product. Its external pUblic debt(3) remained only 13% of GNP, and servicing its debt only 2.5% of its foreign exchange earnings.

Almost a decade later, Zimbabwe's growth rate hovered around 2%--less than the population growth rate. It mainly reflected expanding agriculture and services. Industry lagged. Only a fraction of the country's 90,000 secondary school graduates found jobs. National per capita income had declined by 1.3%. External public debt had soared to $2.044 billion, about 36% of GNP. Its debt service, alone, totalled 6.8 percent of GNP and 23.2% of its foreign exchange earnings--higher than in the average Third World country (4.7% and 22%, respectively), and much higher than in the average African economy (respectively 4.1% and 14.7%). WHY?

The explanation lies primarily in the new Zimbabwe government's uncritical adoption, from the outset, of IMF and World Bank-type advice. (4) Space limitations here prohibit in-depth analysis of all the available evidence. Instead, this note will focus on two aspects that illustrate the ineptness of these prescriptions.

First, immediately after independence Zimbabwe's central bank--adopting conventional wisdom that it needed to attract capital--permitted transnational corporate affiliates to remit 50% of their profits abroad. (5) The outflow(6) of investment income alone jumped from Z$47.7 million in 1978 to Z$82.9 million in 1980. Business and holiday allowances, salaries, pensions, migrants' funds, property income and other private transfers brought the 1980 outflow of funds to $276.9 million, almost double the 1978 figure. Adding half these non-investment income outflows together with the probable loss from transfer pricing, Zimbabwe that year lost an estimated Z$3rrO million--almost a fifth of its domestically generated investable surplus. In contrast, during the first two years of independence, it attracted less than Z$25 million in foreign investment.

At the same time, arguing that Zimbabwe remained "underborrowed," its advisers urged the government to obtain loans abroad. The government sponsored a big conference in hopes of attracting $2 billion in aid, the amount initially mentioned by Western governments in supporting a negotiated settlement of the liberation war. Instead of receiving grants or low interest loans, however, the government had to borrow from transnational banks; looking for solvent borrowers, they 16 apparently viewed Zimbabwe's seemingly prosperous economy as a welcome client. The nation's foreign debt rapidly multiplied.

As a second illustration of the multilateral agencies' advice, a World Bank experts' report recommended that the Zimbabwe government build a thermal plant at Hwange, initially estimated to cost $1 billion, to generate electricity. Instead of importing power from Zambia's Kafue or Mazambique's Cabora Bassa dams, the report held, the new nation should generate its own power by the thermal plant, using coal from the Hwange mines owned by the South Africa-based transnational, Anglo American. Emphasizing an illusory need for self-reliance, the report neglected to point out: 1) Zambia had sold power to Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) before liberation, and lost an important source of earnings with which it might have bought Zimbabwean manufactures; and 2) Mozambique's earnings from sales of Cabora Bassa power might have enabled it, too, to increase its purchase of Zimbabwean goods. Thus construction of the plant thwarted the growth of potentially valuable trade with these SADCC(7) partner states. In the end, moreover, the Hwange plant cost far more than originally estimated, raising the costs and reducing the spread of electric power, especially needed by the nation's rural poor.

The International Finance Corporation (IFC) , a World Bank affiliate, provided the government $200 million in loans for the Hwange plant. This was the largest loan it had ever made, totalling about one-fifth of all the loans it made in 1982 to 119 countries. (8) The US-owned Citibank provided additional suppliers' credits. Depending on the due dates and the interest rates, those loans alone probably doubled Zimbabwe's then-debt service ratio. In addition, the IFC stipulated that the government must open all purchases for the Hwange plant to international bid. As a result, a local Zimbabwean manufacturing firm, which would have used locally-produced steel and employed local labor to make the three boilers required for the project, lost the bid to a British firm. Ironically, before independence the Zimbabwe firm would have automatically received the contract to produce the boilers. The IFC rUling ignored the possible mUltiplier effects on employment and incomes, as well as the foreign exchange savings Zimbabwe would have gained by utilizing national production capacity to manufacture them.

Meanwhile, Zimbabwe's government opened its economy to other imports of capital intensive machinery and equipment which, the IMF's conventional wisdom held, would enable its manufactured goods to compete on the world market. Local manufacturers complained that the imported manufactures squeezed them out of business and reduced the labor-absorption capacity of the country's industrial structure, aggravating unemployment. At the same time, the rapid expansion of imports caused growing 17 balance of payments difficulties. This eventually forced Zimbabwe to borrow from the IMF, and transformed IMF "advice" into mandatory "conditions". By 1984, Zimbabwe had devalued its currency by over 50%. On the one hand, this put Zimbabwe into the competitive devaluation race that pushed down the values of all southern African currencies. As a result, none of the SADCC countries gained any advantage in expanded trade with its neighbors. Furthermore, because they all competed with other Third World countries pursuing similar policies in a relatively stagnant world market, few could substantially expand their total exports.

In fact, by 1987 Zimbabwe's exports had declined to less in dollar terms(9) than in 1980. It had reduced its imports to one-fourth less than its exports. Nevertheless, after servicing its foreign debt and covering the outflow of income on other accounts, it still suffered balance of payments deficits. By the end of the decade, the value of the Zimbabwe dollar had slid to little more than a quarter of its 1980 level, (10) further reducing the dollar value per uniu of its exports and raising the dollar cost of its imports.

By raising the costs of essential imports, including oil, devaluation contributed to rising domestic price levels. Added to inflationary pressures stemming from increased domestic borrowing, (11) this contributed to reducing real incomes in Zimbabwe--as in all the SADCC member countries--especially of the lower income sections of the population.

CONCLUSION

In the brief decade after Zimbabwe attained independence, its new government's adoption of IMF and World Bank policies failed to produce a better life for the majority of its citizens. Its misguided efforts to attract new capital led to the loss of a significant share of its locally-generated investable surpluses. Construction of the Hwange thermal plant blocked important potential avenues for expanded SADCC trade. Opening the doors to international imports and introducing a competitive devaluation process among SADCC member countries did nothing to improve trade among them. Instead, it fostered lower real incomes throughout the region. In short, by the end of the decade, the Zimbabwean government's conscientious pursuit of IMF/World Bank advice left its people saddled with a heavy external debt, growing unemployment and declining real incomes--even more impoverished than when they won independence. ******************************************************* ******************************************************* For many years Steve Askin has reported from Africa for such 18 pUblications as IN THESE TIMES, OF HIGHER EDUCATION and AFRICA NEWS. His dispatches have been distinguished by an absence of the exoticism and predictability of much coverage of southern Africa in the commercial press in the U.S. What follows is an edited compilation of his "reporter's notebooks", which chronicled key turning points in protests at the University of Zimbabwe against corruption and the capitalist orientation of Zimbabwe's government. He will shortly begin studies at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

EDUCATION AND POLITICS AFTER TEN YEARS OF INDEPENDENCE

MAY 1987

For African scholars, the University of Zirobabwe is a symbol of southern Africa's hopes for a prosperous future free from racism. The sentiment was summed up by Yusuf Bedre of Ahfad university College for Women in Sudan, when he told University of Zimbabwe Vice Chancellor Walter Kamba that "your--university is beautiful not only in its physical aspect, but also in the beautiful new experiment on which you are embarking.

Zimbabwe, Africa's second youngest nation, is the home of one of the continent's most successful universities. The campus resembles a construction site, as builders struggle to keep up with a fast-growing student body. Undergraduate enrollment more than tripled, from 2200 in 1980 to about 7000 with the class entering March 1987.

From 1965 to 1980 this nation, then known as Rhodesia, was ruled by the white minority government closely linked to neighboring South Africa. Chartered in 1955 as a non-racial institution the university was nonetheless "conceived, born and developed in a society where racism was pervasive" and could not escape "this malevolent influence," according to a report by Vice Chancellor Walter Kamba.

Independence brought a new emphasis on African development, including rapid expansion of the agriculture faculty and new programs in veterinary science and applied social sciences. This service orientation resembles that of American land grant colleges, said Michigan State University John Dibiaggio, who visited Zimbabwe during the January 1987 AAU/ECA meeting.

In 1986 the Reagan administration barred new aid commitments to Zimbabwe after a government official pUblicly criticized u.S. policy toward South Africa during a u.S. embassy sponsored reception in Harare. The MSU-Zimbabwe programs were not affected, a USAID official said. The agriculture school program was already fully funded through 1989, while food security research is a southern Africa regional program not touched by 19 the ban on bilateral aid.

SEPTEMBER 1988

A crackdown on left-wing campus critics of Zimbabwe's officially Marxist government raised fears for the future of academic freedom. And it had region-wide significance, added scholars concerned that anti-student violence by Zimbabwe's democratically elected, predominantly black government might be used by neighboring South Africa's white minority regime to justify its more drastic suppression of dissent.

Conflict began September 29 when riot police used clubs, teargas and rubber bullets to block a demonstration organized by the UZ and Harare Polytechnic Student Representative Councils at what they saw as the' government's failure to follow its own socialist principles. Next came the sudden expulsion from Zimbabwe of law lecturer Shadrack Gutto, an outspoken left-wing Kenyan exile apparently suspected of sparking the protests. Then, in an unprecedented October 11 statement, the UZ law faculty directly challenged Mugabe while condemning Gutto's expulsion and the use of force to suppress a lawful demonstration.

Many ironies surrounded the events, starting from the fact that the students assaulted by police emphatically portrayed themselves as supporters of President Robert Mugabe. Their leaflets charged that some officials are corruptly enriching themselves, made thinly veiled references to several cabinet ministers, but stressed support for Mugabe.

