Southern Africa Vol. l~o, 1 llBj~l])@lli~ November 1997 South Africa No-w: Cosatu, Thabo Mbeki and the ANC Conference
price: $ 4.50 ~©w~Thl®num ~ifnv~©®, November 1997 REPORT Vol. 13 No.1
Contents
Editorial: Cheque Up ...... 1
Besieged in Mafeking The ANC Congress ..... 3
The Mbeki Enigma ...... 6 Southern Africa Which Way Labour? Cosatu's 6th Congress REPORT 12 is produced quarterly by a collective A poem: of TCLSAC, the Toronto Committee for Links between Southern Africa & Testament for the First Accused Canada Nelson Mandela for the Twenty-Seven Years 16 427 Bloor St. West Toronto, Ontario M5S 1X7 Striking Back Tel. ( 416) 967-5562 Worker Militancy in Zimbabwe 18 email: [email protected] web site: www.web.net/~tclsac/ Submissions, suggestions and help in Struggle Against Silence production are welcome and invited Reclaiming History in Namibia 22 ISSN 0820-5582 Member: Canadian Magazine Success Story? Publishers Association Bretton Woods Backlash in Mozambique . 26 Indexed in: Canadian Index; Canadian Business & Current Affairs Crossed Purposes All rights reversed Migrant Attitudes in Southern Africa 30 Subscriptions Southern Africa Report subscription & TCLSAC membership rates: SAR Collective SUBSCRIPTION: Individual (per year) $18.00 Institution (per year) $40.00 Margie Adam, Stephen Allen, Carolyn Bassett, MEMBERSHIP: (includes subscription) Christine Beckermann, Lois Browne, Marlea Clarke, Regular . . $35.00 David Cooke, Mamie Lucas-Zerbe, John S. Saul, Unemployed Marit Stiles, Lauren Swenarchuk, Student . $18.00 Joe Vise, Mary Vise Senior Sustainer . over $100.00 Overseas add $10.00 Cover design by Art Work Cover photo by Paula Bronstein - Impact Visuals
Canadian Publications Mail Product Sales Agreement No. 569607 Cheque Up An editorial in which an honest answer to a pressing question is demanded from SAR's loyal readers
"South Africa Now." We think "COSATU, Thabo Mbeki and the reportage and analysis later in the the table of contents for this issue ANC Congress" - evoked by such issue from such SAR regulars as of Southern Africa Report speaks a title: knowledgeable contributors Lauren Dobell, Richard Saunders for itself. And so does the roster like Glenn Adler and Eddie Webster, and Joseph Hanlon, commenting of authors we've assembled to help Rein Marais and Tom Lodge, for on developments elsewhere in the us through the maze of issues - starters. Plus more top-of-the-line region: in Namibia, in Zimbabwe,
Southern Africa REPOR T november 1997 1 in Mozambique. And there's even from that can enable us to continue capitalism seems much more likely a long, powerful poem, previously to turn that energy to productive to draw our struggles closer together unpublished, by Ghanaian author account? than it is to stretch them further and activist Abena Busia to add apart! spice to our usual recipe. Let's be frank, and put money first - even though we all would Perhaps this is why, here at This is solid, topical stuff, we feel more comfortable, no doubt, SAR, our energy remains pretty hope you'll agree - well written, putting politics first . For unfortu much undimmed - although it well argued, well considered, and nately, right now, money has be would be helpful to hear from pretty much unavailable elsewhere, come the crunch issue for us. Sub our readers that you share this either in Africa or beyond. What's scriptions and newsstand sales have sense of the importance of the task more, it's the kind of coverage loyal only ever taken us part way towards we're undertaking and are even readers have come to expect from financial solvency (in part because prepared to involve yourself in it SAR year after year (and now into some of those subs have been and re more actively: giving us more feed our thirteenth year) - or so you main complementaries to those, par back, sending us articles and other tell us when, from time to time, we ticularly in Africa, who can't read publishable materials, touting the hear from you, by e-mail or by word ily afford to receive this magazine). magazine to other potential readers, of mouth. Moreover, so strong is We have had other sources of fi subscribers and distributors, be they the present issue that we've decided, nancial support in the past, much institutions (libraries, book shops, for once, to leave you, our gentle of it from our own pockets here at conferences, political organizations) readers, on your own recognizance, SAR (and from those of members of or friends. SAR is nothing if not without benefit of our customary our home organization, the Toronto a collective endeavour, not least to editorial dash of bitters, to savour Committee for Links between South those closest to it. But we're eager its contents to your mind's delight. ern Africa and Canada [TCLSAC]). and willing to expand the sense of We've also received funding, over the your own joint ownership of the Fact is, too, that we have years, from a number of other or enterprise by incorporating any and something of even more pressing ganizations and agencies dedicated all of you who are ready to enlist. urgency to share with you in this to the southern African struggle. But, ah yes, funds. Our pockets editorial space. We begin with Now, however, many such organiza are only so deep and here, especially, a question. Just how important, tions and agencies have, in the post we both need help and welcome it really, is SAR to you? To apartheid epoch, either moved on to eagerly. Case in point: recently we you, not merely as consumers of other fronts or have merely folded heard from one of our old comrades information about southern Africa their tents, satisfied with a job well in TCLSAC, one who had indeed (although we trust SAR provides done. moved on to other fronts of struggle you much information that you as the primary focus of her reading couldn't readily obtain elsewhere), Much of this is understandable, and her politics. But, for her, the but also as members of that broader of course. But freedom, of a sense of the importance of southern community which still shares a sort, for southern Africa has come Africa issues remains intact, just a commitment to helping facilitate to mean financial crunch time for bit lapsed, she admitted, although humane and progressive outcomes in us, and this is a particularly still held in place by her on southern Africa? unwelcome reality in light of our going subscription to SAR. She had own strong conviction that there steady employment now, she said, We ask you because we've had is still much work to be done on and wanted to help in some kind to ask ourselves this question a southern African issues, work that of sustained, and sustaining, way. number of times in recent months. can make some contribution to the Could she send us a set of post-dated Where is the energy to come from struggle of people there truly to cheques, $60 a month, and for the to sustain us in the challenging liberate themselves. Solidarity with foreseeable future? Yes, please, and work of keeping a magazine of people in that region remains of thank you. this quality afloat: beating the fundamental importance, we feel, bushes for articles of high standard and there's even the thought around So, not to put too fine a and finding the endless volunteer here that such solidarity may well point upon it, we return to the hours - we have no paid staff be more meaningful now than ever. question with which we began: how - that go into editing, printing After all, within the context of important is SARto you? We trust and pasting, servicing newsstands increased "globalization," mutual it's important enough for many of and subscribers, keeping the books? recognition - North and South - you that you, too, will feel moved And where, of at least equal of our shared vulnerability in the to, as it were, cheque it out: "Dare importance, is the money to come face of a rootless and uncontrolled to struggle, dare to sign."
2 november 1997 Southern Africa REPORT ------~@~~ill ~~~~©~ ill@~------Besieged in Mafeking The ANC Congress
BY T OM LODGE gains is in official statistics and, in at the Congress. The ANC has any event, they are regionally con held a series of workshops and semi Tom Lodge is Professor and Chair of centrated. nars on a range of issues, generating the department of Political Science at a succession of "discussion papers," the University of the Witwatersrand. The GEAR More visible is the fact that the and encouraging various notables to stake out positions in speeches and South Africa's best prospects for assembly is being held against an statements. For example, the cur democracy probably depend as historical backdrop that includes the government's adoption of the rent National Executive will proba much on the ANC's internal vitality bly support a set of constitutional as on any of the carefully scripted Growth Economic and Redistribu revisions that call for a longer term clauses of its hundred page liberal tion programme (GEAR). This pro gramme, to many people, implies a for executive members and seek to constitution. So, for African democ strengthen leadership authority by racy watchers, the ANC's 50th na prioritization of growth before redis prohibiting ANC members from con tional conference in Mafeking in tribution, and is seen to include a testing public office and internal or mid-December should prove to be a suspect mix of tariff reductions, pub ganizational elections without offi compelling spectacle. Certainly, the li c expenditure cut-backs to reduce cial sponsorship. 3,000 delegates will have plenty to the deficit, privatization of paras argue about. tatals, and the acceptance of a strat Notwithstanding Kader Asmal's ified labour market. GEAR was protestations that this restriction is For a start, this is the first written in secret and was presented merely to ensure procedural order general meeting of the ANC that can to a discomfited ANC national ex liness, many delegates will proba deliver a rank and file verdict on ecutive as "non-negotiable" in June bly interpret the measure as a high the government's performance over last year. handed effort by leadership to en the last three years. The 49th sure positions are held by cooper conference, held in Bloemfontein An outraged Cosatu promptly produced its own "Programme for ative functionaries. Such delegates in December 1994, took place too will certainly note that this move soon after the April elections; on the Alliance" and threatened to comes after a bruising provincial that occasion the participants voted make its acceptance a condition of election in Gauteng when so-called for a series of fairly anodyne the fed eration 's support in the 1999 "Africanist" Mathole Motshekga tri resolutions giving the leadership election. Indeed, NUMSA (National umphed in the poll for regional liberal discretion over the adoption Union of Metalworkers of South chairman (and implicitly premier) of policy, and only showed their Africa) militants actually favoured a more immediate rupture, a course over Frank Chikane, an associate of mettle when confronting a clumsy Thabo Mbeki! attempt to impose a quota system narrowly averted as a consequence on the national executive elections. of a more cautious stand taken by Regional tension s the National Union of Mineworkers, Next month should be different. Regional tensions are also evident in customarily more loyal to ANC Certainly, the government can claim Northern Provincial premier Ngoaka leadership. In any case, Cosatu's considerable achievements: a pri Ramatholdi's recommendations for alternative, Keynesian programme mary health care program that has a non-partisan civil service. Iron advocates an expansion of the social already significantly reduced infant ically, his complaints do not arise mortality, three million people sup wage through mass state housing from the behaviour of left-over con plied with piped water, half a mil financed through public borrowing, servatives from the old bureaucracy lion electrical connections a year, the a. national health programme, all but rather the partisan - and in the significant spread of home ownership embracing social security and public case of his province, often mutinous among the relatively poor, and wage job creation, as well as an enlarged - disposition of ANC political ap rises that have beaten the ( declin public sector. pointees to the administration. The ing) inflation rate. But unless people Still, the debate on macroeco government's habit of "redeploying" are the direct beneficiaries of such nomic policy will only be one of inconvenient people across positions gains, the greatest visibility of such the hot topics likely to be broached in the political organization, legisla-
Southern Africa REPORT november 1997 3 tures, public service and parastatals towards a pecking order based on The Winnie Factor has also raised hackles: victims of generational seniority and an exile Winnie Madikizela-Mandela can this strategy included Terror Lekota track record. Zuma is almost invis take heart from Motshekga's ele who was moved out of the Free State ible publicly; highly reticent, he has vation, for she too is busy mobi premiership after he attempted to hardly appeared on television and lizing grass roots disaffection, with clean up corruption in his adminis does little to court public opinion. contemptuous utterances about her tration, and a sequence of ambas Insiders suggest he is man of high in husband's niggardliness over her di sadorial appointments which have tegrity with good negotiation skills, vorce settlement (she jetted off to taken some of the most effective left and an impressive liberation pedi the United States the day it was wingers out of parliament and the gree. meant to be negotiated), condemna ANC's own bureaucracy. - But that may not be good tions of GEAR, and a call for a ref enough. As ANC members showed Feelings will be running partic erendum on the death penalty - in in the Gauteng provincial elections, which she has joined forces with the ularly high amongst Mpumalanga "struggle records" seem to matter delegates who have witnessed an un community vigilante group PAGAD less and less nowadays. Motshekga's and the National Party's unappe seemly bit of bullying from the pres membership of the ANC dates idential office compelling provin tizing new leader, Marthinus van only from 1991; before then his Schalkwyk. cial premier Matthews Phosa to public life was mainly confined stand down from the race for the to running legal aid clinics in Not that all the populists at deputy presidency to allow Natal Pretoria. His popularity stems from the ANC conference will line up ANC chairman Jacob Zuma a clear assiduous networking among ANC with Madikizela-Mandela and the run against Winnie Madikezela local councils (he heads the local left against GEAR, however. Peter Mandela. Phosa has barely con government portfolio committee in Mokaba, the former Youth League cealed his resentment and a bit the Gauteng legislature), from the president who used to delight audi ter speech this month attacked the resentment among East Rand and ences at ANC rallies with his render ANC's leaders for failing to keep in Pretoria branches at what they view ing of the Umkhonto anthem, "kill touch with the organization's social as Soweto dominance of the regional the settlers, kill the boers," has, base. executive, and from his strong line since his appointment to the deputy Phosa will have plenty of sym in tough street-wise rhetoric, evident ministry of tourism, become almost pathy: Jacob Zuma's ascendancy for example in his calls for a revival sedate. Not quite, though. His con within the hierarchy confirms the of "people's courts" to deal with tribution to the internal ANC policy continuing predisposition at the top neighbourhood crime. debate is embodied in a discussion
