www.africa-confidential.com 24 January 2003 Vol 44 No 2 AFRICA CONFIDENTIAL KENYA 2 ZIMBABWE On the mend President Kibaki’s stint in hospital Coming out of the closet is not slowing the pace of The first plan may have failed but finding an exit route for Comrade government reform. Finance Mugabe is now political centre stage Minister Mwiraria is preparing a The architects of the soft-landing plan for President Robert Gabriel Mugabe are frustrated (AC Vol 44 new economic programme for the return visit of the IMF next month, No 1). Their efforts have produced the opposite effect to that intended: Mugabe is now less inclined to and government ministers speak negotiate a retirement than he was six months ago. Not only have Colonel Lionel Dyck and opposition confidently of a new constitution in leader Morgan Tsvangirai exposed the scheme, the public naming of parliamentary Speaker Emmerson place by mid-year. Dambudzo Mnangagwa and the Commander of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces, General Vitalis Gava Zvinavashe (AC Vol 43 No 23), as its authors has made them targets of Mugabe’s considerable wrath. CÔTE D’IVOIRE 4 Enraged that he wasn’t informed about the advanced state of the negotiations – several meetings with South African President Thabo Mbeki and intermediaries in Britain – Mugabe has interpreted Foul play Mnangagwa’s and Zvinavashe’s scheme as tantamount to treason. Mugabe’s attack-dog, Information Minister Jonathan Moyo, told the state-owned daily, The Herald that the Mnangagwa plan amounted Despite the optimism emanating from the Paris talks, it is not clear to a coup d’état. how a peace deal can halt the Then, he lambasted South Africa. Prompted by intrepid reporters from the Johannesburg Sunday Times killings and disappearances now who trailed Moyo on an embarrassingly opulent shopping trip, contrasting the Minister’s grocery list with commonplace in Abidjan, nor how the plight of six million starving Zimbabweans, he described South Africa as ‘dirty, filthy and recklessly easy it will be to disarm and uncouth’. Then in a sideswipe at President Mbeki (an accessory to the Mugabe soft-landing plan) Moyo reintegrate the rebels controlling half the country. continued, ‘If these people in the name of South Africa believe they can lead an African Renaissance, then God help them... their barbarism will never take root.’ As the insult was sinking in, a Harare government official explained that Moyo was speaking only for himself – odd for an Information Minister. SÃO TOMÉ E PRÍNCIPE 5 Moyo, Chinamasa and Made Fradique’s new front Moyo and his allies, Minister of Justice Patrick Chinamasa and Minister of Agriculture Joseph Made, The tiny island state could be the want to make maximum capital out of Mnangagwa’s current embarrassment. Moyo is an improbable Gulf of Guinea’s next oil Eldorado acolyte for Mugabe. A decade ago, he forecast that unless the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union- if it can resolve a battle over deals Patriotic Front could reform itself, it would be seriously challenged by a mass trades union-based party. signed by President Fradique de Menezes’s predecessor. But Missing from Moyo’s forecast was his own move from civil society critic to ZANU-PF partisan. Nigeria is a powerful adversary. Now he believes he could succeed Mugabe as president if he can delay the 78-year-old head of state’s departure for a few years. Chinamasa, a shrewder tactician than Moyo, also believes he has a chance in the succession stakes. Made, the least cerebral of the three, is happy to keep his portfolio. Unkind SOUTH AFRICA 7 colleagues suggest that Made’s lack of critical faculties made him the perfect choice to implement ZANU- Gatsha bites back PF’s land resettlement programme. Mugabe regards Moyo’s professions of ultra-loyalty as compensating for his lack of a liberation war Inkatha has scuppered ANC record. Mugabe told a group of activists from South Africa’s Pan Africanist Congress late last year that attempts to gain control of he would rear a new generation of ZANU-PF militants committed to land reform and African nationalism. KwaZulu-Natal by teaming up with smaller opposition parties. This is So Mugabe has become even more reluctant to hand over to one of his near contemporaries. Now he a setback for President Thabo speaks of nurturing a successor and skipping a generation in the party hierarchy. That view was already Mbeki, and could encourage working against the former heir-apparent, Mnangagwa; now, the row over the soft-landing plan has Inkatha to form a broader driven a wedge between the two men. opposition coalition. Mnangagwa and Zvinavashe are both Karanga, the most numerous of Zimbabwe’s ethnic groups – as is the Movement for Democratic Change leader, Morgan Tsvangirai. Now Mugabe is said to regard the POINTERS 8 soft-landing plan as a Karanga plot to oust him. He implicates Foreign Minister Stan Mudenge and High Commissioner to London Samuel