The protest followed by about a month Mugabe's own threat to remove political "creatures at the top" who call themselves Marxists but privately act like capitalists. "We are communists and we demonstrate because we cherish Marxist-Leninist ideals," said Student Representative Council Secretary-General Arthur Mutambara, a second-year engineering student.

Despite their pro-Mugabe stand, riot police blocked students trying to march into downtown Harare wearing t-shirts and declaring "national looters must go" and "capitalism, corruption no". These slogans addressed Zimbabwe's most explosive issue: the widespread belief that many top officials are betraying the Zimbabwean independence movement's egalitarian goals by using public money to enrich themselves.

Nearly 500 students were briefly arrested during the demonstration. Most were quickly released, but at least 15 face charges under a law used by Ian Smith's government to suppress black protest. Police then went on a rampage, tossing 20 toxic Cs teargas into several womens' dormitories and beating uninvolved bystanders, according to numerous uncontradicted reports from faculty, health workers and students.

The Gutto case also conjured up old memories. Summary expulsion of critical academics was "a favorite pastime of the Smith regime," says law school dean Reg Austin. But Gutto, ordered out of thee country with no explanation and 48 hours' notice, was the first to suffer such treatment since independence, said Austin, who joined other faculty members in asking to meet with Mugabe to appeal the action. The faculty said government's action against Gutto violated a precept Mugabe laid down to students just a few days earlier, when he said they shouldn't demand action against allegedly corrupt officials based on "rumor and speculation".

A Final irony, Gutto's colleagues say, lies in the fact that the Tufts-trained lecturer, though known as an intellectual mentor to campus radicals, had nothing to do with the disturbances. Gutto was on a pro-government foreign trip while students planned their protest. An avid soccer player, he had gone to neighboring Mozambique, Zimbabwe's closest ally, for a "solidarity" sporting event specifically designed to highlight links between the two nations. Gutto and his "Red stars" soccer team came back from Mozambique's Tete Province shortly before the student protest.

A fellow "Red star", UZ Public Law Department Chairman Shepherd Nzombe, received a first-hand glimpse of police violence as he left campus on the demonstration day for a press conference promoting Zimbabwe-Mozambique friendship.

Police dragged four students from Nzombe's car and assaulted them with clubs. The most seriously injured was a prosecutor on leave from government to pursue an advanced degree who had spent the morning writing an exam and had no involvement with the protest. "The others ran for their lives," Nzombe explained, but the prosecutor made the mistake of trying to explain he was not a demonstrator.

Though angry over the violence and his colleague's expUlsion, Nzombe insisted there is no comparison with South Africa. "The police violence is much worse there," he explained, "and protesting students would be detained without trial under very harsh conditions." In Harare, he noted, one student was fined $200 and the remainder released to face trial after final exams.

This contrast provided little comfort for such victims of violence as Michigan state University horticulturalist Robert Rice. Rice, a UZ visiting lecturer," said police clubbed him in the buttocks and lower back while he was riding his bicycle on 21 campus several hours after the demonstration ended. "It was obvious that they intended to nail students," said Rice, who believes he was mistaken for a student. student Representative Council Finance Secretary Helena McConville said police turned on her with their clubs when she begged them to stop beating an epileptic friend who had fallen after being shot with a rubber bullet. Her friend, a young woman who declined to be interviewed for fear of reprisals, suffered a broken arm, a broken nose, and internal injuries. Hospital sources confirmed that McConville's friend was held at a police station for several hours before receiving urgently needed medical treatment.

Police dragged at least the wounded student from an ambulance and attempted to invade the university clinic, said campus health workers.

Government officials and UZ administrators refused repeated requests for a comment on the campus violence and the Gutto expulsion. Vice Chancellor Kamba said he may make a statement after fully investigating.

The only response carne in brief remarks by Mugabe at a press conference on other issues, where he dismissed the protest as the antics of young people "tired of pursuing their studies".

Interviews with Zimbabweans in many walks of life revealed widespread support for the students' anti-corruption platform. "Officials felt they had to stop the demonstration or the whole town would have joined in," said a senior civil servant who, speaking off the record, expressed sympathy for their protest. similar sentiments were reflected even in state-controlled Harare daily HERALD, where there was near-universal support for the students and criticism of police violence in letters columns and Person on the street" interviews. This broad support for students suggests that their protest, though suppressed, may have a lasting impact on Zimbabwean political life.

OCTOBER 1988

Government threats of further action against radical lecturers and students, though not yet translated into action, provoked a strong response from academics at the University of Zimbabwe.

The threats carne from Minister of Horne Affairs . In an interview on state-run television, he said a student protest blocked by police on September 29 was provoked by "external enemies" to destabilize Zimbabwe and "discredit" President Robert Mugabe. Outspoken Kenyan law lecturer Shadrack 22 Gutto, he added, "wasn't deported, he was asked to leave," due to unspecified irregularities in his residence permit.

The next day, the University Senate challenged Mahachi by criticizing the Gutto deportation and "the implications of such action on academic freedom." Within two days after Mahachi spoke, close to half the full time academics had signed an even stronger open letter supporting the right to demonstrate and opposing government's "attack on human rights and academic freedom" .

The Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions responded to Mahachi with a strong endorsement of the student protest themselves.

While issuing strong collective statements, many academics--especially left-wingers politically close to Gutto--said they were afraid to speak individually. Government is looking for excuses to arrest scholars who support "the genuine struggle for socialism in Zimbabwe", said one formerly outspoken social scientist who asked not to b identified by name.

Mahachi, whose ministry controls Zimbabwe's police, had said that intelligence reports show that some university lecturers and outsiders were the "brains behind the scene". He said government may take legal action against them for "inciting" students. Students, Mahachi added, will face charges of pUblic violence and engaging in illegal demonstrations, Mahachi did not comment on charges of police brutality in that interview, and he has refused requests for interviews from international news media. Public violence is a criminal offense which can carry a jail sentence of several years. To date, students have been charged only with demonstrating illegally, an offense punishable by a Z$200 (US$110) fine.

OCTOBER 1989

Violent campus clashes following the political arrest of two student leaders led to the first unrest-related closing of the University of Zimbabwe since independence.

Police raided the campus before dawn on October 4, arresting Student Representative Council President Arthur Mutambara and Secretary General Enock Chikweche. This sparked an impromptu rally which turned violent as rock-throwing students clashed with police firing tear gas grenades. Vice Chancellor Kamba said he decided to close the university in consultation with Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe after demonstrators set fire to Kamba's official Mercedes Benz 230E. Forty students were reported arrested.

Official sources said the SRC leaders were arrested for 23 distributing "inflammatory" literature: leaflets which condemned as "neo-fascist" and a violation of academic freedom a government decision the previous Friday to ban a campus political meeting. The closure follows a year of mounting campus tension and sporadic clashes with police. Left-wing student leaders have repeatedly condemned the nominally Marxist government's growing tilt towards the private sector and its drive to replace the present, multi-party political system with a one party state. Top politicians, including Mugabe, threatened a crackdown on campus "hooligans", especially after militant students disrupted a speech in August by a senior government minister, Joshua Nkomo.

At a press conference after he closed the university, Kamba said that "academic freedom" does not protect extreme anti-government language, such as that of the students. He defended the right of police, who have "clashed with students several times in the past year, to intervene on campus when they see fit. The "indefinite" closure came just three weeks before the university's 8000 students wer~ to take final exams, and a few days before scheduled payment of final installments of government financial aid.

"Pack your things and go home. You're not students anymore," a UZ official told the stunned crowd of 800 students who had been driven from dormitories with teargas and herded by police into a campus assembly hall on October 4. One of the students, spotting a social science lecturer on the edge of the crowd, plaintively asked him: "What should I do about the paper I'm supposed to hand in tomorrow?"

That student and many others could not immediately comprehend that a few hours of relatively mild and intermittent campus disorder had led to the indefinite closure of one of Africa's most successful and prestigious universities. The only known injuries were suffered by a student leader who cut his hand jumping out a window to escape police, and Vice Chancellor Kamba's official Mercedes-Benz 230E--despised by campus radicals as the epitome of elitism--which was partially burned by students protesting the arrest of two campus leaders.

Kamba has repeatedly insisted that he personally made the decision to close UZ following the attack on his car. Widespread reports--confirmed by well-placed sources who would not be identified by name--contradict Kamba. The decision to close UZ was actually made at an October 3rd cabinet meeting chaired by Mugabe, these sources say. In their view, the arrest the next morning of SRC President Arthur Mutambara and Secretary General Enock Chikweche, was intended to trigger student protests which could provide an excuse for closing the campus. They and four other arrested students remain in police custody under emergency powers legislation--first enacted by 24 the white minority government which ruled this country as "Rhodesia" before 1980--which gives the government broad powers to hold political detainees without trial or charges.

Zimbabwe's top trade union leader, Secretary-General Morgan Tsvangirai, was arrested after he issued a public statement condemning the campus arrests and university closure as "A clear manifestation of rising state repression." within the next few days, police also detained at least 11 members of the Zimbabwe Unity Movement (ZUM) , the country's main opposition party. Though an Association of University Teachers unanimously condemned the closure, and asked Kamba to immediately reopen UZ with police banned from campus, AUT officials and other faculty members refused to be quoted by name, lest they suffer reprisals. Several lecturers said they were especially disturbed by Kamba's statements that acade~ic freedom applies only to temperate, well-reasoned statements and that police should be free to enter the campus whenever they see fit.

The sequence of events has also raised questions reaching far beyond the campus. Lecturers, church officials, business leaders and others have privately suggested that the crackdown casts some doubt on government's willingness to tolerate political opposition in the run-up to national elections.

The recent campus conflict at the only university in Africa's youngest nation marks a major beak with its past. UZ was politically somnambulant for most of its first eight years of independence. In the past year, however, student leaders have pUblicly challenged the nominally-Marxist government on two emerging political issues: its growing support for a significant private sector role in economic development and its proposals to replace the current, mUlti-party political system with a one party state.