4 november 1997 Southern Africa REPORT paper that calls for the NEC (Na At the conference ing ministers in portfolio committees tional Executive Committee of the and an executive intolerance of any ANC) to be broadened to include How will all these currents play themselves out at the conference? expression of back-bencher indepen all members of the cabinet as well dence. as their deputies; reminds the ANC The Youth League used to be consid about what he believes to be the or ered a king-maker and agenda set Predicting the outcome to any ganization's historical commitment ter, but its leadership seems closely contests at Mafeking is at best to the values of free market capital aligned with the deputy-president's an uncertain undertaking and there ism (Mokaba himself is no slouch in office, the main centre of ANC and is plenty of evidence of ANC this regard; in four years he became government decision-making. The principals hedging their bets: the a millionaire through his ownership League was persuaded to switch its resurfacing of the ANC's visceral of a string of hairdressing salons); support for Mbeki's successor from anti-Americanism in the recent spat and attacks Cosatu for its "left-wing Phosa to Zuma, and there have been over the Libyan state visit was childishness" in discussing the pos few expressions of dissent from this a case· in point. But if the sible formation of a left-wing party. quarter over GEAR. Its personable awkward combination of the labour Mokaba is also sharply critical of president, Malusi Giqaba, with his left and the street populists make the Communist Party, complaining master's qualification in public pol inroads into the ANC executive, as of the propensity of its leaders to icy from Durban-Westville exempli seems quite likely, than we should agree to one course of action in fies the new "African Renaissance" expect a swift declutching on the ANC executive meetings and then technocratic elite which an ANC un government's commitment to GEAR subsequently criticize ANC policies der Thabo Mbeki can be expected to macroeconomics. That will be when wearing their central commit promote [see following story]. Mean good news for the promoters of the tee hats. while, the Women's League, torn new "non racial" Holomisa/Meyer UDM consortium for they can apart by allegations arid counter ac Here Mokaba has touched a cusations over the .misappropriation expect to pick up support from the one group which is least raw nerve. While not all ANC of funds, is set to back its president, principals will share his ideological Madikizela-Mandela, who can sum likely to be strongly represented antipathy to the Communist Party, mon an impressive bloc of delegate amongst grass roots delegates: that there is plenty of evident irritation support from the Guateng squat is, the people who have been about the way in which SACP, ter camps whenever her ascendancy to date the prime beneficiaries of notwithstanding the presence of over the League is threatened. ANC policies, the rapidly expanding African managerial and business many of its members in government class. (Their interests are also still and ANC leadership, has distanced Still, the most important del itself from government policies. To egate battalions will be from the in the balance in the debates over the Basic Conditions of Employment be fair , SACP trade unionists have ANC's provincial organizations, and Bill , for example.) worked hard to keep Cosatu within of these the most powerful are those the Alliance fold, and while its of the Eastern Cape (703 dele ANC leaders may be willing ideologues are corrosively dismissive gates) and the Northern Province to reconsider the wisdom of "neo of recent ANC formulations about ( 408). Notwithstanding advance liberal" economic policies which are the "golden trian'gle" of labour, state resolutions indicating support for set to deliver only a paltry 2.7 and capital, they themselves have Zuma, the electoral ballots will be per cent growth rate next year, tended to adopt a middle position secret and the simmering anger of but a discernible swing to the left between Cosatu's advocacy of a delegates from these two poorest and might well alienate the kinds of full blown welfare state and the worst governed provinces may boil people to whom Peter Mokaba's government's fiscal conservatism. over, not just in expressions of sup views seem to be directed. As The SACP Central Committee's port for Madikizela-Mandela (highly the proceedings of this conference list of "strategic priorities" includes popular in the old Transkei) but also will indicate, sustaining a middle intricately qualified language about in bitter antipathy to government class alliance with the world's the need to retain the sympathies "right-sizing" that has trimmed tens fastest growing labour movement of a "patriotic black bourgeoisie" of thousands of jobs off the public is a tall order. In December, which otherwise might be lost payroll in these regions. Moreover, traditional considerations of unity to a new ruling bloc of local the executive's dispatch of members and discipline will probably win monopolists acting in conjunction of the parliamentary caucus to their out, if narrowly; Nelson Mandela's with international capital, as well as assigned "constituencies" to bring charismatic authority will be on the need for a "developmental state" the branches into line may not be the tap to ensure that. But after his adopting some of the liberal precepts most effective discipline. MPs them departure charisma will be in shorter of "good governance." selves are demoralized by overbear- supply.
Southern Africa REPORT november 1997 5 The Mbeki Enigma Acting ANC secretary-general Cheryl Carolus (soon to take the post of high comm1sswner in Britain) describes him as "very in telligent, very committed" and de clares that perceptions of him as a ruthless and opportunistic politi cian "are not true." IFP leader and Home Affairs Minister Mango suthu Buthelezi praises him as "one of the finest brains we have," some one who "listens very patiently and then deals with the issue with im pressive precision." The intellectual point-man of "Africanism" in South Africa, academic William Makgoba, finds himself grasping at hyperboles when judging Mbeki. "I doubt that there's a politician as shrewd and ex perienced as Thabo Mbeki anywhere on the planet.," he declares, before descending back to terra firma with what might be a back-handed com pliment: "Even U.S. president Bill Clinton and the British prime min ister Tony Blair are nowhere near ~ Thabo in the art of politics." ~ g' In the opposite corner, Bantu 8 Holomisa (now heading the United "' Democratic Movement with fallen 6 National Party golden boy Roelf 'c;; Meyer) knows him as "a manipula I z tor" who "uses the media and ma G nipulates people to get to the top." ~ Vengefully, he accuses Mbeki of "al I 6 november 1997 Southern Africa REPORT Nelson Mandela's dark side is his foolish to make those accusations The GEAR autocratic bearing and occasional about Stella (Sigcau) but again they Understandably, the left observes obstinacy. Yet, as an NEC (National let him dig a hole for himself and him with shifty, troubled eyes. Executive Committee of the ANC) then threw him into it," says the of As the political midwife of the member once put it to me, "in a ficial. (Holomisa was expelled from controversial Growth, Employment debate he'd listen to the arguments, the ANC a year ago for bringing the and Redistribution (GEAR) macro- then announce his decision and ANC "into disrepute" by reviving economic plan, Mbeki has not that's that - you know where allegations that Public Enterprises endeared himself to Cosatu or the you stand." Mbeki, according S.A. Communist Party. Tellingly, to a top ANC member, operates he left Mandela with the unenviable quite differently: "His tactic is task of facing Cosatu delegates at to sidestep debate and collective the federation's annual congress in decision-making. His standard line September. Running a gauntlet of is that the matter at hand is very anti-GEAR songs from the floor, complex and needs more thought - Mandela admitted that even top then, when the meeting's over he ANC leaders had not been privy swings into action, him and the little to the plan before its release and bureaucratic clique he's surrounded told delegates that the strategy was himself with. They're not up-front, no longer "non-negotiable." But he they won't debate you on an issue, reaffirmed his support for the plan. but they'll move behind the scenes." Mbeki, meanwhile, has curiously "Thabo not vindictive?" another refrained from public comment on ANC official asks back, "What GEAR - a savvy decision given about Terror (Lekota)?" The the woeful economic indicators of former Free State premier was, of the past year and the mounting course, removed last year by an opposition to the plan. ANC National Working Committee '*l In October, however, he broke meeting chaired by Mbeki. In ~ cover with a strident defense of Carolus' version of events, nothing 5 GEAR. "Anyone who is rational untoward occurred. "If we didn't t can't come to any conclusion other intervene there would never have 11) c. than our (economic) policies," he been a provincial conference E told a prostrate interviewing team they had postponed it three times 1 from the Financial Mail. "I don't already. We did interfere and we 11) ::L believe, if you look at the totality of had to. The infighting had been ~ Southern Africa REPORT november 1997 7 by Mandela) to the era of the model being aped was essentially Domesticating the left politician, from the cultivation of that of conventional western democ Yet, the goal of putting the ANC a rickety bedrock of conciliation ractes. on a "fighting footing" may uot and stability to the arduous and And yet Mbeki has backed re fit easily with an agenda of gov turbulent business of governance, structuring efforts aimed at putting ernance that, otherwise, pivots on from a dependency on the personal the ANC on a surer organizational a remarkably uncritical acquiescence charisma of a leader to a reliance on footing. These include the cre to the prescriptions of the Washing public institutions and democratized ation of a series of teams such ton Consensus - as exemplified by political culture. Mandela achieved as one headed by Labour Minis the GEAR strategy and seemingly his historic mission thanks to his ter Tito Mboweni which is trying endorsed by Mbeki's claim about the ability to traverse many of the to boost the organization's policy "rationality" of current economic contradictions at play in South and research capacities. It is un policies. But the conundrum runs African society and the ANC - clear whether Mbeki's stance here deeper than that. Thus, the left the "modern" and the "traditional," is principled or conjunctural. As a within the ANC remains wedded to black and white, privilege and the idea that the organization's la deprivation - a feat made possible tent "working-class bias" can be re by personal attributes and by vived to serve as ·the central com the assiduously constructed mythos pass for government policies. The that surrounds him. He is a framework for hoisting the ANC consummate anomaly - a politician government back onto its historical who rose above politics, a kind track, these forces argue, already ex of Charles de Gaulle. Mbeki will ists - in the form of the so-called wield authority in more conventional "base document" of the Reconstruc ways, by building and fortifying a tion and Development Programme core base and a secure platform of (RDP). Though roughly sketched, authority, by constantly nourishing that document bristles with left and buttressing support among ist injunctions (many of them per divergent interest groups, and by fectly practicable) and represents an accumulating the power and the elaboration and radicalization of the consent necessary to stave off post-apartheid visions contained in contrary demands. In short, his the Freedom Charter. The left, business is to govern. in other words, hopes to regain How he goes about that task lost ground by locating its project will be decided by three factors: his squarely within the organizational personal disposition, the strength form and the historical discourse of and vitality of the ANC as a the ANC. At the same time, the liberation organization, and the rapid distillation of class and other combative capacities of its key allies , interests occurring within that orga Cosatu and the SACP. On all nization is complicating its inclusive, counts, the jury is still out. But "broad church" character. Bluntly some indicators are at hand. put, the ANC is no longer (indeed, has for a long time not been) one Mbeki's commitment to consoli happy family, a kind of political dating the ANC as a broad and in politician who runs a tight ship, he Brady Bunch. The growing inter clusive political organization is be is unlikely to harbour a principled nal turbulence framed by this reality yond dispute. Some ANC officials desire to bolster the ANC's ability represents a contest over which al have, sotto voce, accused him of to "complicate" the tasks of gover liance of interests shall predominate preferring an ANC that is organi nance. At the same time, unhappi inside the organization. zationally too weak to act as an ness at rank-and-file level about the effective activist force but strong organizational decay that has set in Such a development poses two enough to harvest votes at elections. since 1994 (candidly captured in cri sets of challenges for Mbeki. His The reason, they alleged, was