Mbengegwi, both Karanga and both, in Mugabe’s view, having kept Sudan, Congo- him out of the loop. In particular, Mugabe regards Mbengegwi as soft on his arch-enemies, Britain and Kinshasa, Senegal its Prime Minister, Tony Blair. One element of the plan was that Mnangagwa and his business backers would persuade Britain and the European Union to drop sanctions against Zimbabwe if Mugabe retired & Kenya and fresh elections were held. Coordinates; cable controversy; Certainly, Mnangagwa’s and Zvinavashe’s involvement in the soft-landing plan had a strong self- rallying round; and foundation interest component as it envisaged immunity from prosecution for Mugabe and for his most senior aides. stoned. Mnangagwa and Zvinavashe were deeply involved in the Matabeleland massacres: Mnangagwa was Director of the Central Intelligence Organisation and Zvinavashe, whose nom de guerre was Sheba Gava 24 January 2003 Africa Confidential Vol 44 No 2 (‘the Jackal’), was regarded as one of the most ruthless of the Five further still. As Kibaki was admitted to hospital, his Vice-President Brigade commanders. He was appointed ZDF Commander in July Michael Kijana Wamalwa was in London on diplomatic business – 1994 for a four year term. Since then, Mugabe has renewed his tenure and yes, a medical check on his kidney condition. each year but is now likely to retire him by the end of June. Still enthused by the opposition’s arrival in power (AC Vol 43 No At the beginning of the year, Zvinavashe told the Harare weekly 25 & Vol 44 No 1), Kenyans seem sanguine about the health questions Business Tribune (owned by a Mnangagwa ally, Mutumwa Mawere) surrounding the leaders of the new order. That’s partly because that Zimbabwe’s economic crisis was caused by bad policies as well Kibaki’s popularity has increased since his landslide victory and his as drought: such an admission is regarded as thought-crime by Mugabe. establishment of a strong ministerial team (see Box) four days after his The Mnangagwa-supporting paper strongly attacked Mugabe’s land inauguration. The absence of the President and his deputy cast the reform programme (formerly sacrosanct to ZANU officials) as ‘an spotlight on the second-tier leadership – the political management of albatross on the country’s neck’. Mnangagwa’s business backers, Public Works Minister Raila Odinga and economic management of Mawere and John Arnold Bredenkamp, have both been banned from Finance Minister David Mwiraria – as two issues are set to dominate the United States because of their association with ZANU-PF. the government’s first year: the promise of a new constitution within Mnangagwa is the target of a whispering campaign by his rivals. six months and the re-establishment of good financial relations with They have told Mugabe that the soft-landing plan was designed chiefly the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. to parachute Mnangagwa into the presidency and to benefit his business Constitutional reform technically comes under the new Minister of backers. They claim that in Mnangagwa’s home area in Midlands, Justice and Constitutional Affairs, Kirailu Murungi, and the old many white-owned farms have been left intact, suggesting clandestine Attorney General, Amos Wako. The issue has become highly charged deals, and they also want Mnangagwa to be questioned about overseas politically as the new government is committed to delivering a new bank accounts set up for flower exporters. constitution before the end of this year; some ministers promise it will He may have lost Mugabe’s imprimatur but Mnangagwa is still the be before August. The members of the constitutional review panel dominant succession contender (and he continues to have Mbeki’s appointed by former President Daniel arap Moi’s government and ear). The unveiling of his soft landing plan launched the succession chaired by Yash Pal Ghai have unsurprisingly fallen out. The aim of struggle. We hear that some of Mnangagwa’s supporters in the many Moi-appointees appeared to be to prolong the review process for military and intelligence service are likely to be roped into the as long as possible, certainly until after the elections. After Ghai increasingly surrealistic investigation surrounding the treason charges suggested commissioners’ salaries should be stopped when their term against Tsvangirai. expired on 3 January, a faction led by Okoth Ogendo publicly Zvinavashe’s retirement will weaken Mnangagwa’s base in the rebuked him. upper echelons of the military, where his two key opponents, the Army Commander, Lieutenant Gen. Constantine Chiwenga, and Air Force Raila and reform Commander, Air Marshal Perence Shiri, are consolidating their Murungi appears confident about resolving technical problems with power bases. Retired Gen. and non-retired kingmaker Solomon the review commission but may find reaching political consensus Mujuru has been promoting sacked Finance Minister Simba Makoni about power-sharing more difficult.