Though Mugabe dismissed the protests as the childish pranks of bored youths, some students claim credit for prodding government to launch a subsequent corruption investigation which forced the resignation of several cabinet ministers, including then-Minister of Higher Education Ozingai B. Mutumbuka.

There was increasing political tension on campus in recent months. Security police held Acting Law School Dean Kempton Makamure--one of the most outspoken campus Marxist-Leninists--and released him without charges or explanation in June. Police banned a student political rally and came on campus in July to halt a ZUM rally. After the loud heckling which disrupted Nkomo's speech, education minister hinted at a crackdown in a speech which charged that some militant students seemed to be "puppet(s) of South Africa." 25 Mugabe, reluctant to admit that he has political opponents genuinely to his left, charged in a speech broadcast on national television that the students were misled by white AUT officials who secretly yearn for a return to the old era of white minority rule. His statement, and a cabinet minister's subsequent call for removal of "undesirable elements who are responsible for the pandemonium at our national university," have been taken as hints that there could be a political purge of students and lecturers before the university reopens.

Despite the conflict and uncertainty, tranquility returned to campus with surprising speed after its morning of violent clashes. Students who had thrown rocks at police the previous day, were smiling and chatting amiably as they carried their suitcases out of the dormitories and prepared for the journey home. Construction workers were back at work building new classrooms and dormitories to accommodate a student body which has more than quadrupled in size since independence. And, at the Vice Chancellor's office, there was another Mercedes-Benz 230E, speedily brought in to replace the vehicle students had damaged the previous day.

NOVEMBER 1989

UZ officials have announced that they will "temporarily" reopen the university, while banning political gatherings and all other extra-curricular activity. The university's governing council also suspended the student government; banned all gatherings of students for purposes other than attending classes, taking exams or eating meals; and said students will be required to leave the campus as soon as they finish their exams, which conclude December 9. UZ's 8000 students will be required, as a condition of re-registration, to sign statements accepting these conditions.

APRIL 1990

The University of Zimbabwe was scheduled to reopen at the end of the month, about four weeks later than normal. One result of the delay was to keep students off campus through national elections at the end of March and the April 18 celebration of the tenth anniversary of independence. Accurately or not, it is generally believed on campus that the de;lay was motivated by desire on the part of government to keep students away from campus during a series of crucially important political events which could have become the focus of student activism and protest. ******************************************************* ******************************************************* 26

THE LAND QUESTION IN ZIMBABWE

In Zimbabwe one decade ago, the land question dominated debate on the nature of post-independence transformation. Historical processes of uneven development, and the desire to regain control over 'lost lands', had fueled the flames of the liberation struggle. A grossly unequal distribution of land between white settler farmers (renamed large scale commercial farms) and black small-holders in racially designated tribal trust lands (renamed communal lands) epitomized the country's distorted economic structure. In 1980, the Mugabe government came into power promising to reverse historical inequalities in levels of agricultural and overall rural development. Growth with equity--with a strong emphasis on land redistribution--became a primary development objective. Ten years later, Zimbabwe is being heralded as.a ra~~ African agricultural success story. Peasant yields and marketed surpluses have increased dramatically. Black small-holders are now benefitting from technical packages produced historically and specifically for white-settler farmers. Viewed as a production strategy, Zimbabwe is a success story.

Agricultural growth in Zimbabwe is not evenly distributed, however. Wealthy households located in favorable agro-ecological zones are experiencing agricultural intensification. The majority of black small-holders do not have sufficient capital and lack access to medium or high potential land. Landlessness and near-landlessness is rapidly accelerating. Permanent food-for-work programs are now in place in many semi-arid communal areas where people suffer from resource degradation and unemployment. Chronic malnutrition in these areas remains very high. Increased social and spatial inequality is one product of Zimbabwe's strategy of small farm development WITHOUT redistribution of good quality land. One decade after independence, large-scale commercial farmers still control the nation's best land resources; approximately 600 of the 4,000 large-scale commercial farms are now also owned by blacks. Most (but not all) resettled land is of low quality.

So why so little restructuring in a country that until recently was pUblicly committed to 'scientific socialism'? Zimbabwe's brand of socialism professed that capitalist social relations should be slowly transformed in a peripheral capitalist country on the front line of South Africa. In the case of land, restructuring constraints included: (1) the Lancaster House Constitution, which both politically and economically reduced state options for land expropriations; (2) a capital-scarce economy increasingly dependent on agricultural exports; (3) a regime of accumulation partially dependent on cheap migrant labor; (4) dependence on South Africa; and (5) South African destabilization. These constraints are part of th reason why Zimbabwe's agrarian restructuring program never got off the 27 ground.

Also important, however, are internal political realities. In the Zimbabwe case, scientific socialism has become a mechanism for the emerging black bourgeoisie to consolidate state power. The Mugabe government--despite growing mass resistance--is desperately trying to establish a one party state. The black elite are quickly filling the shoes of the Rhodesians that they fought against. They are benefitting from the maintenance of a colonial-capitalist space economy and are purchasing large farms. The consolidation of large-scale commercial agriculture combined with the accelerated development of capitalist social relations in the communal areas is reinforced by an alliance between white farmers, a growing 'bureaucratic' bourgeoisie, and in some cases, emergent communal area farmers. As a result, class formation is proceeding rapidly, unemployment is very high and the Zimbabwean government is losing political legitimacy. The contradictions inherent in Zimbabwe's agrarian transition--chronic unemployment, rapid urbanization and class polarization--are again causing rural ten$ions to rise. These problems, combined with the 1990 expiring of the restrictive amendment procedures of the Lancaster House Constitution, are responsible for the political re-emergence of the 'land question' ten years after independence.

Mugabe's recent electoral victory (where many people voted by staying horne) has further consolidated the power of ZANU(PF). Government rhetoric on the land question, however, is remarkably similar to what was said ten years ago. On the one hand are nationalist cries to return stolen lands; Mugabe's recent claim that some white farmers support the opposition Zimbabwe Unity Movement is viewed by some analysts as an attempt to create a climate for forced land expropriation. On the other hand are assurances to the Commercial Farmers Union (representing large-scale commercial farmers) that they continue to play an important role in the economy. The ZANU(PF) leadership remains caught between the need to impel the land question for political legitimacy and their class positions which militate against accelerated land redistribution. with the expiring of the Lancaster House Constitution's amendment procedures the renewed debate on land has featured socialist, nationalist and capitalist positions. It is likely that in the future, land reform initiatives will be slow and have a more explicitly capitalist orientation. The National Farmers Association of Zimbabwe (representing wealthier communal area farmers) is publicly lobbying for the privatization of land occupied by small-holders. There remain, however, strong pressures for further land nationalization and redistribution. While any form of crystal ball-gazing is dangerous, it is clear that the struggle for land in Zimbabwe has shifted from race to class in a short period of time. 28 ******************************************************* ******************************************************* Morgan Tsvangirai is Secretary General of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions. This article by him is reprinted with permission from the April 1990 issue of the excellent Zimbabwe monthly magazine PARADE, which anyone interested in following events in that country or the region at large should consider subscribing to. Their address is circulation, PARADE, Thomson Publications, Thomson House, 130 Harare St., P.O. Box 3798, Harare, Zimbabwe.

AN UNFINISHED "SENTENCE" OF HARD LABOR FOR WORKERS

"Pamberi nevashandi! Pasi nevapambepfumi! Pasi nevadzvanyiriri! Forward with the workers--down with capitalists and exploiters!" At independence the message through these slogans was clear. After nearly a century of exploitation, this was the moment black workers had been waiting for and the whites had been fighting fearfully to prevent.

Hatred was entrenched, battle lines were drawn. It was time to settle old scores.

The night before independence Prime Minister-designate, Cde. Robert Mugabe, took everyone by surprise by appealing to his countrymen to "turn swords into plowshares".

We were mesmerized by such a soft approach. There were whites who had called us names, "Bobojan," "kaffirs", you name it. There was so much job discrimination and reservation that educated Africans could only expect to rise to some obscure clerical job.

The government's move was tactically correct if production was not going to be disrupted. However, it also had a mission to correct the historical imbalances if it was to remain legitimate in the eyes of those who fought and elected it to power, i.e. the workers and peasants.

Thus a month after assuming power the government announced minimum wage levels. In real terms only domestic and farm workers got a substantial increase. It quickly controlled the right to fire workers without the approval of the Minister of Labor. This controlled unilateral dismissals that white ­ managements contemplated after the announcement of the minimum wages. Despite the law, a conservative figure of 100,000 workers lost their jobs in the farm and domestic sectors.

Despite all these efforts, worker expectations remained high and it was not long before they erupted into numerous militant 29 worker actions in different parts of the country. The actions took various forms. They included demonstrations, attacks on unpopular managements, strikes and work-ins. Most were to do with wage disputes, but many were also concerned with racist or authoritarian managers. I remember vividly at the mine where I used to work, we went on strike for 10 days, but the basis for such action was flimsy and emotional.

The government's initial response was hesitant in meeting worker expectations until it became so impatient that the Minister of Labor threatened to "crack his whip for those worker actions". The workers had demonstrated that they were still capable of militant action in the face of a weak labor movement. The working class leadership at the shopfloor was not well developed and unions had negligible contact with shopfloor workers.

It is under these circumstances that workers' committees took on some typical trade union functions and to some extent have filled the gap as the representatives of labor. Whilst this may have appeared as genuine, government intervention in the creation of workers' committees had an ulterior motive to remove grassroots support from trade unions.

Before independence there were five national centers owing allegiance to different political parties and it was prudent for the ZANU(PF) government to create a subordinate labor movement.