that tiques by the ANC Youth League determination to get on with the this would enable government to get and in provincial conference reports business of effective governance, re on with the business of governing, of the past two years) and the ap construction and development can freed from the possibly disruptive proach of the 1999 elections has em not be questioned. What can demands and activities emanating phasized the need to repair the dam be questioned, however, is whether from within the organization. The age. the transformation he pursues will 8 november 1997 Southern Africa REPORT Squatter's camp on vacant land next to suburban houses conform to or breach the bound example, that deputy minister of though from whom and from where aries of permissible change patrolled environmental affairs Peter Mokaba remains unknown. What is clear by domestic and international cap has circulated a discussion docu is that the kite he has launched ital. With a few exceptions (no ment proudly proclaiming the ANC is intended to render more visible tably in the health sector, where the to be a capitalist organization and the relative strengths of the var pharmaceutical industry has been urging SACP members to face this ious currents surging through the challenged, and the labour sector, reality and leave the ANC. The po ANC. Keenly observing its passage where the deregulatory trend is be tency of Mokaba's foray lies not in are Mbeki and his circle of advisers ing bucked, for now) the tendency its intellectual weight (which is wist - for one of their prime challenges has been not to rock the boat. ful and feathery, as befits a join is to domesticate the left, hopefully But against a background of halting the-dots populist of Mokaba's ilk) without rupturing the unity of the progress in social delivery, this has but in the political intrigue that sur ANC. generated restiveness in and around rounds it. It is highly unlikely that Discursive innovation the ANC. The first challenge, then, Mokaba, a person fuelled by im The second challenge lies in the ide is to stay the hand of a left which, moderate political ambition, would ological or, more accurately, discur in the past year, has woken from its have embarked on his anti-left cru sive realm. The disaggregation of post-1994 slumber. sade without a formidable promise interests inside the ANC (and their It's against this background, for of backing inside the organization - diverse expression in material, life Southern Africa REPORT november 1997 9 style and political terms) threatens Alert to this, Mbeki has been to parliament in June. Within the inclusive unity of the organiza revising the discursive canopy that this discourse, class tensions, for tion. Three heterodox reactions are has heretofore been used to envelop example, become disguised in lofty already evident. There's the grav the divergent interests and currents statements about the need for itational pull exerted by populist contained within the ANC- mainly and the duties of a "patriotic politicians- inside the ANC, for in by spicing the conciliatory discourse bourgeoisie" and the like. In this stance, by Mathole Motshekga who of Mandela with more forthright way Mbeki's formulations come to will succeed Tokyo Sexwale as pre pronouncements on the need to resemble a kind of update of the mier of Gauteng province; outside overcome racial inequalities. In African-nationalism that presaged it, the footstomping appeal of Bantu Mbeki's words: "So long as the issue the ANC's radicalization in the early Holomisa. There's the onset of polit of race - racial disparities - remains 1950s (and therefore reflecting a ical apathy, apparently confirmed by an outstanding feature of South position not really deserving of the recent opinion polls. And there's the African society, so long will the ANC "Africanist" label too quickly affixed increasing attraction (particularly at remain what it is today." According to Mbeki by the white media in provincial and local levels) of leftish to him, the principal fault lines that the course of their misreading of his positions which, it must be said, are course through the society remain chosen discourse (see accompanying not always clearly discernible from those of "race and colour," a point box for an elal9oration of this populist ones. expounded in an important speech point]). The African Renaissance Inside South Africa, journalists have laboured hard to vision, linking it to the imminent fall of Mobutu Sese pin an "Africanist" label on Mbeki, suggesting a tilt Seko's regime and to the South African-led mediation away from the rather threadbare tradition of nonra efforts in the former Zaire. cialism and towards more racialist perspectives. The attempt is inaccurate and unfair, and betrays the lo His perspective points towards a more interventionist cal media's well-established inability to grasp political role regionally, for which the mediation efforts in the nuances. former Zaire earlier this year served as precedent. Os tensibly, the guiding imperative would be to enable Continentally, though, Mbeki clearly is an "African Africans to "solve their own problems." ist" - in the Nkrumah-esque sense of the word. "He takes Africa seriously and he is emotionally, politically Few would disagree that it's a laudable and necessary and intellectually committed to prove Afro-pessimism vision. Yet, once scrutinized, his Renaissance speeches wrong," says analyst Vincent Maphai. "He is NOT do appear shallow. They seem to lack analytical depth, an "Africanist" in an ethnic or racialist sense." SACP and to fail to identify the material and political well deputy general-secretary Jeremy Cronin agrees, and de springs of a revival or to more precisely sketch its char scribed Mbeki as an "Africanist" in the sense of "being acter. Questions remain around how such initiatives committed to a continental revival, an African renais might become articulated to the forays of other inter sance." That endeavour has become something of a national actors - principally the U.S.A. and France. leitmotif of Mbeki's and links him philosophically to The apparent overlap between U.S. policy objectives the first post-liberation generation of African leaders. and the failed S.A.-administered mediation bid in Zaire In Mbeki's own words: "Greater trade among African has been detected by analysts abroad (but, strangely, countries is very important, as is economic cooperation not inside South Africa), while his hosting of a high and the movement of capital within the regions. But powered French government delegation to South Africa that presumes stability, openness. It would be diffi in October suggested Mbeki might not be averse to ex cult to have economic cooperation of a long-term nature ploiting converging interests between South Africa and where you had in one country political dictatorship and western powers in advancing the renaissance dream. In in another country democracy." deed, the central, apparent flaw in the vision relates to Mbeki 's failure (or reluctance) to locate this renaissance "We have to address the abuse of the notion of national within the geopolitics of globalization. But is this omis sovereignty, where terrible things would be going on sion actually a flaw? Perhaps not. For, whether cast within the borders of a particular country while the rest onto the national or the continental stage, his thinking of the continent stands paralyzed because taking action appears consistently to be equipped with ambiguities would be seen as interference," he told the Sowetan that leave a variety of tactical options at his disposal. newspaper recently. Whether inclined towards dread or adulation, one is Last April, he brought a meeting of the U.S. Corporate tempted to agree, for once, with Buthelezi: in Mbeki, Council on Africa to its feet when he expounded on that South Africa has a very, very shrewd politician. 10 november 1997 Southern Africa REPORT This discourse is, in any case, raise the possibility of a more ro sition within and around the ANC, primarily aimed at shoring up unity bust popular-left challenge emerging a project that would seek to rebuild and steeling the organization against from an SACP / Cosatu nexus - a links with other progressive forces centrifugal forces, as divergent inter threat that gives Mbeki all the more in civil society (development NGOs, ests become more robustly expressed reason to want to encourage party churches, interest-based grassroots within it. In this respect it has members to stay put in the ANC, at organisations, etc.). These are im proven to be a shrewd shift, one least for now. portant debates to have, needless to that has the left looking a little be say, but the fact is that they are still Not surprisingly, these develop wildered. For Mbeki is employing ments have emboldened those on mainly incipient. an understanding of the relationship the left who believe the "heart and between reconciliation and transfor Meanwhile, Mbeki and those soul" of the ANC is still up for mation that is much more dialec currents orbiting around him hold grabs. To them, the window of tical than Mandela's. "You can't the upper hand. Mbeki's key opportunity is being levered open say there must be reconciliation on advantage is that the left cannot again and Mbeki might even be con the basis of the maintenance of the yet decide whether and to what sidered an ally in holding it ajar. status quo," he told the Financial extent he is an ally of a popular More grizzled and pessimistic intel Mail. "You'll never have reconcilia agenda. He is also alert to a central lects disagree. To them, the ANC's weakness of Cosatu and the SACP - tion [on that basis]. The need is for conversion into (or maturation as) every sector of South African soci their failure to devise cogent policy a vehicle for the modernization of ety to buy into that transformation alternatives. He is unlikely to pass South African capitalism - however process. If you predicate transfor up on the opportunities this presents much leavened by a makeshift wel mation on not destabilizing the sta him, and will probably "call their farism targeting the "poorest of the tus quo, you have not addressed the bluff" by encouraging or challenging poor" a la World Bank social policy question of reconciliation. You have these forces to propose alternatives, pronouncements - is well-advanced created the conditions for conflict." confident that they will not be able and is likely to be concluded un So, this discursive shift is aimed at to oblige speedily or coherently. His der Mbeki's tutelage. Any window defusing left opposition (corralling it major disadvantage is a lack of of opportunity, they fear, will be back into the central paradigm of experience of the internal dynamics edged shut from 1999 onwards. Still, race) but also, ostensibly, at piercing of mass movements like trade unions it's not an easy one to answer: just the ramparts of white recalcitrance. - which might generate troubling what kinds of relationships should stand-offs and upset the desired In from the cold? the left be trying to fashion with(in) social compact with the labour Beyond all this, Mbeki is also sup the ANC. Ultra-leftists predictably movement. Arrayed around him, porting procedural and structural counsel a complete break - a course however, are a sufficient number changes in the ANC (and tripartite that mirrors Mokaba's challenge to of adroit politicians with a firmer alliance) that could allow the left them. Those attuned to Gramscian grasp of the arcanities of the mass back in from the cold. These include thinking argue for a more concerted organizations that emerged inside regular alliance meetings (especially and cogently strategized war of po- South Africa during the 1970s and before key policy decisions), a revi 1980s. sion of the make-up of the ANC's A New Book by Hein Marais The upshot is a complex transi national executi~e committee (pos tion that is poised to slip back into sibly to include ex-officio status for gear after the short, apparently be Cosatu representatives) , the boost South Africa: nign, interval of reconciliation and ing of the status of the ANC's par Limits to Change? precarious stability that Mandela liamentary caucus (for long a cowed and Co. helped hold in place. It confab), and more. Transforming a Divided Society now befalls Mbeki to raise the cur Hein Marais, Zed Books, $42.95 For a variety of reasons, Mbeki tain for the next act of what must re prefers an SACP that is strapped main a sharp struggle to determine into the ANC - held in a kind of "Better, in my view, than any which alliance of social forces will hostage situation that severely lim recent book on the political shape the new South Africa. As the its the communist party's combat economy of South Africa. " slogan says: "a luta continua," the ive options. To be sure, an ab John Sender, School of struggle continues. Only, this time sconding SACP would, in its own Oriental and African Studies around, the battle lines are blurred , right, not pose a dramatic threat. the troops are not too certain which But the reinvigorated courtship cur Fernwood Books - tel (902) 422-3302 side they're on, and everyone seems rently underway between the party fax (902) 422-3179, [email protected] to be talking out of both sides of and a host of Cosatu affiliates does their mouths. Southern Africa REPORT november 1997 11 Which Way Labour? Cosatu's 6th Congress BY EDDIE WEBSTER AND GLENN ADLER Eddie Webster and Glenn Adler both teach Industrial Sociology at the University of the Witwatersrand and both are active in trade union related support work in South Africa. The present article draws on, but significantly develops, arguments first presented in Business Day (by Webster) and The Mail and Guardian (by ...., .r:: Adler) during the run-up to Cosatu 's 0> recent 6th Congress, a Congress .r::...., ::J whose subseq uent proceedings they also 0 evaluate here. If) I The Congress of South African Trade Unions' (Cosatu) 6th Na tional congress - held in Septem ber - was its most important de liberation since the federation was ::J founded in 1985. The federation un 0.."' dertook a comprehensive, quite crit Cosatu launching Congress - December 1985 ical review of its affairs while debat ing innovative strategies for achiev seem to many a distant memory, and Commercial Workers' Union in the ing its long-standing goals in a new the movement that espoused them 1920s to the South African Congress democracy facing the pressures of a an anachronism to be consigned to of Trade Unions in the 1950s and global economy. the past, along with P.W. Botha 1960s the labour movement's future At the centre of the discus and