TRADE UNION WEAKNESSES

It is necessary to look at some of the causes of trade union weaknesses, because in large part unions themselves should not be blamed.

* They were kept weak by both capital and the colonial state through suppression of strikes, meetings were banned or dispersed by force. It was not until 1949 that black trade unions were permitted and [they] were officially recognized in 1959.

* Because of low wages, workers could only afford small amounts in dues, thereby rendering unions unviable as they could not attract and retain competent personnel to be effective.

* The unions could only depend on international funding for most of their programs. This resulted in union leadership selling out and becoming tools of international manipulation. There emerged a tendency to misuse donations for personal benefit. * The nationalist rivalry (between-ZANU and ZAPU), also divided 30 unionists on tribal and political lines.

* Government intervention on wages and conditions removed the major role of unions.

WORKERS' COMMITTEES

In the strikes in 1980-81 the government called for the establishment of workers' committees as a channel of communication between management and workers. Their role was to improve industrial relations, not [to act] as an avenue for implementing worker participation in decision-making or to seriously extend worker power over job control issues.

Despite this shortcoming, they have been involved in issues ranging from routine shopfloor grievances, ,right through to performing the trade union functions of negotiating better wages and working conditions. However, it was clear that excluded in discussions with management were matters of importance to workers' welfare and participation.

ECONOMIC SITUATION

The economic situation is highly inflationary and stagnant. Although workers have received nominal increases from time to time , they have not had any effect in real terms. The value of the Zimbabwe dollar has declined to 17c at present. This means that a basket of goods you bought for $100 in 1980 you would need to spend over $400 for today for the same goods. Today, with the minimum wage at $182 and with over 60% of the workers earning less than $400 the majority of working people are living below abject poverty. Our urban working class supports their rural folk.

The monthly deficit is astronomical. Under the circumstances, workers continue to face declining living standards, unemployment, transport crises, expensive education and housing, and constant shortages.

In May 1989, the government unveiled an IMF/World Bank strategy on investment to deal with rising unemployment. Through the Investment Code and trade liberalization the government intends to implement the IMF package. We are already witnessing deregulation of prices, tightening of wages, and a relaxation of the labor laws. Workers face a tough periOd ahead under this economic regime.

THE WORKER AND THE LAW

In 1985 the government repealed the Industrial Conciliation Act. The Labor Relations Act carne into being after many drafts. It is difficult to substantiate the benefits accruing to 31 workers after this change because of the fragmentation of workers into various categories under various labor laws.

In 1989 the government published the Emergency Powers Regulations following a spate of strikes by technicians and artisans in the Railways and Posts and Telecommunications. These regulations were derived from the notorious Emergency Powers Act passed and maintained by the Smith regime.

The Act empowers the President "to make such regulations as appear to him to be necessary or expedient for, among other things, the maintenance of essential services".

The regulations empower management of a parastatal or any other organization to: a) Suspend working rules; b) Direct any employee to carry out or perform any 9-uty after their normal hours of work; c) Summarily dismiss or suspend any worker who refuses to carry out these instructions or advises, encourages or incites another person to declare or take part in a strike or its continuation; and d) Broaden the traditional understanding [of] strike action to include a refusal to continue to work, or any retardation of work progress, and termination of contract of employment.

In consequence, all labor in this country has been nationalized as a commodity, some of it in real terms and the rest in a potential sense: a) It is illegal for workers in so-called "essential services" to engage in any form of collective job action; b) The President has the power to declare additional essential services even if it means every economic activity be declared as such; c) It is now illegal for a worker to terminate his contract of employment. It is now a criminal offense; d) One party to an industrial dispute (the employer) has now been given full authority and decision-making powers over the other party (the employee); e) The whole collective bargaining system has now been undermined and rendered useless.

The current regulations come at a time of unveiling the investment package and the whole objective is to severely curtail the power of labor to struggle for its improvement and make business profitable. It must be recognized that the working class has been marginalized both politically and economically by both capital and the state.

Before the workers have consolidated their organizations we witness a move to open up the economy to further international capital['s] base. The Emergency Powers Regulations are also meant to be a feeler, or a senser for the government as to how labor and other mass movements will respond to increasingly harsh legal instruments curtailing workers' rights. The response of the affected organizations to the current laws will determine the nature and the type of laws to come as social 32 contradictions sharpen between labor and capital and the state. ******************************************************* ******************************************************* ZIMBABWE: Languishing Co-ops Highlight Socialist Debate

Harare, May 1, 1990 (AlA) -- The fact that co-operatives have not become a centerpiece of the post-independence economy here has been seen by many as a failure by the government to keep on its socialist path. The debate has been expanded recently in the light of moves to promote foreign investment, large-scale corporate development, and a free market.

Supporters of the co-operative movement say the economic strategy is closing off any space where collective production can compete.

The Zimbabwe collective co-operative movement grew from two sources in the early '80s: the new ZANU government, ~and thousands of ZANLA and ZIPRA ex-combatants who were demobilized from the army in 1982-83. Today an estimated 300 collectives and 1,000 marketing and supply co-operatives are functioning in Zimbabwe. More than 1,800 are actually registered with the government.

In theory, government support is still solid. A 1989 government policy paper on co-ops stated, "The aim of introducing co-operatives is to transform the country into a socialist state." In terms of capital, one of the greatest signs of support has been through "resettlement land", which the government has allocated to approximately 70 agricultural collectives across the country, servicing 3,200 families and 21,000 people.

But in recent years this support has wavered as grants of money for capital to farm the land have dried up.

"The removal of establishment grants for agricultural co-operatives goes to show that the government has not considered co-operatives as important as the development of the economy," said the Organization of Collective Co-operatives of Zimbabwe (OCCZIM) chair, at a meeting in March 1989. "If what we are asserting here is the truth, then the talk about establishing a socialist country in Zimbabwe is just lip service."

In the new economic climate where foreign investment is being sought for large-scale private corporate enterprise, the collective movement now must compete - so far without any government compensation - against the big business the government is inviting into the country. 33 "Large scale production by foreign capital invariably ends up meaning that you are producing mass consumer goods with high technology. And that means that the little co-operative finds it almost impossible to compete in the same market with mass-produced goods," says a co-ordinator at the Collective Self Finance Scheme (CSFS).

Says Robin Wild, administrator of the Zimbabwe Project (ZIMPRO): "Current changes in the economy are dangerous for small businesses. The government is now probably taking a direction which will lead to the reduction of co-operatives."

The government argues that its policies are not a renunciation of socialism. "The government is dedicated to the transformation of the social system so that the poorest can be included," said Dr Bernard Chidz~ro, Senior Minister of Finance, Economic Planning and Development. "Nothing is static, but the direction towards socialism is clear. There is no inherent contradiction between socialism and market forces."

But for co-operatives that have been on the ropes for 10 years, this policy may not be able to deliver enough government resources to ensure survival. In particular, co-op members point to the government's failure to create a co-operative bank or a co-operative training college. To fill the vacuum, a group of local non-governmental support groups has grown up since independence.

ZIMPRO was a support service for ex-combatants which, in 1982-3, evolved into a service for collective co-operatives because so many ex-combatants were forming collectives.

The Organization of Collective Co-operatives of Zimbabwe (OCCZIM) originated from meetings of ex-combatant collective members who were working with Zimbabwe Project at the time. It became a formal organization when 77 collectives met in 1983.

OCCZIM grew into a national organization with aspirations of becoming the main lobbying force for collectives both within and outside of the government. Today OCCZIM plays a dual role as both a representative group, through which collectives work together and organize projects, and as a service group trying to aid in the various development needs of collectives.

The organization is affiliated to the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) with which it is planning joint support activities.

To fill the finance and capital gap, the Collective Self Finance Scheme (CSFS) emerged during 1989. Its aim is to aid collectives to the point of self-sufficiency through providing soft loans and other funding, together with technical and 34 managerial training.

Says one CSFS worker, "We study the co-operative's present position as it joins the CSFS. Then we introduce all the different elements of that development package into the co-operative, and we structure its production. We train in ideology, skills - all the missing elements."

CSFS hopes to service 100 collectives in a four-year period. "In four years there will be at least a solid core of economically, financially viable co operatives in the true sense of the word."

If this happens, the co-operative movement will survive as a practical example of socialist development. ******************************************************* ******************************************************* The following excerpts are reproduced with permission from a report on pUblished by Africa Watch in late 1989, ZIMBABWE--A BREAK WITH THE PAST?: HUMAN RIGHTS AND POLITICAL UNITY. The full report is available from Africa Watch, 485 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10017.

HUMAN RIGHTS IN ZIMBABWE AFTER A DECADE OF INDEPENDENCE

INTRODUCTION

Zimbabwe became independent nearly a decade ago in the least favorable of circumstances. For 90 years of colonial rule, a white settler government had strictly enforced a system of racial discrimination and political disfranchisement of the majority black population. For the last eight years or so of colonial rule the country was torn by a war of independence. Hundreds of black nationalists were detained from the early 1960's and the Rhodesian army brutally repressed the rural population.

This appalling legacy should not be forgotten in any discussion of Zimbabwe's human rights record since independence--nor should the grave security threats the country has suffered. South Africa has launched overt military raids and covert sabotage operations against Zimbabwe, at the same time as supplying arms to surrogate organizations fighting the government. It has not been the easiest of situations in which to cultivate respect for human rights.

However, it is not by the poor standards of the 35 pre-independence regimes that Zimbabwe's human rights record should be judged--nor would the government wish it to be. Since independence Zimbabwe has become party to international human rights treaties, notably the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights. This is an indication of the standards to which the Zimbabwean government aspires and it is by such internationally accepted norms that this report reviews its record.