the Berlin wall. This is a was always decided for it by a sion was the 234-page report from serious mistake. The report and repressive state in collaboration with the Commission on the Future of Congress deliberations are a land business. Each generation of trade the Unions chaired by Cosatu's sec mark in labour's history in South unionists had to build on the ond vice-president Connie Septem Africa, and the policy decisions will remains of those movements that ber. Yet prior to the confer have a wide impact on political and preceded them. ence it had been generally ignored; economic developments in this coun Today's unions avoided this where it was examined in the media, try. Indeed, it provides a model for fate. They emerged from the its political recommendations were progressive unions elsewhere in the fight against apartheid with their largely misunderstood and its eco world confronted by the same prob organizations intact, with growing nomic thinking dismissed. lems. memberships, and having achieved The report's treatment is indica The September Commission a more progressive political and tive of a general shift in attitudes The September Commission report industrial relations framework under towards the labour movement since 1s an unprecedented document. which they may consolidate these the 1994 elections. The unions Never before has a movement advantages. that gathered in Durban in 1985 of black workers in this country But economic liberalization to launch Cosatu sought unity in survived the economic and political poses a new set of problems which the struggle to end apartheid and conjuncture in which it was born to defy easy answers. Tariff re to advance a socialist transforma be able to chart its fortunes in a duction threatens the integrity of tion. Twelve years later these goals new epoch. From the Industrial and strongly unionized industries; the 12 november 1997 Southern Africa REPORT easing of exchange controls increases It is noteworthy that the Com current position - warts and all. the mobility of capital and its mission was composed exclusively of It makes quite damning state power against less-mobile workers; black working class intellectuals who ments about organizational weak the aggressive logic of competitive had ultimate control over the re nesses (particularly in regard to na ness pushes capital to intensify pro search and writing. This should tional and regional structures); fail duction, lower labour costs inside put paid to the commonly heard re ure to achieve gender equality; the firms while deregulating the labour ports that the labour movement is lack of clarity regarding fundamen market more generally; government "brain dead" owing to the depar tal policies and vision; and problems deficit reduction constrains redis ture of many (white) leaders to gov in the tripartite alliance with the tributive programs for redressing ernment. The Commission testifies ANC and the South African Com apartheid inequalities. munist Party (SACP). The Report or the September Commission In addition to these problems on the future of the unions Cosatu faces two further challenges. to the Congress of South African Trode Unions Redistribution ... and interven First, it must develop responses to August 1997 tion these threats while in an alliance The Commission takes as its point with a party in government re Contents of departure the extreme contrast sponsible for many economic policy of wealth and poverty in South changes consistent with economic Africa. In the Commission's view, liberalization. Recrafting its rela this makes redistribution a neces Chapter J: ~r.cy and lllliaotet: a poUtkal prop-amme ror transform•Uon tionship with the African National sary condition for economic growth, Congress (ANC), means defining a Chapkr 4: Redaimlna: redistrtbudoa: our tcODOmk \ Southern Africa REPORT november 1997 13 can best be done through "strategic The authors call this ambitious instead of merely reacting to events, engagement." It recommends that model of unionism "social union unions become proactive, take the Cosatu seriously examine Swedish ism." The germs of this model ex initiative, and seek to set the and German-style co-determination ist in present policies and practices. agenda. This, the report makes where employees are given institu But union leaders have been ambiva clear, will require a major re tional rights to participate at shop lent in fully embracing them because structuring of the federation from floor and board level. of the resources required, but also one in which affiliates maintain a Many key actors in the transi because of the danger of too close high degree of autonomy and where tion process have put forward their an identification with management. decision-making power is decentral strategic visions. But few have had ized. The report recommends mak the courage to identify openly their Social u n ionism ing Cosatu head office the "engine organizational weaknesses and rec Social unionism requires a commit room" of the federation by increas ommend radical measures to over ment to economic growth and wealth ing the number of full-time office come these weaknesses. This con- creation as well as equitable redistri- bearers from two to six and by re quiring them to meet more regu larly. To offset the increased power given to full-time. officials the re port recommends the creation of a new Central Committee, composed of 300-500 delegates from the affil iates, to meet annually as a mini congress empowered to make policy decisions. It also recommends bol stering the powers and resources of Cosatu regional and local structures, strengthening Cosatu's own depart ments, and encouraging the consoli dation of unions into fewer, bigger and stronger affiliates. Taken to gether these changes mean an orga nization capable - for the first time -of giving force to Cosatu's stated policies. c ·.;:; Q) A crucial part of the report is ::1 a recommendation that Cosatu es ~ tablish greater autonomy within the 6 tripartite alliance. The report's slo ~ gan, "flexible independence," means _j that Cosatu supports the ANC when <( it adopts progressive policies, seeks (j) to influence ANC policies wherever Cosatu 's 2nd vice-president, Connie September possible, and opposes the ANC when it adopts "anti-worker" positions. It stitutes the body of the report; a bution. It requires the democratiza also recommends a broad alliance recommendation that union lead tion of the workplace, participation with five key sectors of civil soci ers commit themselves to taking on in tripartite bodies such as the Na ety - the trade union movement, a central role and responsibility in tional Economic Development and the NGO movement, the community shaping economic and social devel Labour Council (NEDLAC), and a constituency within NEDLAC, reli opment as well as the functioning skilled staff inside the organization. gious organizations and progressive of the public sector. This latter In fact, organizational renewal is at intellectuals. is seen as "the basic foundation for the core of the report. Unions will translating into reality the citizen increasingly need to pay attention T he Congress ship rights enshrined in the consti to their own human resource devel At the Congress the September tution," through the delivery of ser opment, particularly in the face of Commission proposals were debated vices, the stimulation of economic increased turnover and changed ex alongside resolutions from the affil growth, and by advancing significant pectations amongst staff. iates and recommendations in the collective forms of ownership. With social unionism, in essence, secretariat's report's - an unwieldy 14 november 1997 Southern Af r i ca REPORT process in which delegates were of strengthen the role of the state in Growth Employment and Redis ten flipping between three separate the productive sector of the economy tribution (GEAR) macroeconomic and lengthy documents. Yet this and its capacity to provide basic framework, but did not demand that produced less confusion than was ex services and infrastructure. The the ANC drop the policy. It was ar pected, in part because the Commis Congress rejected co-determination, gued that the policy was not cast sion's report was presented at affi l but accepted the need for strategic in stone and could be successfully iates' congresses and special policy engagement with capital at all levels contested in many ways short of a conferences held in the run-up to the and came out with a strong defense direct confrontation with the ANC. Cosatu's Congress; indeed many of ofNEDLAC. The Congress also adopted the sur its proposals were already incorpo The Congress re-endorsed the prising resolution to build the SACP rated into the affiliates' own posi tripartite alliance; indeed for the backed up by the commitment of tions. first time at a Cosatu Congress Cosatu resources to help finance the The Congress endorsed the re the ANC and SACP were accorded party and to share some educational port's view that the federation speaking rights from the floor. But programmes. This could be read in lacked capacity to drive its poli Congress rejected a proposal from two - potentially non-contradictory - ways: as bolstering the left in cies and accepted the proposals to the National Union of Metalworkers strengthen the organization's centre of South Africa (NUMSA) - which an ANC in which the interests of - including the recommendation to paralleled the September report's business and the state bureaucracy increase the number of full-time of recommendation - that Cosatu de are increasingly accommodated, or fice bearers. Concern was expressed ploy some of its national office bear as developing the kernel of a genuine about a possible loss of worker con ers (NOBs) to the ANC's National labour party. trol through these centralizing re Working Committee and National Indeed, severe criticism of the forms, a question not fully answered Executive Committee. NUMSA alliance was made in all Congress by the agreement to establish a Cen proposed that they serve as Cosatu documents, from the floor, and - tral Committee and to strengthen representatives accountable to the in Mandela's presence - by Cosatu Cosatu local office bearers and struc federation rather than the ANC it President John Gomomo. But, tures. self. Delegates were concerned that while solving one problem in the' The most contentious issues of the NOBs would be overly stretched alliance - by re-endorsing it - the all - around social and economic as a result of these duties, and Congress postponed the key problem policy as well as a clear programme stopped short of accepting this more of channelling this discontent into on union investment companies - ambitious inside approach to con a concrete programme of action to were generally deferred to a meeting testing the alliance. secure its policies inside the alliance. of the new Central Committee For example, while Congress agreed structure to be held within the Rejecting GEAR to support the ANC in the 1999 next six months. Nonetheless there They accepted the proposal for an general elections, the precise nature were significant decisions in this alliance summit to develop a clear of their support "still has to be area. The Congress supported the transformation programme, and re September Commission's view to jected the government's neoliberal continued on page 32 "'u a."' E .c u Vl 0 en ~ Q) 0'> '0 0 a:: Southern Africa REPORT november 1997 15 ------~~Nill@~@WW@ ______Striking Back Worker Militancy in Zimbabwe ~ 18 november 1997 Southern Africa REPORT ------~nlliill@~@~------sion for labour relations, just when a successful, direct challenge to gov In the end, a two-day general it is needed most. So where is the ernment intransigence in the work strike called in November by the current round of militancy likely to place. That strike, organized by Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions lead? many of ZANU(PF)'s own increas (ZCTU) in support of the health workers failed miserably, scuttled by Labour militancy on the rise ingly disillusioned constituent mem bers, shook the party profoundly. poor union organization and the lack After several years of struggling For the first time, Zimbabweans wit of information and consensus among to find their feet in a liberalized nessed senior party and government (non )participating labour structures labour market which included new officials being denounced and ha and workers. While the fiasco of collective bargaining structures that rangued in public by thousands of the abortive walk-out led to sharp tended to favour management, Zim public servants. As tension grew and and constructive debate within the babwean workers are growing in the threat of the strike spreading ZCTU about how to re-organize the creasingly impatient, desperate - emerged, government backed down. labour centre for more democratic and militant. Since early 1996, Earlier negotiated increases adding and effective decision-making, it also. workers in the public and private up to 30% were awarded to the pub had the pronounced effect of un sectors have increasingly risen to lic servants - though not without dermining the ZCTU's credibility challenge employers, eschewing ne further delays. among shopfloor workers and the gotiations with bosses and walking In additwn, public sector strik- general public. The failure of the out in support of demands for higher ers won key concessions from gov November strike generally removed wages and better work conditions. ernment over the restructuring of the ZCTU as a key player in the In addition, public sector workers - labour relations for their sector. ongoing private sector labour unrest who until this year have had no legal In effect, they achieved the right of 1997, and opened further space means of negotiating binding agree to legally-recognized bargaining and for action by lower-level union struc ments with their government em grievance structures - a basic work tures -and shopfloor militancy. ployer, and for whom all strike ac place right that had been denied tions were labelled "illegal" - made Zimbabwe's public employees since Tension and violence with the harmonization of public and pri independence. Until this concession, mixed results vate sector labour laws a central is there were no standardized, legally This year's labour unrest - often sue of concern. binding labour relations structures openly echoing the demands of governing collective bargaining and In both sectors strikers have public servants in late 1996 - related activities in the country, and posted important and well has been characterized by locally public servants' representative orga publicized victories. These, in turn, organized actions seeking significant have helped fuel spiralling labour nizations enjoyed only informal and boosts in incomes, and reform of convoluted relations with the state. militancy. worker-management relations aimed But the civil servants strike in at levelling the existing heavily The current round of labour un August-September did not mark a lopsided playing field. The scope rest first gathered momentum in complete defeat for the state. In the and extent of labour actions have early 1996, following a series of ac wake of the strike settlement, a more been impressive, but the results tions by workers in the private sector militant and embattled section of mixed. and public sector parastatals. Con the public service including nurses, In April, one of the country's cessions won over wage increases in junior doctors and health techni those early conflicts sparked actions largest banks, Standard Chartered cians - those whose personal health Bank, was shut for a week when by workers in Zimbabwe's large pub and safety have been seriously jeop lic service, to whom government had workers went out in protest over ardized by ESAP-inspired cuts in management's unilateral changes to promised substantial increases and state health budgets - persisted with post adjustment bonuses following bonus allocation measures. In their own walkout up to December. the same month, vehicle assembly years of relatively uncompetitive pay This brought the public health sys scales. When the state delayed and workers struck over discrepancies tem crashing to a halt, in a brave at and delays in the payment of then failed to deliver on these in tempt to extract promises from gov creases in mid-1996, public servants productivity bonuses. Salary and ernment around the improvement of bonus disputes spread in May and took to the streets in an unprece health care delivery and conditions dented work stoppage. June, as collective bargaining got ·of service. Eventually they were underway. When negotiations got In August and September last beaten back by the state, which bogged down, the strike wave year, as many as 160 ,000 govern recovered from the earlier setback erupted in July. ment employees walked out for two to play an effective divide-and-rule weeks and endured threats of sum game with different sections of the The government responded with mary dismissal and court cases, in public service workforce. a plea for workers to follow the Southern Africa REPORT november 1997 19 ------~d},dTIID,'[Q)CID,'[Q)~ ------~-- route of negotiation and industrial "The writing has been on the Against this backdrop, this conciliation. When this met with wall for some time that these year's demands by strikers for wage derision from strikers - who cited strikes were coming, but no action increases of between 30% and 50% the uneven and unfavourable terrain was taken," noted ZCTU Secretary - and acceptance of rises of 25% to of labour relations as a factor in General Morgan Tsvangirai. "What 30% - were not unreasonable. As their actions - the state resorted to we see as strikes is just a reflection even the business press has noted, a threats, and then baton-and-tear gas of the hardships people are facing. 51% wage increase for most workers charges by riot police. This is also a result of lack of interest would have only just returned them by employers in taking collective to the real wage levels enjoyed in Some employers were even less bargaining seriously." 1990. Yet even that now seems understanding. In one incident, unlikely in the near future. For its Business leaders now publicly eighteen striking security guards part, union bodies like the ZCTU concede Tsvangirai's points con were shot and hospitalized by a com called for salary increases of only cerning the hidden hand of ESAP pany official, as they marched un 25% this year, a figure designed to armed on management offices de and impoverishment in the current strikes. Privately, many also agree keep workers' wages flat on a par manding increases to their monthly with inflation. wage packet of only CAD$85. with the unions' view that poor and inflexible company management has Employers, on the other hand, The cycle of tension and violence been a complicating factor in labour have pleaded poverty in collective moved up some notches as the unrest. bargaining sessions. They argue result of worker frustration. In that ESAP has adversely affected May, workers at an Harare transport Under ESAP workers real in them as well, in the form of declining and removals company locked-in comes have plummeted by 60%. Ac markets, stiffer competition and management over a salary dispute cording to the ZCTU most work skyrocketing costs exacerbated by and allegations of racism in the ers' real wages are now only one continued high real interest rates. workplace, and chased away union quarter of what they were at in And it is true that many businesses sector representatives as "sell-outs" dependence in 1980. Worse still, have been negatively affected by the looking for weak compromises with formal sector employment has been reform programme they vociferously management. A week earlier, in stagnant since 1990, if not shrink demanded barely six years ago. a bitter dispute over injury and ing - the ZCTU estimates as many Indeed more than 100 medium and death benefits, they had dumped in as 70,000 have been retrenched un large companies (along with 10,000 management offices the coffin of a der ESAP "rationalization," and jobs) have been liquidated since the fellow worker killed on the job. many more positions have been "ca start of 1996- with more than forty In July, 2000 striking construc sualized" and otherwise devalued. firms going under in 1997 alone. tion workers smashed company ve Meanwhile, each year approximately But for most companies the main hicles, and looted and vandalized of 300,000 school graduates come onto problem has not been higher wage fices, at a brick-making factory on the national job market. The com packets- in real terms, average wage the outskirts of Harare. The follow bined effect of these factors on the bills have generally declined since ing month, strikers at a Lonrho mine national labour market is sharply 1990 - but rather shrinking markets in Arcturus set fire to electricity in negative. and poor management. stallations in the course of a protest Yet at the same time, the cost A stark reflection of poor man over company changes to housing of living for ordinary Zimbabweans agement has been the continuing benefits, which had been unilaterally has headed off in the other direction. inattention given to labour relations effected - and then withdrawn - by The Consumer Council of Zimbabwe by most firms. This has been an Lonrho at eight of its mines across estimates that the basic minimum other key factor in the recent rounds the country. More recently, groups income requirement for a family of public and private sector strikes, among the 40,000 striking commer of three is approximately CAD$155 according to those shopfloor workers cial farmworkers vented their frus - an amount considerably above and union affiliates who have led the tration by damaging and looting the minimum wage in most sectors. actions. Some conservative business property, and physically threatening Most semi-skilled workers now earn pundits have echoed this view, not employers. about $100 a month. However, ing that worker-management rela many on the lower end of the scale tions have steadily deteriorated un A r eflection of h ard ship - for example, farmworkers and der liberalized labour market regu Government appears to have been security guards who struck for better lations, with management in partic taken aback by the wide reach and pay in September - earn as little as ular to blame for preferring to react to labour crises - rather than to an militancy of labour actions this year. CAD$2 a day for full-time, arduous Unionists and employers have not. and dangerous work. ticipate and prevent them. 20 november 1997 Southern Africa REPORT ------~~mm@~@~------ ...u ro a. E c 0 ...ro Cl.. <1) u 2 -...... --..- en "Ungrateful bosses," the ZCTU led to some much needed relief for since last year - for example, added, have "refused to address workers in terms of significant in the entrenchment of new collective the plight of the almost destitute creases in nominal - if not real - in bargaining rights, structures and majority workers" and "kept the comes. procedures - were absent from most colonial mentality of cheap labour." But where the continuing bouts of the strike actions this year. of worker activism are likely to lead This is largely due to the wildcat and spontaneous nature of many of An uncertain future the Zimbabwean labour movement in the future, is another matter. these stoppages and strikes, and the An important lesson learned by Zim absence of union involvement and babwean workers in the past year The current "concessions" by leadership in these actions. Indeed is that labour militancy frequently employers around wage packets and this absence was so pronounced, pays off, whereas lopsided bargain bonuses - which nonetheless re as to prompt the director of ing with management does not. In main sub-economic for thousands of the Employers Confederation of the recent past, weaknesses in the households - are fragile ones, partic Zimbabwe, Peter Kunjeku, to claim collective bargaining process - as ularly in the context of Zimbabwe's that union leaders had "lost control well as within national trade union continuing high rates of inflation and of their workers." structures - have pushed thousands rising consumer price indices. While of workers to look for alternative wage increases of 25-30% have been This may have been true. But forms of expressing their demands achieved, settlements to labour ac what Kunjeku did not realize and grievances. With hard-nosed tions this year have not included, for was that the loss of control over labour action in the public sector the most part, provisions for index the strikers occurred long before in 1996 having been seen to pro ing, pension and other benefits or the strikes began. And for duce immediate and positive results, job security. Nor have they estab shopfloor workers, the national labour militancy has become in lished stronger structures for work labour movement, employers and creasingly common in a wide range place democracy, or more transpar government alike, this reality will of other sectors as a means of ent and even-handed bargaining pro perhaps be more destabilizing for obtaining goals previously pursued cedures in most cases. labour relations in the long term, through collective bargaining. In the In this sense the important gains than the current wave of strikes has short term at least, this process has marked by public sector workers been in the short. Southern Africa REPORT november 1997 21 ______llil@lliffi~@~@ ______Struggle Against Silence Reclaiming History in Namibia BY LAUREN DOBELL exercised by Swapo's opponents, the government got down to busi Garoeb personified the autocratic ness, forging alliances with local Lauren Dobell is a doctoral candidate style which many of its critics believe entrepreneurs, enticing foreign in at Oxford University and a student of remains the true bent of Namibia's vestors, and wooing the donor com Namibian politics. governing party. The unenthusias munity, the party's function was to The late Moses Garoeb, Swapo's tic response of the Namibian peo reassure Swapo supporters that they administrative secretary in exile ple to the lavish state funeral held had not been forgotten. As dissat from 1971-89 and the party's first following his death in October must isfaction at the slow pace of eco secretary-general following indepen be read in part as a message to the nomic reform grew among Namib dence, was, for many, the public party to which he dedicated his life. ian youth, labour unions, ex-PLAN face of Swapo's "hardline." More fighters and the rural majority from at home with confrontational than Party tricks which Swapo draws the bulk of its conciliatory politics, intolerant of Although perhaps a natural fit, support, it was Garoeb who identi dissent, and uncomfortable with Garoeb's post-independence role fi ed - and pilloried - scapegoats for democratic freedoms, especially as was prescribed by necessity. While their grievances. Moses Garoeb with cabinet colleague Dr. Libertine Amathila 22 november 1997 Sou t hern Africa REPORT ------~~mm~@fuiD ______ Constitutional concessions to mi Swapo's "Gestapo" chief should look Wall of Silence (reviewed in Vol. 11 nority rights and the protection of elsewhere. No.4 SAR) in early 1996, and there private property, press freedoms, the sultant formation of a "Breaking the composition of the judiciary, protec After independence and Swapo's Wall of Silence" (BWS) movement tions for civil servants left over from smooth segue into political power, comprising mainly former Swapo de the previous regime - all, since in Garoeb continued to serve as a tainees, the detainee issue has kin dependence, have felt the sting of buffer between the Swapo govern dled unprecedented debate within ment and the people who put them Garoeb's scathing tongue. While his Namibia. In the process it has both colleagues consolidated their hold on m power. As Chief Coordinator expanded the parameters of demo power, Garoeb ostensibly spoke for and subsequently Secretary-General cratic dissent, and thrown the limits of the party, he harnessed the popu the people. The populist role was to the government's tolerance of ex a balancing act, particularly as he lar discontent with chronic high un pressions of dissent into sharp relief. also held a Cabinet position and employment, continuing widespread The BWS' efforts exposed not only enjoyed the generous perks of of poverty and rising crime rates, and the extent of historical silences, but fice, including a government-issue deflected it from the Swapo leader the contemporary boundaries of po Mercedes-Benz, but Garoeb played ship towards other targets. At the litical space. These ambitions were it with apparent conviction and vast same time, he was free to articu retroactively made explicit in the reserves of apoplectic rhetoric. He late Swapo's worst instincts, lashing group's first annual report, released also played it with some success, at out at perceived foes on the govern in April 1997: least in the eyes of party loyalists, ment's behalf, while his parliamen tary colleagues put as much distance • To find a lasting solution to the among whom he was known as "The unresolved problem of the Swapo Chief." between themselves and his bellicose rhetoric as they