This report is published at the present time not because Zimbabwe's recent observance of human rights has been especially poor--indeed the government has made significant improvements in recent years in response to local and international criticism. However, with the stated desire to move towards a one-party political system and a new mood of unity at the national level, this is a suitable moment to review the lessons of Zimbabwe's" troubled recent history and to suggest ways in which safeguards against abuse can be built into the political and constitutional system.

More particularly, Zimbabwe faces a serious security threat along its eastern border with Mozambique. Guerrillas of the Mozambique National Resistance (RENAMO) have been responsible for many brutal attacks, ostensibly in reaction to the deployment of the Zimbabwean army in support of the government of Mozambique. Also in the eastern part of the country there have been bitter peasant struggles over land and, in recent months, the emergence of a new political party committed to military withdrawal from Mozambique and a solution to the land question.

Confronted with a similar situation in Matabeleland in the early 1980s--South African-backed insurgency, economic grievances and political opposition--the security forces responded by perpetuating gross human rights abuses. The Matabeleland crisis is over. The government has put an end to serious abuses and reached a political solution to the conflict. However, the crucial question is whether the lessons of Matabeleland have been learned--or whether that human rights emergency is destined to be repeated in eastern Zimbabwe.

The report documents the gross abuses committed by RENAMO in eastern Zimbabwe, but also criticizes the counterinsurgency tactics of the Zimbabwean army on both sides of the border.

INDEPENDENCE

The government's watchword was "reconciliation" and Mugabe received wide international praise for his tolerance of the Rhodesian politicians and security personnel who had imprisoned 36 him and killed so many of his supporters. Many of the worst human rights criminals fled the country at independence, often to find similar positions within the South African security apparatus. But other prominent Rhodesians associated with human rights abuse stayed on: Ian Smith himself, Law and Order Minister PK van der Byl, Lieutenant-General Peter Walls, whom Mugabe had retained as army chief of staff, and Ken Flower, the head of the Central Intelligence Orgariization.

There is no indication that the new government ever considered the possibility of nullifying the indemnity legislation in order to prosecute the human rights violators, as happened, for example, in Argentina in 1983. ( ... ) However, Mugabe was neither the first nor last leader to come t.o power in such circumstances and decide that the interests of national stability were best served by reconciliation rather than prosecution. What is quite indefensible, however, is that officials known to be responsible for gross human r~ghts abuses should not only not have been prosecuted but should have retained their positions in the security apparatus.

By no means all torture under the Mugabe government has been carried out by former Rhodesian officials. The more general point, however, is that the Central Intelligence Organization [CIO] and police were inherited intact and have survived more or less unchanged. There was never a purge of human rights abusers from these bodies--on the contrary the government seems proud of the fact that it bears no grudge against torturers. It is not surprising, then, that the culture of torture has survived into the post-independence era.

CRISIS IN MATABELELAND

Since 1985 a new pattern of human rights abuse emerged. Dozens--possibly hundreds--of people throughout Matabeleland and Midlands "disappeared" as a result of nighttime abductions by armed men. The government's explanation was that the "disappeared" people had gone to join the "dissidents" but there are a number of factors suggesting that the security forces were in fact responsible. The victims were often middle aged or old men--not the young men who might be expected to join the "dissidents". They were often driven away in vehicles--yet there are no recorded instances of "dissidents" having vehicles. On occasions vehicles were identified as belonging to the security forces and sometimes the tracks were followed to local military camps. The armed men who came often 37 spoke only poor Ndebele--the "diss'dents" were usually fluent Ndebele speakers. None of those a -. cted has reappeared since the "dissidents" were amnestied and came out of the bush in May 1988.

Throughout this period ZAPU members, especially former ZIPRA combatants, were being detained under the same emergency powers used against them by the Rhodesian government, and often tortured. After general elections in mid-1985, which ZANU(PF) again won convincingly, there was a further clampdown on ZAPU, with hundreds of its members detained on the allegation that they were helping the "dissidents".

There is ample testimony on the use of torture by the CIa and by a special police unit: PISI (Police Internal Security and Intelligence). PISI is the Sindebele word for hyena. A common method was to submerge the victim's head in a canvas bag of water until he or she had lost consciousness. This would be repeated frequently. Beatings were systematic, often to the soles of the feet with rubber truncheons, .sjamboks (rawhide whips) or weighted hosepipes. Electric shocks were also used. In some cases people died under torture: post mortem examinations and inquests provide an important source of evidence.

In late 1985 Amnesty International publicly stated its concern over torture in Zimbabwe. It followed this with a memorandum to the government detailing 21 cases of torture and seeking an impartial investigation. A report by the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights in May 1986 provided a more comprehensive review of the human rights situation. As with the expulsion of journalists who reported the Matabeleland killings, the government response was to blame the bearer of bad news. All allegations of torture were categorically denied. Amnesty International, which had adopted many members of the government as "prisoners of conscience" during their long spells in Rhodesian jails, was denounced as an "enemy of Zimbabwe". Former prisoner of conscience Robert Mugabe described it as "Amnesty Lies International," while Home Affairs Minister (another Amnesty International alumnus) threatened to detain anyone who provided the organization with information.

Even so, the government appears to have taken Amnesty International's allegations seriously. Enos Nkala, who was the most vocal in denouncing Amnesty International, also visited stops Camp to try to establish the truth of the allegations. Strict instructions were disseminated throughout the police forbidding torture. The result has been a considerable improvement in police behavior. On the other hand the CIa appears not to have modified its treatment of prisoners. At the 38 same time, many of the ZAPU political detainees were released. Partly this too was a response to international criticism of Zimbabwe's human rights record, but much of the impulse for the releases came from a new atmosphere of political reconciliation. In December 1987 ZANU(PF) and ZAPU signed an agreement to unify the two parties. This was widely seen at the time as the establishment of a de facto one party state, preparing the way for 1990, by which time there would be no constitutional impediment to establishing one de jure. Subsequent developments may have led to a reconsideration of th objective of a one party system, though the unification of ZANU(PF) is proceeding and has brought a peaceful political solution to the Matabeleland problem.

LABOR RIGHTS

Trade union rights, particularly for the black majority, were severely curtailed before independence. There has been a significant growth in trade unionism since 1980 and the emergence of a single trade union confederation, the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions [ZCTU], which is often critical of government policy. However, under the 1985 Labor Relations Act the right to strike remains limited by lengthy negotiating procedures which must be exhausted before a strike can be regarded as legal. (13) The most serious threat to workers' rights lies in the prohibition under several different laws, including the Labor Relations Act, of the right of workers in "essential services" to withdraw their labor.

As in other areas, the Zimbabwean government inherited repressive laws enacted by the Rhodesian regime which it has since added to. The emergency powers act defined essential services as hospitals, transport, electricity, water, sewerage, food, fuel, coal, fire brigade, coal mining and communications. These can be widened by notice in the Government Gazette. By a notice of 1965, which is still in force, finance, commerce and industry are all defined as essential services. The Law and Order (Maintenance) Act, dating from 1960, prescribes a maximum five-year prison sentence for incitement to strike in an essential service (section 32) and ten years for interfering with an essential service (section 34).

In May 1989 junior doctors went on strike throughout the country in protest at pay and conditions of service. Many were arrested and 77 of them charged under sections 32 and 34 of the Law and Order (Maintenance) Act, although charges were later withdrawn after Mugabe himself had intervened to defuse the situation. However, as an apparent consequence of the doctors' strike, the government introduced new regulations under the Emergency Powers Act, which like the Law and Order 39 (Maintenance) Act, outlaws strikes in "essential services". Since the definition of essential services in force is still that of the 1965 government notice, in effect any worker who goes on strike can be charged under the Emergency Powers (Maintenance of Essential services) Regulations, 1989, and will face a prison sentence of up to two years.

In August 1989 the new regulations were tried out for the first time against striking railway artisans. The technicians at the Posts and Telecommunications Corporations (PTC) in Harare went on strike over a pay grievance. Telecommunications workers elsewhere in the country began a go-slow. By the first week in September, 116 PTC employees had been arrested and charged with breach of the new regulations. The lawyer for some of the accused argued that the regulations were in breach of the constitutional provision prohibiting forced labor.

As with the use of detention without trial, this appears to be an abuse of the use of emergency powers. The striking telecommunications workers have no connection with either the insurgency in Manicaland or South African 'espionage--the two stated reasons for maintaining the emergency.

One leading PTC striker, Lovemore Matombo, was detained for a week under the Emergency Powers (Maintenance of Law and Order) Regulations and released just before the authorities were required to provide written reasons for his imprisonment.

After the closure of the university on October 4, the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions issued a statement condemning the action of the Vice-Chancellor and government, under the name of its general secretary, Morgan Tsvangirai. On the morning of October 6, the CIO arrested Tsvangirai: later that day he was taken, barefoot and handcuffed, to his office, which the CIO officials proceeded to search. He was taken away and, at the time of writing, had not been seen again. [Tsvangirai was SUbsequently released--Ed.] On October 11, the High Court issued an order compelling the CIO to give Tsvangirai's lawyer access to him within 24 hours. Shortly after Tsvangirai's arrest, two other senior union officials were briefly detained for questioning. They were Andrew Ganya, organizing secretary of the Plastics, Chemical and Allied Workers Union, and Trust Ngirande, organizing secretary of the National Leatherworkers' Union.

FREEDOM OF THE PRESS

In February 1989 Geoffrey Nyarota, editor of the official CHRONICLE newspaper in Bulawayo, found himself promoted to the newly created post of group pUblic relations officer in Harare. 40

The CHRONICLE had exposed a major corruption scandal in which government ministers were buying cars from Harare's assembly plant and reselling them at vast profit above the legally controlled price. As a result President Mugabe set up a jUdicial commission of inquiry which led to the resignation of several ministers.