deemed politic. ex-detainees, the missing people A chapter closing and their families and relatives, Garoeb's death in October of this Historical silences including those who died under year, at the age of 55, marks the South African rule, beginning of the end of an era in Rumours fly fast and furiously • To work with other groups Namibia. Swapo's top leadership in Namibia's capital city, and and individuals in civil society to has changed little in thirty years already there are murmurings in help create a culture of democracy, (half of the current Cabinet have Windhoek that Garoeb confessed tolerance, openness, truthfulness, held executive positions in the on his deathbed to none other and human dignity in Namibia. party since its Tanga Conference than Reverend N akamhela. The Secretary-General of the Council of 1969), and some are now m Sound and fury poor health. Other well-known of Churches of Namibia (CCN), Swapo figures - John ya Otto, Axel Nakamhela was object of some of Initially, however, the group's efforts Johannes and Danny Tjongarero Garoeb's most virulent attacks over were more narrowly focused on among them - have passed away the past 18 months, as he tried creating as wide as possible an since independence, but none were to steer a fractious CCN executive audience for Pastor Groth's book so integral to the movement's towards a controversial conference through an official launch and internal workings, nor privy to as on national reconciliation. Despite homemade translations into the many of its secr'ets as Garoeb. the CCN's demurrals, the conference more widely-spoken Afrikaans and Based mainly in Angola during was seen by some as a first step Oshivambo - the latter directed at the 1980s, Garoeb is known to have towards a truth commission for the heartland of Swapo's support. been involved in Swapo's darkest Namibia, a process Garoeb, and It was a measure of how close moments in exile, and, according those he sheltered, were anxious to to home the charges struck that to former Swapo detainees, was one avoid. it was President Sam Nujoma who of the few Swapo leaders to have The reinvigorated detainee is spearheaded the attack on Groth's personally visited the "dungeons" sue, to which such a conference book. It was Garoeb, however, who of Lubango where alleged spies would have lent momentum, not sustained the assault with a vigour were imprisoned. Former captives, only delves into an aspect ofSwapo's that to many eyes seemed dispropor however, generally accuse him only past Garoeb strove hard to conceal. tionate to the threat. Subsequent of carrying out orders, shielding It represents, in the present, a chal events seem to have borne out his the identities of those responsible lenge to Swapo's post-indepenclence fears however, although the ranting for launching the spy-hunt. His definition and practice of national may have been a tactical mistake, cousin and political foe, United reconciliation - in essence a pol drawing the attention of Swapo's Democratic Front leader . Justus icy of letting bygones be bygones. supporters and detractors alike to Garoeb, would allude to this at his Since the English-language release the movement's deepest insecurities funeral, saying that those looking for of Siegfried Groth's Namibia: The and its proclivity for authoritar- Southern Africa REPORT november 1997 23 ian measures when cornered. De volume was called) failed to satisfy break from the ruling party at its spite Garoeb's warning that blood former detainees and human rights Congress in August. Its president, shed could result from attempts activists, who pointed to numerous Abraham Ndumbu, had earlier been to reopen old wounds, several new errors of omission and commission, expelled from the party "for not voices took up the call for Swapo while former detainees demanded acting according to Party values to "come clean." To predictable that their fellow captives not be in and norms" following his public exhortations from the Legal Assis cluded in a list of Namibian patri call for Swapo to come clean on tance Centre, the National Society ots without formal exoneration from the detainees issue, accompanied by for Human Rights and the indepen the accusations of treason which had demands for a tougher approach to dent press, were added urgings from caused their families so much suffer government corruption. historical allies such as the branch ing. Although not without conse of the national student organisa The CCN too has found itself quences, as the newly-renamed tion (N ANSO) officially affiliated to both trailing public opinion and fac "Mighty NANSO" quickly discov Swapo, and NANGOF, an umbrella ing fissures, along ethnic and reli ered, such outspokenness set an body of non-government organisa gious lines, within its own organi important precedent, widening the tions. Radio phone-in shows and sation. Having declared 1997 The window for more open criticism q.f the letters section of newspapers tes Year of God's Grace, it has repeat the ruling party ,from within its tified to a growing interest in the edly postponed the series of con ranks, as well as from without. It topic, as well as a general unease, ferences on reconciliation (the first seems to be spreading to other hith even among sympathetic contribu of which was originally promised in erto more pliant structures. In re tors, with the histrionics of some early 1996) that were to have been cent months the Swapo government high-profile Swapo leaders. While its centrepiece. The bishops of the has come under unprecedented fire these remained defiant, however, major northern churches appear to from its union affiliates, among oth there were signs of strain within be under considerable pressure from ers, for what is, admittedly, some the broader leadership of the party, the President, apart from any dis of its most outrageous behaviour to whose unified front appeared to be comfort they themselves - and their date. A Cabinet decision to award faltering under the weight of a guilt congregations - feel about appearing lavish retirement benefits to senior that many are weary of shouldering to jeopardize a longstanding secular political and military officials cre for the past actions of a few. alliance with Swapo. ated such a public furore that the Catching up to the critics government was forced to back down Fraying alliances while the President dissociated him Neither the proportion of the pop Though not the sole factor, the self from the decision - implicitly ulation actively involved in the de detainees issue has also contributed undermining the authority of the bate, nor the position the detainee to the fraying of ties between Swapo Prime Minister and the notion of issue occupied in the hierarchy of and other historical allies. The wing collective re&ponsibility for govern quotidian concerns of most Namib of the national student organisation, ment policy in the process. ians should be exaggerated, but NANSO, which remained affiliated Swapo leaders' appalled reaction to Political space to Swapo following a split in the the phenomenon of sustained open An indignant media kept the pres organization m 1991, voted to criticism was a reflection of its nov sure on, and eventually forced the elty. Whether owing primarily to additional retraction of a new "do these domestic pressures or evi mestic workers allowance" for Cabi dence of heightened external interest net members, which had initially by (Nujoma was repeatedly questioned passed notice, and a retreat from the about the detainee issue by reporters planned purchase of another new jet during a state visit to Germany in ARTCRAFT I ACTION PRINf for the President. The independent June), Swapo finally took its first - press, led by The Namibian, which constructive step in August 1996. Specialists in Multicolour and earned its stripes monitoring abuses Black & On the national Heroes Day holiday White pre-press, of power by the erstwhile South printing and finishing it released a long-promised, though African administration, is running hastily compiled, list of Namibians Newsletters * magazines * brochures ever more strongly-worded editori Envelopes of all sizes are our forte who "sacrificed" during the strug als and publishing stories more cen Business and Personal Stationery gle against South Africa or died of sorious than it would have contem natural causes in exile while under Desktop output *& *camerawork· * services plated even a year ago. A similar Swapo's care. Though welcomed as 2370 Midland Ave., Unit C-10, Scarborough, candour has infused the national air a positive contribution, Their Blood Ont MIS 5C6 (416) 412-<>412/Fax 412-<>414 waves. On a recent episode of the Waters Our Freedom (as the bound Call today for estimate and advice! popular televised public affairs pro- 24 november 1997 Southern Africa REPORT gram, "Talk of the Nation," govern constitutional guarantees offreedom followers that it represents their ment spokespersons attempted to of association. A new National Intel interests despite growing evidence justify lucrative allowances for polit ligence Service Bill hurried through to the contrary, and effectively ical leaders on the grounds that such Parliament in August attaches wide marginalizing its critics, including measures were needed to counter powers to such a body in putative those who seek to recover and expose corruption. In sharp contrast to the defence of state security. Another the truth about the dark side of its usually deferential routine, however motion now before Parliament which history. As government colleagues - and to the evident surprise and appears to give Parliamentary com distanced themselves from both discomfiture of the government rep mittees the power to subpoena jour tasks, Moses Garoeb was on the resentatives - they were raked over nalists and compel them to reveal frontline. In the end, however, the coals by a panel comprising op their sources, is also a source of con Garoeb was unable to bury Swapo's position politicians, journalists and cern. Finally, in the wake of the past and may even, if the rumours trade union representatives. Swapo Congress, it now seems cer are true, have helped in the end tain that the President will run for a to uncover it. And recent events A measure of the extent to which third term in office, a move requiring suggest that it will be more difficult the government has lost touch with the ruling party to avail itself of its in the future for his successor to the people may be inferred from two-thirds majority in Parliament protect the government from the the response to the arrangements for in order to unilaterally amend its consequences of public discontent. Moses Garoeb's state funeral. The model constitution, and thereby set Seven years after independence, as government's declaration of a pub ting another dangerous precedent. it becomes harder to persuade the lic holiday was sharply criticised by people that it is in touch with businesses, banks and the media, Conclusion their real concerns, the government's while annoyance over the cancella For Swapo's leadership, its rapid options are to resort to more tion of sporting events and the re consolidation of political power draconian measures to muffle the placement of the regular NBC sched since independence has entailed criticism, or to pull up its socks and ule with four days of mournful mu persuading the majority of its live up to its promises. sic was more in evidence than sorrow among the general populace. Atten dance at the funeral itself - which was modelled in many respects af ter Princess Diana's - was surpris More than 200 titles ingly small, in light of the national to choose from! public holiday and the central venue The most comprehensive subscription catalogue of of the Parliament gardens. This Canadian magazines is now available. Treat family, friends, apathetic observance of the passing co-workers or yourself to the latest information on of the most senior Swapo leader to everything from home decor to current affairs or indulge die since independence may be the yourself with any of our 48 literaries. The handy address most flagrant sign to date that the directory also makes it a useful reference tool for anyone who wants to know more about Canadian publications. party's liberation movement glam our has faded. It can no longer sim To receive a copy of the catalogue, send in your complet ply equate support for Swapo's lead ed coupon along with $5 (includes GST, shipping and ership to patriotism, nor prescribe handling). We also acceptVISA or MasterCard orders by and choreograph expressions of pa fax or phone. triotic sentiment. V: ' Send me Great Canadian Magazines 1998. I Against the evidence that 1 eS am enclosing mr cheque or credit card information Namibian civil society is at last find • for $5 (GST, postage and handling are included). ing a voice, and carving out an en Name larged space for acceptable political Address discourse, must be weighed contin City Prov uing efforts by the ruling party to limit that space. In a disturbing Postal Code Telephone reminder of Administrator-General 0 Cheque Enclosed 0 Visa 0 MasterCard proclamations of the past, the Pres # Expiry Date ident recently declared that demon strations and public meetings would Signature require official permission to pro Thank you for subscribing! SAR ceed, in absolute contravention of .Southern Africa REPORT november 1997 25 ______mill@~®~fuillW® ______~---- Success Story? B.retton Woods Backlash in Mozambique BY JOSEPH H ANLON made, but published and internal up of foreign exchange reserves" in documents show that the IMF has Mozambique. Joseph Hanlon is a writer on south responded to donor and World Bank ern Africa and the author of "Peace For more than two years, the pressure and slightly loosened its Without Profit: How the IMF Blocks donor community has been pushing grip on Mozambique. The IMF for a more expansionary policy, Rebuilding in Mozambique." (Heine had prohibited Mozambique from mann, 1996) which would allow more money spending aid which was actually for investment and concentrate "Existing social inequalities and re on offer to rebuild schools, roads less on simply curbing spending. gional asymmetry could endanger and health posts and to restart the The first public step was the the climate of peace, calm and economy; publicly the IMF denied October 1995 statement by donors social harmony t.hat is the ba this, but donors became increasingly criticizing the IMF. In October 1996 sic prerequisite for balanced and outspoken and even issued a public the World Bank's vice-president self-sustaining socio-economic de statement in 1995. for Africa, Callisto Madavo, told velopment," Prime Minister Pas Aid spending is limited in two a Maputo press conference that coal Mocumbi warned donors on 17 ways. One target Mozambique the Bank would press this in May 1997 at the Paris Consultative agreed to with the IMF is "deficit negotiating the annual joint IMF Group meeting. before grants." In other words, World Bank "Mozambique Policy In an otherwise upbeat and deficit targets must be met before Framework Paper" (PFP). self-congratulatory speech, it was grants can be made available. The Bank stuck to its word , a harsh and undiplomatic warning Since the government cannot run and when the PFP was issued on that all is not well, and was as an overall deficit, "deficit before 8 May 1997, it really did allow close as Dr Mocumbi could safely go grants" must be less than total a substantial increase in spending. toward criticizing the International grants, and thus is effectively the Deficit before grant rises more than Monetary Fund's (IMF) continued amount of aid that the government $90 million this year, with an can spend. London-based experts neo-liberal policies in Mozambique. increase of more than $50 million in on the IMF in Africa say that The meeting showed growing capital expenditure. the Fund is being much harder on awareness that Mozambique may Mozambique than on many other But, in effect, donors who not be the Bretton Woods success African countries, such as Uganda, claimed they wanted to give more story that is so widely touted. Three where the IMF does not use deficit to Mozambique have been told to interconnected issues were on the before grant as a cap on aid. "put up or shut up," because foreign table, explicitly or implicitly: reserves will still have to increase by 1. IMF stabilization has been The second key is the require more than $90 million - less than squeezing Mozambique too hard, ment for an increase in "interna last year, but still substantial- and preventing essential reconstruction tional reserves" - in effect , dollars this must be funded by donors. and encouraging inefficiency and in the bank. These two are linked, corruption. because donors have in recent years The table at the right shows 2. Adjustment has benefited only the offered Mozambique more aid than what has happened over the past better off in Maputo; the poor and the IMF would allow it to spend, three years, and what the IMF those outside the capital have lost and the IMF has insisted that this demands are for the next two. What out, as income gaps widen. Thus the extra aid simply be kept in the bank the table shows is that the amount threats to peace cited by Mocumbi. as extra reserves. The increase in of aid the government could use fell foreign reserves is accounted for by sharply between 1994 and 1996 - by 3. The Bretton Woods institutions cuts in spending on war repairs. $166 million per year in just two work in the interests of trans years. This caused a fall in capital national capital and against domes Even Jeffrey Sachs, the very conser vative director of the Harvard Insti expenditure of $60 million per year tic capital. tute for International Development, -which meant war damaged roads, Loosening the str a n glehold wrote that "there is no clear need schools and health posts in rural No public statements have been for a rapid and substantial build- areas were not repaired. The donors 26 november 1997 Southern Africa REPORT ______Nffi@~~Nill~~~@ ______ were still willing to give money, so ket has concentrated development in puto corridor" which links Maputo the IMF insisted it be put in the Maputo, at the expense of the north to South Africa. bank. and rural areas in general. All of the The permitted increase in capital biggest proposed or agreed projects Expensive restaurants continue expenditure was matched by an un - including an iron and steel plant, to open in Maputo and survive expected increase in current spend a huge aluminium smelter, Mozam on Maputo's new rich rather than ing which will be used to increase bique's largest tourist development, tourists, although there is also a civil service salaries. IMF spending an export processing zone, and a boom in tourist facilities with sev curbs had forced the salaries of more new toll road - are concentrated in eral new hotels under construction than half of all civil servants to be the tiny World Bank-promoted "Ma- or just open. low the poverty line, and this was widely seen as a motor behind cor ruption. Low paid staff took bribes and stole time and equipment in order to feed their families - cor ruption through need - but then they could not denounce their su periors who were corrupt through greed. This was recognized by Plan ning and Finance Minister Tomaz Salomao when he warned donors in Paris that the elimination of corrup tion is dependent on "an increase in salaries to levels which give dignity to the civil servant and meet their cost ofliving." Now this will be per mitted. Only in Maputo Easing the IMF stranglehold which threatened to suffocate Mozambique only tackles part of the problem. Mocumbi pointed to the danger of class and regional differences, both of which are widening. In an unre stricted free market, resources nor mally flow to the richest people and the most developed areas. The overwhelming el\lphasis on the mar- IMF controlled amounts ($million) Deficit Capital Total before expen- foreign grant diture reserves Actual: 1994 434 358 127 1995 310 319 160 1996 268 298 290 .. Programme: 1997 360 353 371 1998 390 379 462 Education cuts leave schools in a poor state Southern Africa REPORT november 1997 27 ______mm©~~mm@n~~------ Visiting IMF and World Bank The IMF recognizes the growing small business, at a disadvantage is staff who only frequent Maputo's backlash against privatization, with the lack of capital. The IMF im cement city do, indeed, see a vision its loss of jobs and reduction of local posed particularly harsh credit lim of growth, expansion and prosperity. control. In its 9 June 1997 report its, which meant banks could give In parallel there is a growth of on Mozambique's request for an En so few loans that they simply gave informal markets and street trading, hanced Structural Adjustment Fa the easiest ones- to Maputo traders. as Maputo's poor struggle to eke out cility (i.e. an IMF loan), the Fund There were no loans for rural trade, a living, and a growth of violent sets as one of its "structural perfor and few loans for the productive sec crime- but this is seen only through mance criteria" that "the momen tor (which needed longer term loans the car window by those who talk of tum of privatization is not lost in and not just 90-day trade credit). Mozambique's success story. the face of political opposition." In This led to a major marketing crisis other words, democracy cannot ex last year, when peasants produced a Keeping domestic capital down tend to privatization. bumper crop and no one bought it. When the cashew processing in The concentration of investment in An allied problem was that many dustry was unexpectedly bought by Maputo is not accidental. The small Mozambican business people domestic trading capital instead of iron, steel and aluminium plants had their factories, shops, farms and foreign firms, the World Bank within would more sensibly be sited in lorries destroyed .in the war. In months published a previously se Beira. Putting them in Maputo some cases they still owed loans on cret report calling for the cashew means that foreign managers can that equipment. No money was processing industry to be closed drive (using the new toll road) or fly available to get started after the down. It was a stark warning to do in from South Africa for the day - war. In a few areas, particularly mestic business not to get above its or stay for the weekend in the new tourism, tiny South African business station. Since then, all major pri beachfront resorts. It seems that people were able to move in because vatizations have involved Mozambi foreign investors are prepared to they could get loans in South cans only as junior partners of for spend substantial amounts of extra Africa. Again, Bretton Woods eign firms. money, for example for an extra 1000 policy put Mozambican capital at a Naturally, the Maputo corridor is km of power line for the aluminium disadvantage. dominated by South African firms, Small business rural areas face plant, in order to make it easy to pop m acting on their own or as agents for two other problems. One is that five back to Jo'burg. TNCs . . years after the end of the war, many And all of the emphasis of The domestic business sector destroyed rural roads and bridges the Bretton Woods institutions hardly has clean hands; it has been have not been repaired. This is due (BWis) has been to ensure the involved in drug and currency deal to World Bank policy on road repair entry of foreign capital and the ing and profiteering. Nevertheless, which puts the stress on main roads development of Johannesburg as a it has won growing national support, used by foreign businesses which are sub-metropole. World Bank bidding particularly from the press and from being upgraded and rebuilt to high procedures make it very difficult trade unions which would rather standards by foreign contractors; for Mozambican firms to bid - deal with domestic business inter this is linked to the IMF cap on they cannot get credit (due to IMF ests. spending, which means that if main credit ceilings), they cannot hire One factor which has put do roads are rebuilt, minor rural roads requisite skilled staff (because the mestic business, and particularly cannot be. international agencies pay more), and the BWls prevent Mozambique from giving any support to domestic industry. So it is foreign contractors who win the tenders for the toll road and for World Bank funded road rehabilitation. An Indian company won the contract for school text books, when local firms could have done a better job. Privatization has also been rushed through at record speed to ensure that the biggest state com panies go to trans-national corpo rations: cement to the Portuguese, beer to South Africa, etc. Small business training course in Maputo 28 november 1997 Southern Africa REPORT ______mm©~~mm~n~~@ ______ It is also important to remark "Grievances about the econ that with an El Nino triggered omy" drought forecast for 1997/98, there are no food reserves in Mozambique Although Mozambique is touted by because the Bretton Woods insti the Bretton Woods institutions as tutions consider it poor practice to one of its few African "success" keep reserves, as was common in the stories, the easing off - limited past. Instead, they argue it makes though it may be by the more economic sense to buy on the IMF, reflects pressure from donors world market in poor years. This is and those more perceptive of the a bias toward the big international international agencies who realize grain traders and against local busi that success cannot be measured by ness. But with IMF spending caps, sitting beside the pool at the Hotel it also means that Mozambique will Polana in Maputo. again have to take money away from A larger question remains, how schools and health posts to import ever. Are such minor changes of ma1ze. direction really likely to be enough Slight easing for rural business to blunt the relevance of the kind of stark warnings about current Prime Minister Mocumbi summa policies that are rife in Mozam rized all of these problems in his bique? Consider one of the most May Paris speech when he noted recent of such warnings, from the that "the national private business Refugee Studies Programme in Ox class, which is still nascent and lack ford: that body's careful and in ing in financial resources, has to an sightful study of "The Reintegration extent been penalized by the restric of Ex-combatants in Mozambique" tive policies that help to slow down - written by Chris Dolan and Jes inflation, particularly in the decapi sica Schafer and issued in June of talized rural areas." this year - points to "a lack of vis ible reconstruction efforts in many areas." It also warns that "rural most dogmatic free market policies. areas are thus trapped in a vicious Previously it had argued that the circle: lack of roads leads to lack market was the only "efficient" way of market opportunities which leads to allocate credit. This year the to lack of cash and in turn inability IMF allowed Mozambique to set up to buy consumer goods, resulting in three special funds which will direct reluctance on the part of the rural Home-brew on the way to money to disadvantaged parts of the population to produce agricultural domestic private sector. an informal market surplus and thus economic stagna • One special fund will allow the tion." The final problem is the Bret government to use receipts from pri ton Woods obsessive opposition to vatization (which the IMF had pre '"Democracy' did bring elections agricultural marketing boards, in viously said had to remain in the but it brought no great change in troduced throughout the region in bank and could not be used) com the standard of living of the major the colonial era and abolished now. bined with donor and NGO funds to ity. Disappointment on this account They were wholesale (and some create an Economic Rehabilitation is now strongly expressed in all quar times retail) buyers of food crops Fund (FARE) to provide credit for ters," conclude Dolan and Schafer. such as maize, and also maintained small rural enterprises. This means, among other things, large stockpiles; now, it is the peas that demobilized soldiers who have • The second fund will be used to ants and traders who are expected to returned to the countryside, often pay off debts incurred by private maintain any supplies, but with the with their guns, are increasingly dis shortage of credit, traders will not firms for assets destroyed during the satisfied. "It is not encouraging to war. These debts make it impossible buy maize if they cannot sell it. In hear the high level of frustration and for many small traders to take new - many areas there was no commerce latent violence just below the surface I at all last season, because traders loans. . .. [T]he widespread persistence of could not work profitably with no • The third fund will assist the rural grievances aqout the economy does credit and no marketing board. commercial network. not bode well for the future." Southern Africa REPORT november 1997 29 Crossed Purposes Migrant Attitudes in Southern Africa BY DAVID McD ONALD The policy implications of these Key highlights David McDonald teaches at Queen's negative public perceptions are far It's evident from the survey that not University in Kingston, Ontario, and is reaching. With the