Nyarota's deputy at the CHRONICLE" Davison Maruziva, was also promoted to become deputy editor of in Harare, which has been uncritical of any aspect of government policy or behavior. The CHRONICLE has published no more corruption scoops under its new editor, Stephen Mpofu.

Under Nyarota and Maruziva, the CHRONICLE had provided chapter and verse for the allegations of corruption made by the students [at the university--ed.] and Edgar Tekere. They were immensely popular and hence difficult to sack. Instead they were sUbjected to what one backbench member of parliament called "elimination by promotion".

Almost inevitably the Willowvale car scandal was dubbed "". C... ) The exposure of "Willowgate" was not apparently intended to embarrass the government, since both the original source and the journalist responsible are thoroughly loyal to Mugabe. Obert Mpofu, a government member of parliament, took his story to Nyarota, a former Mugabe press secretary. The CHRONICLE pursued the affair vigorously over the weeks that followed, publishing long lists of ministers who had been allocated Willowvale vehicles--and details of how these were resold illegally for two or three times the official price. Apart from Industry Minister [Callistus] Ndlovu, those implicated included two of Mugabe's most senior advisers: Minister of Defense Enos Nkala and Senior Minister for Political Affairs .

At the end of December Mugabe finally appointed a commission of inquiry, headed by Justice Wilson Sandura, although there was still a widespread view that it would be a whitewash. As it turned out, the commission held well-attended and highly theatrical meetings in Harare, where ministers such as Nkala and Ndlovu endured a merciless pUblic inquisition. By the time the commission had reported, five ministers and a provincial governor had been forced to resign. One minister, Maurice Nyagumbo, committed suicide by drinking pesticide.

This should have been Nyarota's hour of glory. However, in January--shortly after the Sanduracommission was established--Information Minister announced 41 his intention of "examining the structures" of the Mass Media Trust. Restructuring, it soon emerged; simply meant moving Nyarota and Maruziva where they could do no harm. Nyarota was moved to a previously unheard of pUblic relations job and Maruziva soon followed him to Harare. Formally, of course, these were promotions. But even Mugabe himself seemed to have difficulty getting his story straight. He said that no one would complain about getting a higher salary, but at the same time criticized Nyarota for "overzealousness". But if Mugabe was uncertain whether Nyarota's removal was punishment or reward, th message conveyed to the public was clear: Nyarota was promoted because he went too far.

In July 1985 Elias Rusike, head of Zimbabwe Newspapers, wrote to Willie Musarurwa, removing him from the editorial chair at the SUNDAY MAIL because: liThe government, through the Minister of Information, Posts and Telecommunications, has taken the view that the SUNDAY MAIL, under your editing, has acted like an opposition newspaper." Musarurwa's principal offense seems to have been to report a financial scandal at the national airline, Air Zimbabwe. The then Minister of Information, , had repeatedly criticized Musarurwa, who before his appointment had been a ZAPU member. The country's most experienced editor, Musarurwa no longer had a regular job in journalism.

In 1987 Musarurwa's successor at the SUNDAY MAIL, Henry Muradzikwa, ran a story about Zimbabwean students being deported from Cuba allegedly because they were SUffering from AIDS. The story coincided with the visit to Harare of a top Cuban official who objected to it. Mugabe pUblicly pledged: "I will deal with him personally. II Muradzikwa, like Nyarota, was removed to a non-editorial post. The Mass Media Trust does not seem to have been consulted.

The exposure of "Willowgate" was an outstanding achievement by the young Zimbabwean press. It was able to occur largely because of the December 1987 unity agreement. The result has been a new era of political openness and a breakdown of traditional party alignments. But now it appears that the opportunity for dissent was only temporary. The CHRONICLE has returned to bland predictability. The HERALD, under editor Tommy sithole, continues to ignore financial scandals and to pour scorn on government critics.

In April, after one particularly partial HERALD report about Edgar Tekere, Judith Todd, a former political prisoner and veteran of the liberation struggle, wrote an open letter to 42 sithole:

"Lack of information and the absence of straightforward reporting are the direct causes of rumor-mongering. A pertinent example of this was the failure of the HERALD to report Willowgate until the President announced the appointment of the Sandura Commission of Enquiry. This lack of reporting in the Herald was naturally widely commented on giving rise to the rumor that 'Tommy Sithole is himself implicated in Willowgate' ...

"Without accurate and untarnished information it is difficult for people to make correct decisions and this, at the end of the day, can damage the state... But just as people demand and eventually get a certain standard in the conduct of government, so people demand and eventually get a certain standard in the press that serves them. That's what the struggle for press freedom is all about."(14)

THE CRISIS IN MANICALAND

with the advent of peace in Matabeleland, the situation in Mozambique poses the most serious threat to Zimbabwe's security and to the human rights of Zimbabweans. The threat is caused by the activities of the opposition guerrilla organization RENAMO (Resistencia Nacional Mozambicana--Mozambique National Resistance). RENAMO, which for nearly two decades has waged a brutal war against FRELIMO, the former liberation movement which now forms the government of Mozambique, is now also engaged in frequent attacks on Zimbabwe. However, the cause for concern in the eastern districts of Zimbabwe is not only RENAMO activities, but also the response of the Zimbabwean army. This sharply poses the question of whether "the government and army have learnt the lessons of their disastrous mishandling of the Matabeleland crisis.

RENAMO AND THE MOZAMBIQUE CRISIS

RENAMO has always been closely bound up with the internal . It was formed in the early 1970s by the Rhodesian CIO, primarily as a means of gathering intelligence on the Zimbabwean liberation organizations operating from Mozambique. (15) In the first instance RENAMO was recruited from among the Ndau, including its top leader, Afonso Dhlakama, and it appears to draw greatest support in Shona-speaking areas of Mozambique. At Zimbabwe's independence in 1980, RENAMO "was transferred lock, stock and barrel" to the South African military. (16) Under South African control RENAMO rapidly changed from primarily an intelligence organization to one wholly dedicated to sabotage and destabilization. RENAMO's 43 creator Ken Flower later wrote: "I began to wonder whether we had created a monster that was now beyond control."(17)

In the first three years after Zimbabwean independence the South African military also made at least a dozen direct attacks on Mozambique. These included a raid on the oil tank farm in Beira port by the Reconnaissance Commando in December 1982, which caused a major fuel crisis in Zimbabwe. There were a number of other attacks on Beira and the transport corridor to Zimbabwe, which was the country's main outlet to the sea other than through South Africa. In 1982 Zimbabwe committed a Special Task Force of the national army to guard the Beira- oil pipeline. The legal basis for the intervention was the 1981 Zimbabwe-Mozambique Defense Agreement. In 1984 Mozambique signed a pact with South Africa at Nkomati, whereby the latter would withdraw its support trom RENAMO. However, RENAMO continued to grow in military strength, and Zimbabwean military involvement in Mozambique deepened. In 1985 Zimbabwean paratroopers captured the RENAMO base at "Casa Banana" in Gorongosa. Not only did this signal a deeper Zimbabwean involvement than simply defense of its own strategic interests--Mugabe stated that he was prepared to commit up to 30,000 troops--but it also proved deeply embarrassing to South Africa. At the Gorongosa base the Zimbabwean troops found documents indicating continued South African support for RENAMO in violation of the Nkomati accord, including three visits to Gorongosa by the South African deputy foreign minister. RENAMO responded to this increased Zimbabwean involvement by stepping up attacks inside Zimbabwe. In 1986 RENAMO announced that it was "declaring war" on Zimbabwe.

HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES BY RENAMO until recently the Zimbabwean government has tried to minimize the extent of RENAMO activity within the country, largely for political reasons, since the army's involvement in Mozambique is far from universally popular. Of late, however, it has been more open about RENAMO atrocities, not least because they provide an important rationale for maintaining the state of emergency. In February 1989, introducing the motion in parliament for the renewal of the emergency, Minister of Home Affairs Moven Mahachi cited 420 RENAMO attacks in the preceding six months, with 93 civilians killed.

RENAMO abuses within Mozambique have been well documented and have received wide international pUblicity. (18) The guerrillas have carried out frequent killings, including large-scale massacres, and horrific mutilations of civilians, by cutting off ears, lips, noses and fingers. It is not widely appreciated internationally that RENAMO is perpetrating similar acts in the eastern districts of Zimbabwe. Worst affected are Rushinga and Mount Darwin in the northeast and chipinge, Chiredzi and 44 Chisumbanje in the southeast.

POLITICAL OPPOSITION IN MANICALAND

These abuses are the responsibility not only of RENAMO, but of the government of South Africa which has armed and trained the "matsangas" [RENAMO guerrillas] since 1980, in a contra-style operation. However, in addition to the security problems posed by RENAMO, these operations also present the Zimbabwean government with a considerable political headache. Since the Special Task Force was first committed to Mozambique there has been domestic Zimbabwean opposition to military entanglement. At first this came mainly from ZAPU, partly because it was alleged that former ZIPRA troops were being pushed into th front line and suffering heavier casualties. Of late opposition to Zimbabwe's military involvement in Mozambique has grown, especially in the eastern areas which have borne the brunt of RENAMO's revenge attacks. ( ..• ) Since ZUM was formed in April 1988, a prominent part of its platform has been military withdrawal from Mozambique. ZUM's leader, Edgar Tekere, is from the eastern border and is clearly articulating a sentiment that he knows to be popular in his home area.

Opposition is also likely to be considerable among the Ndau who live in the Chipinge area on the Zimbabwean side of the border, because of their ethnic affinity with many of the "matsangas". In the late 1985 general election Chipinge was the only constituency in a Shona-speaking area of the country to return a member of parliament who was not a member of ZANU(PF). [A similar result emerged from the most recent elections--ed.] He is Goodson Sithole, of the party ZANU (Ndonga), which is led from exile by Rev. Ndabaningi Sithole. The government has repeatedly accused Rev. sithole of being in league with RENAMO. It must seriously fear that the people of Chipinge not only oppose Zimbabwe's military involvement in Mozambique, but may in some instances have more enthusiasm for RENAMO than for their own government.

The political situation in eastern Zimbabwe is further complicated by one of the great unresolved issues since independence: land. ( .•. ) Since 1980 there has been no reform of the system of land tenure, nor a radical redistribution of land from the large-scale commercial farms to the land-hungry peasants in the communal areas. Manicaland is the area of the country where that pressure has been most acute. When Africa Watch's delegate visited Zimbabwe in April 1989, he saw an example of the discontent caused by the land problem in the Cashel valley in Manicaland. Some 21 families (about 200 people) were camped there in squalid conditions--and in some danger of attack from RENAMO--after being evicted from land in 45 nearby Chimanimani. They constituted only about a quarter of the families evicted from two farms, Hangani and Sawerombi. The families from Hangani had owned the land before it had been taken by white settlers in the 1890s. They had been allowed to stay on the land as farm laborers until late 1988 when they were evicted under a court order obtained by the present owner. The other farm, Sawerombi, had been abandoned by the white owner shortly after independence and families from the neighboring communal area had moved on to the land and farmed it as a cooperative. In 1987 the same owner acquired the land. It appears that the land has been bought for speculative purposes rather than productive use; after independence this same farmer bought a number of farms in Cashel which he resold to the government and Forestry Commission for a considerable profit in 1983. The Sawerombi "squatters" were also evicted in late 1988.

It is apparent that in Manicaland there is the same explosive cocktail of destabilizing factors which led to serious insecurity in Matabeleland: armed insurgency, organized political opposition and social grievances. What is most disturbing is that the government appears to be reacting in precisely the same manner to the RENAMO threat as it did to the "dissidents" in Matabeleland. Instead of making a clear distinction between legitimate political dissent and armed opposition, it is amalgamating ZUM, RENAMO and South Africa, in precisely the same manner as it did in Matabeleland. If legal avenues of political opposition are closed, it is not inconceivable that popular support for RENAMO will grow.

To combat RENAMO the army in the border areas has revived an old tactic from the smith years: the protected village. In all the areas worst affected by RENAMO attacks the civilian population is compelled to gather together at night under army protection. In some areas, however, local people have complained that in four years the army has failed to engage RENAMO. Some observers comment that the main purpose of the protected village policy is to separate Mozambican refugees and migrants.

THE TREATMENT OF MOZAMBICAN REFUGEES

Historically there have been large numbers of Mozambican migrant workers in eastern Zimbabwe, particularly on the large farms and the tea and sugar plantations. In recent years these numbers have been swelled by refugees fleeing the political violence in Mozambique. Official figures put the number of refugees in camps at 75,000, with some 100,000 spontaneously settled elsewhere. Mozambicans in Zimbabwe have borne the brunt of the government's frustration at its inability to deter RENAMO attacks. According to refugee organizations, between 8,000 and 9,000 Mozambicans were illegally and summarily 46 expelled from Zimbabwe in 1988, usually on the allegation that they were REN&~O supporters and often in direct response to a particular RENAMO attack. In fact expelled refugees have usually ended up in reception centers run by the Mozambican government--suggesting that they were not RENAMO supporters. Refugee organizations say that the Zimbabwean authorities have moderated their behavior towards Mozambican refugees and that there have been fewer expulsions in 1989. However, they also comment that there is often a considerable gap between the enlightened attitude of the civilian authorities and the behavior of the army on the ground. Clearly Mozambicans in Zimbabwe outside the refugee camps remain at risk.

A number of informants have told Africa Watch that the Zimbabwean army is deliberately depopulatirig a wide swathe of territory down the Mozambican side of the border and that many of those removed from their villages have been imprisoned inside Zimbabwe. Such claims are, by their nature difficult to confirm. However, the case of [Mozambican prisoners seen by Africa Watch's delegate at Mutandhawe) suggests that in at least one instance the allegation has substance. ******************************************************* ******************************************************* ZIMBABWE: Government Confronts the JUdiciary

Harare, January 22, 1990 (AlA) -- A series of legal confrontations between government and the jUdiciary has highlighted the debate over changes to this 10-year-old nation's constitution.

The stakes have been made higher with the likelihood of a one-party state after the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union's (Zanu) near-certain victory in the up-coming March 28-29 elections, and the expiry in April of key legal clauses in Zimbabwe's Lancaster House independence constitution.

Unlike many other African countries after 10 years of independence, the upper echelons of Zimbabwe's court system have maintained a distinct, functional independence from the political powers rUling the country. Despite considerable political turmoil throughout the 1980s, the jUdiciary has been credited by all observers as contributing to and vigorously defending the impartial rule of law in the country.

In different mid-decade cases involving treason, sabotage and other serious charges made against many of Zanu's political opponents, the country's High Court and Supreme Court regularly took political risks by rUling against the government. 47 Importantly, the maintenance of the state of Emergency (and its wide-ranging Emergency Powers) inherited in 1980 from the Ian smith regime has consistently provided Zanu with other means of dealing with sticky legal problems and political opponents. But a series of incidents in 1989 forced the government to adopt unusual measures in order to get its own way.

Early in 1989, a car racket corruption scandal emerged. It was named after the car assembly plant, Willowvale, as "Willowgate". A commission of enquiry led to the condemnation and resignation of five ministers, a provincial governor and other party officials. At the same time, the commission found that several of the condemned had lied under oath, in addition to having broken legal restrictions on the resale prices of new automobiles.

In mid-1989, Frederick Shava, former Minister of Political Affairs, was the first high-ranking official prosecuted in connection with Willowgate. Shava was found guilty of perjury, and of illegal car resale practices. In J~ly he was sentenced to nine months in jail, and ordered to pay a hefty ZIM $150,000 (CDN $77,500) fine.

But without serving a day, Shava was granted a special Presidential pardon by Mugabe. Within two days he was in the House of Assembly. Moreover, the ruling party agreed to pay the former minister's fine, in the form of a personal loan.

Mugabe explained: "Who of us has never told a lie, hah? Yesterday, you were with a girlfriend at the corner and you told your wife you were with the President. Do you get nine months for that?

"We have forgiven many people, including some of the jUdges in the courts now passing jUdgements, who could have hanged for treason. But they are all there." Mugabe was quoted in the national press.

Shortly after the pardon, Attorney-General announced the cancellation of a further 10 Willowgate-related perjury prosecutions. Chinamasa argued that the limited resources of his department could not be devoted to cases likely to be resolved in the end by Presidential intervention.

This led to cries from the legal community and local private press about the undue influence waged by the executive.

Such complaints were to escalate in the coming months, after political criticisms of government from university students, trade-unionists and opposition party organizers led to their separate detentions in October, under Emergency Power statutes. For many, the detentions were strictly politically motivated, 48 although ZANU referred to subversion plots and the South African connection.

None of these allegations were proven. Despite successful appeals against detention, orders in the High Court for the release of those arrested were circumvented by the laying of new charges, or simply by redetention. Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions Secretary-General Morgan Tsvangirai was detained three times in succession after. two successive release orders, and eventually spent six weeks behind bars before being released without charge. The use of emergency powers in these cases focussed public attention on the abuse of special powers by the police and sections of government.

However this debate was soon overshadowed by other developments. An October by-election scheduled for the northern constituency of Kariba was postponed by an ·urgent Presidential gazette (the first ever issued on a Sunday). A series of court hearings and appeals launched by the opposition Zimbabwe Unity Movement (ZUM) , ended in the Supreme Court. The court decided that the Zanu candidate had been improperly nominated. The ruling left only ZUM and an independent hopeful in the contest. within a week another extraordinary Presidential directive effectively overturned the Supreme Court's decision, ordering the reopening of the nomination process and the reconstitution of the Kariba by-election. For many, including ZUM, this constituted a direct challenge to the rule of law and fair play as embodied in the ultimate authority of the Supreme Court.

"After the Supreme Court there is only God", ZUM elections director Patrick Kombayi told Zimbabwe's MOTa magazine. The party pulled its candidate from the now "illegal" contest.

A more pointed challenge to the constitutional authority of the judiciary followed, with the legal conclusion to the controversy surrounding former Rhodesian leader Ian Smith's expulsion from Parliament in 1987.

Since 1987 smith had fought in the courts for the reinstatement of both his seat, and his MP's salary. On the first point he admitted defeat. On the second, the Supreme Court ruled in his favor, noting that it was not in Parliament's power to deny a member his or her salary.

Speaker , a senior ZANU official close to President Mugabe, retorted that the Supreme Court rUling would not be followed. He said that he (Mutasa) "would not pay smith a cent". The Court, he said, was overstepping its powers, and should be told so.

However, this was not the opinion of the vast majority of 49 Zimbabwe's legal experts. The consensus was that Mutasa had blundered in the name of the ruling party. By refusing to back down quietly he was moreover provoking a major jurisdictional confrontation between the executive and the judiciary.

In unusually bitter terms Mutasa was attacked along these lines by not only the Supreme Court Justices, but also by the lawyers' Bar Association and the staff organization of the university's Law Faculty.

The implications of the counter-attack were clear: unless the President refuted Mutasa's actions they would be taken by legal professionals as a direct assault by ZANU upon the jUdiciary and ultimately, the constitutional rule of law. That was in November 1989.

Since then ZANU has muddled its way slowly out of the confrontation by setting up a Parliamentary advisory committee to consult with the Speaker and reaffirming, in an albeit roundabout fashion, its commitment to the. rule of law and its recognition of the Supreme Court's final authority.

Many Zimbabwean legal experts have been shaken by the government's indecisive early response to the constitutional crisis. They are now wondering what lies in store in the near future.

ZANU officials have said that after the election the party plans a major rewrite of the country's constitution, in line with the "new emerging political and social order".

It's this type of talk which has many quietly guessing about the possible revamping of the legal system itself at the beginning of the 1990s. But until the nature of the proposed "new order" is itself known, the fate of the rule of law as currently practiced in Zimbabwe remains a matter for speculation only.

(1) For one such discussion see Bill Martin and Jim Cason, "Uneven Gains: The U.S. Movement Enters the 90s," SOUTHERN AFRICA REPORT (Toronto), May 1990. (2) Unless otherwise cited, the following data are from the World Bank, SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA: FROM CRISIS TO SUSTAINABLE GROWTH, A LONG TERM PERSPECTIVE STUDY (Washington, DC: World Bank, 1989). (3) It remains difficult to obtain exact information about its private external debt. Much of this debt was owed to South Africa as a result of the white regime's military efforts to repress the Zimbabwe movement. Nevertheless, the IMF insisted that the new Zimbabwe government repay that debt in order to receive further foreign loans. (4) As the Minister of Planning and Finance, Dr. Chidzero said 50 he accepted their advice not because of pressure but because he agreed with it. (5) Throughout the pre-independence UDI era, in response to UN sanctions, the smith regime had prohibited them from remitting profits; instead, at least for the first ten years, they had reinvested them to spur a rate of growth which, while favoring the tiny white minority, reached relatively high levels. (6) The data relating to the outflow of Zimbabwe's investable surplus is calculated from Zimbabwe, NATIONAL ACCOUNTS OF 1978 (Salisbury: Central Statistical Office, 1980); INCOME TAX STATISTICS: FISCAL YEAR 1979-1980 (Salisbury: Government Printer, 1981); and MONTHLY DIGEST OF STATISTICS, FEBRUARY, 1982 (Harare: Government Printer, 1982). (7) The Southern African Development Coordination Conference, the framework for the ten independent southern African countries' regional cooperation. . (8) For details, see Ann Seidman, MONEY, BANKING AND PUBLIC FINANCE IN AFRICA (London: Zed Press, 1986, pp. 173-176). (9) Worsened terms of trade had reduced the value of its exports by 16%. (10) All data relating to years after 1987 are from the International Monetary Fund, INTERNATIONAL FINANCIAL STATISTICS (Washington, DC: IMF, April 1990). (11) The government's domestic borrowing rose steadily till, in 1989, it reached Z$5,487 million, almost double its Z$2,958 million foreign debt. Ibid. (12) The arguments presented here are more thoroughly articulated in D. Weiner, "Socialist Transition in the Capitalist Periphery: A Case Study of Agriculture in Zimbabwe," POLITICAL GEOGRAPHY QUARTERLY (Forthcoming, 1990). (13) In 1987 the government's Secretary for Labor is reported as saying "All strikes since I took office have been illegal because I have not approved any strikes." cited by Brian Wood, "Trade Union Organization and the Working Class," in Colin Stoneman, ed., ZIMBABWE'S PROSPECTS (London: Macmillan, 1988, p.304). (14) Letter from Judith Todd to Tommy Sithole, April 29, 1989. (15) Ken Flower, in his SERVING SECRETLY: AN INTELLIGENCE CHIEF ON RECORD (London: John Murray, 1987), pp. 300-302 reprints a secret CIO memorandum from 1974 detailing negotiations with Portuguese and South African intelligence about the formation of RENAMO. (16) Ibid., pp. 261-2. (17) Ibid., p. 262. (18) For example in a report written by Robert Gersony in 1988 for the U.S. State Department. On th basis of interviews with refugees in neighboring countries and displaced people within Mozambique, Gersony estimated that RENAMO had killed some 100,000 civilians. 51 HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES IN ZAIRE

During the night of May 11-12, dozens of students were massacred in Lubumbashi by the Zairean army. Reports in the Belgian and French Press (La Libre Belgique, Le Soir, Le Monde) state that commandos of Mobutu' s elite presidential guard entered the Lubumbashi University campus under cover of darkness and used bayonets and machetes to kill dozens of students. Describing the attack as "premeditated and extensive," Amnesty International in London has called on the Zaire government to set up an independent inquiry. The Belgian Foreign Minister has spoken out strongly against this latest atrocity, and Belgium has halted all foreign aid to Zaire until an inquiry has been conducted. Aside from a few short wire service reports, there has been virtually no coverage of these events in the U.~. me~ia. The events unfolded as a reaction to the beatings of several students on the University campus who were identified by their peers as government informers. In a formal speech late in April, President Mobutu professed willingness to work towards the democratization of his 25-year old regime; many local groups in zaire responded positively to this initiative. While the U.S. press gave front-page coverage to the speech, there has been no coverage of the repression to follow, directed against those groups which have engaged in the dialogue proposed by the president. Mobutu came to power in a CIA-sponsored coup in November 1965. There have been frequent accusations of serious human rights violations, extensive economic mismanagement, and pervasive political oppression during his period of autocratic rule. Nonetheless, a massacre of civilians on this scale is a serious turn of events.

A vote on the foreign aid appropriations is currently pending in Congress. ACAS members are urged to take immediate action in the following ways: a) write or phone your Representative and Senators to express concern about these events and to request their support to halt aid to Zaire pending a full and impartial inquiry. In addition: b) phone or write the members of the Subcommittee on Foreign Operations of the House Appropriations Committee (marked with *) . Also listed here are several members who are known to be actively interested in African issues:

Rep. David Obey* WI-7 Rep. Howard Wolpe MI-3 Chair, Subcommittee on Chair, Subcommittee on Foreign Operations Africa (202) 225-3365 202) 225-5011 52 Rep. Ronald Coleman* TX-16 Rep. Ronald Dellums CA-8 (202) 225-4831 (202) 225-2661 Rep. Dean Gallo* NJ-11 Rep. William Gray* PA-2 (202) 225-5034 (202) 225-4001 Rep. Mickey Edwards* OK-5 Rep. William Lehman* FL-17 (202) 225-2132 (202) 225-4211 Rep. Jerry Lewis* CA-35 Rep. Mathew McHugh* NY-28 (202) 225-5361 (202) 225-6335 Rep. Robert Mrazek* NY-3 Rep. John Porter* IL-10 (202) 225-5956 (202) 225-4835 Rep. Stephen Solarz NY-13 Rep. Alan Wheat MO-5 (202) 225-2361 (202)" 225-4535 Rep. Jamie Whitten* MS-1 Rep. Charles Wilson* TX-2 (2.02) 225-4306 (202) 225-2111. Rep. sidney Yates* IL-9 (202) 225-2111 c) write or call the members of the Foreign Operations Subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations Committee (marked with *), and other Senators listed below who are known to be influential on African issues: Sen. Patrick Leahy* Sen. Paul Simon Chair, Subcommittee on Chair, Subcommittee on Foreign Operations Africa D VT (202) 224-4242 D IL (202) 224-2152

Sen. Alphonse D'Arnato* Sen. Dennis DeConcini* R NY (202) 224-6542 D AZ (202) 224-4521 Sen. Tom Harkin* Sen. Mark Hatfield* D IA (202) 224-3254 R OR (202) 224-3753 Sen. Daniel Inouye* Sen. J. Bennett Johnston* D HI (202) 224-3934 D LA (202) 224-5824 Sen. Nancy Kassebaum Sen. Robert Kasten* R KS (202) 224-4543 R WI (202) 224-5323 Sen. Edward Kennedy Sen. Frank Lautenberg* D MA (202) 224-4774 D NJ (202) 224-4744 Sen. Barbara Mikulski* Sen. Don Nickles* D MD (202) 224-4654 R OK (202) 224-5754 53 Sen. Warren Rudman* Sen. Arlan Specter* R NH (202) 224- R PA (202) 224-4254 The address for the u.S. Senate is: Washington D.C. 20510-4703; The address for the u.S. House of Representatives is: Washington D.C. 20515-3207.

The executive board of ACAS is sending the following letter to the editors of The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Boston Globe, and other newspapers; to the Secretary of State, James Baker, and the Undersecretary of State for Africa, Herman Cohen; and to the Members of Congress noted above. The Zairean people have drawn courage from the winds of change blowing across other continents to demand a political voice and freedom from reprisals. During the past few months, university students, trade unionists, market women and the Council of Bishops have taken stock of the deepening poverty of the great majority in this vast, mineral-rich country approximately the size of the u.S. east of the Mississippi. They have called upon Field Marshal Mobutu to step aside and to reimburse the multi-billion dollar fortune amassed during his 25-year dictatorship. His holdings are reputed to be roughly equal to the crippling national pUblic debt.

In mid-May Mobutu closed the University of Lubumbashi and sent in his elite commandos. Some fifty students are reported to have been killed by bayonets during a nighttime raid. The pretext for this bloodbath was a report that an informer had been killed by students. Reports from elsewhere in the country note increasing government violence against those who have voiced support for democratization. The Belgian government has cut off aid and suspended certain other diplomatic activities with Zaire. The Foreign Minister of France has cancelled a projected visit to Zaire pending clarification of this new round of violence, so soon after Mobutu's widely pUblicized moves towards democratization. Although the u.S. Consul General in Lubumbashi reported that only one student was killed (as the Zaire Government reports), many students and several foreign professors who have taken refuge in neighboring Zambia tell a different tale. Given the full coverage of these events in the European press, we are curious why the u.S. government and media stand silent. Independent investigation is called for. Whatever the number of deaths turns out to be, political violence by the Zairean state does not deserve U. S. support. Until the situation is clarified in a full and impartial inquiry, the U.S. Congress should suspend all funding for Zaire since even "humanitarian" aid goes mainly to enrich and empower "les Grands" of the regime.