South African everyone from Lesotho, Mozambique the Project Manager of the Southern government currently in the pro and Zimbabwe wants to get into African Migration Project. cess of revamping its apartheid-era South Africa. Despite the popular immigration legislation (currently notion in South Africa that Africans Most South Africans are proud of known under the rather ominous ti from other parts of the region would the transition that has taken place tle of The Aliens Control Act), anti do anything to get into the country, in their country over the past five immigrant sentiment has the poten an overwhelming· number of the years - and rightly so. South Africa tial to disrupt a rational and more people interviewed identified their in many ways has been an exemplary progressive policy-making process. home country as a better place to model of peaceful and democratic Part of the problem is the raise a family than South Africa. change with lessons for other African enormous gap in understanding Better access to basic resources like nations and beyond. of cross-border migration in the land, water and housing were the most important reasons, but safety Pride also has its prejudice, region. A better understanding could support the development of and crime levels were also seen to however, and most South Africans be much more favourable at home. believe that they live in the best an immigration policy that is more consistent with South Africa's Even South Africa's much vaunted country on the continent. Popular democratic reforms don't seem to opinion in the country has it that broader commitment to human rights and its prominent role in have made much of an impression. South Africa is the land of "milk Over two-thirds of the respondents and honey" and that every other the Southern African Development Community (see Jonathan Crush's said they find "peace," "freedom" African in the region is desperate and "democracy" to be as good, or to come and share the wealth article in SAR Volume 12, Number 1 for an overview of the need for a better, in their home country as in and happiness that "Egoli" has to South Africa. offer. Newspaper headlines in South new immigration policy platform for the region). Not surprisingly, job opportuni Africa prominently bemoan what is ties were deemed far better in South termed the "flood of aliens" into the It is with these concerns in mind Africa than at home, as were op country and the crime, disease and that the Southern African Migration portunities for buying and selling chaos that these masses are assumed Project (SAMP) has launched a goods. But this perception of bet to bring with them from Africa (as series of national public opinion ter job opportunities does not nec if the rest of Africa were somehow polls in the region on people's essarily translate into a flood of mi distinct from the southern tip of the attitudes towards migration and gration. Only 13% of those inter continent). migrants and their opinions on viewed said it was "very likely" they The extent and scale of xenopho possible immigration policies for the would go to South Africa for a short bia in the country is difficult to de future. period of time (up to two years) termine and there appear to be sig and only six per cent said that it nificant differences across race, class One set of these surveys were re was "very likely" that they would and gender lines on this issue. But cently completed with 2,300 people move to South Africa permanently. it is also clear that there is a strong in Lesotho, Mozambique and Zimba Taking into account that an even and widespread concern that South bwe, the three largest source coun smaller percentage of these respon Africa is going to be overrun with tries of migration to South Africa. dents would actually make the move illegal migrants from neighbouring The surveys were done over an eight to uproot themselves in order to live countries and that something needs month period starting in October of in South Africa, the actual num to be done to stem this tide and 1996, and represent the most com ber of people wanting to leave their shore up what are perceived to be prehensive surveys on cross-border home country is much smaller than extremely porous international bor migration yet conducted in the re one would be led to believe in the ders. gwn. press. 30 november 1997 Southern Africa REPORT Survey results indicate people in nificant number of people are still respectively). The questionnaire the region respect international bor crossing the border without proper· did not, unfortunately, capture ders. Contrary to popular opin documentation, the figures are not the dynamics of joint decision ion in South Africa, people from nearly as high as one would suspect making between men and women Lesotho, Mozambique and Zimba from anecdotal reports in the press. - often an important part of the bwe do not simply expect the South (The fact that the majority of re decision-making process in African African government to throw open spondents without proper visas were households - but the statistics the doors to whomever wants to en from Zimbabwe is partly a product clearly imply that men are more ter the country. With the notable of the fact that it is so difficult and in control of decision making about exception of Lesotho (where 41% time consuming to get a visa for cross-border migration than women. of those interviewed think the two South Africa in that country). But it is the similarities in countries should simply "join un Based on these findings, the men's and women's responses that der one government"), over three movement of people across the proved to be the most interesting. quarters of the respondents felt the South African border from Lesotho, Despite the very different concrete South African government should Mozambique and Zimbabwe would experiences that men and women restrict the number of people al appear to be a much more formal, have with respect to cross-border lowed into the country and should moderate and regularized activity migration and the different decision be able to deport those who com than previously thought and the making process they go through, mit crimes and/or are in the coun potential to manage cross-border their attitudes to migration and try without proper documentation. migration in the future may not be their perspectives on life in South Most of these people would like to as difficult as anticipated. The crude Africa and at home are remarkably see policies in place that make it policy dichotomy of "open borders" similar. easier for people to move from one versus "fortress South Africa" need country to another, and many ques Almost to a percentage point, not be the only options in South women gave the same responses tion the legitimacy of borders that Africa, particularly if there is a were created during the colonial and as men on virtually every opinion strong foundation of regularized based question in the survey. Their apartheid era, but they do not advo movement already in place from perceptions of South Africa, their cate a radical dismantling of current which to build a more humane border systems. reasons for going to South Africa and regionally integrated "border (or for not going), their expected It would also appear from the management" approach to the issue. treatment by South African author surveys that movement across the ities and citizens, and their com South African border is not nearly Questions of gender parisons of South Africa with their as corrupt or chaotic as one might There are some important differ home country were almost identical expect from press coverage in South ences between men and women in to that of the men interviewed. And Africa. Of the 40% of respondents terms of their personal experiences although women were slightly less who said that they had been to with cross-border migration which knowledgeable and slightly less sure South Africa, 49% crossed the can be highlighted briefly (women of themselves in terms of their abil border by car or combi, 22% by made up 44% of the sample size for ity to get into South Africa and to bus, 14% by train and 4% by a total of 1,012 interviews). find accommodation and work there, plane or other' formal mod.e . of As would be expected, more men transportation. Of the remammg the differences were not that great. have been to South Africa than Women outlined a similar pattern 8% that said they crossed the border women, they tend to stay for longer on foot, most of them took a bus or of family and friends networking in periods of time and they tend to South Africa as did the men, and combi to the border, walked through work in more formal, pre-arranged they expressed a similar understand customs, and then took another bus occupations, such as mining and ing of how one lives as a foreigner or combi to their destination in manufacturing. More men claimed in South Africa. In other words, South Africa. In other words, there to be the head of the household women have the same general per are relatively few people sneaking than did women (57% versus 18% ceptions of South Africa vis-a-vis into the country under fences or respectively), more men claimed to their own countries, and they have a j swimming across rivers. be the person who "makes the very similar sense of what it takes to Moreover, 89% of these respon final decision as to whether to be a migrant in the Southern African dents had official passports from go to South Africa or not" (57% context. their home country before entering versus 29% respectively) and more South Africa and 72% had the ap men claimed that they "would be Most surprising, perhaps, is the propriate South African visa. ~! able to go to South Africa if fact that both men and women though these figures show that a stg- [they] wanted to" (76% versus 61% were positive about the impacts of Southern Africa REPORT november 1997 31 cross-border migration, despite their very similar opinions on what should agement of cross-border migration is generally negative images of South be done about immigration policy going to be a simple task. Anything Africa and despite the largely neg in the region in the future. There's but. There is still much to learned ative interpretations of the migrant a strong desire to see a relaxation about the causes, consequences and labour system in popular and aca of strict cross-border movement dimensions of cross-border migra demic writings. In total, over two controls, but not necessarily a tion in Southern Africa and a lot thirds of men and women equally complete dismantling of the notion of restructuring to be done within said that migration had a positive or of national sovereignty. the current immigration system . It neutral impact on their family, their Whether these differences and is essential, therefore, that South community and their nation. similarities between men and women African policy makers and the South Even when asked how migration have any direct policy implications African public at large be exposed to impacts on "you personally" - a is unclear at this point. Besides a more balanced and more informed question that might elicit a fairly a need to give these survey results debate on this extremely important negative response from women given closer scrutiny and analysis, there policy topic. Public opinion surveys the impact that the migrant labour is the possibility that women's do not, in and of themselves, pro system has had on family life in the opinions on cross-border migration vide a full picture of a very com past - both men and women gave are largely shaped by the men in plex phenomenon but they do help a largely positive response (14% of their households. Nevertheless, the academics and policy makers to get women said "very positive," 39% data do raise some counter-intuitive a better understanding of what is said "positive," and 27% said "no questions about women's attitudes driving (or not driving) the migra impact" ). Mind you, 26% of women to cross-border migration and would tion process and what kinds of policy and 23% of men identified "having appear to challenge the notion that initiatives may be more appropriate an affair" or "having a second women see migration in a different and acceptable than others. family" in South Africa as one of light than men. A 40-50 page analysis of these surveys their three main concerns about a will be released later this year as family member leaving to work or C on clu sion part of the SAMP Migration Policy stay in South Africa. All of this is not to suggest that Series. For more details on SAMP And finally, the men and women there are no problems on the South please visit th e Project website at interviewed for these surveys have African border or that effective man- www.queensu.ca/samp. SOUTHERN AFRICAN MIGRATION PROJECT SAMP Cosatu 6th Congress and Allied Workers' Union and the continued from page 15 ation of key affiliates, the Septem Chemical Workers Industrial Union. ber Report and the secretariat. A worked out." A key issue to be Opposition to the resolution was led compromise was reached - brokered resolved is whether Cosatu seconds by women delegates - many of whom by the National Union of Minework leadership to Parliament, as it did in spoke for the first and only time in ers - that committed the federation 1994, how many are to be sent, and the Congress on this issue - who to setting and monitoring the imple what structures of accountability to rejected the proposal as tokenism. mentation of "measurable targets." Cosatu - if any - will be developed. Their positions were met with thun I mpressive debates The September Commission's - derous applause by the majority of and the Cosatu secretariat's - most male delegates, who had little to Many of the September Commission serious defeat was a rejection of their offer other than stale commitments proposals were adopted by the proposals to introduce a quota sys to the same education and training Congress, but the value of the tem for advancing women into lead programmes for women which have exercise cannot be judged by a crude ership positions in the federation. previously had little impact. count of recommendations accepted The position was strongly endorsed It was clear that a vote on the or rejected. What is impressive by the National Education Health issue would have meant a repudi- is that the September Commission 32 november 1997 Southern Africa REPORT and the Congress debates happened the Congress clarified positions, but or even claimed to have solutions. at all. Cynical observers - even it will be up to subsequent meet As the citizens of the fin de siec/e many inside Cosatu - claimed ings to advance the discussion fur tapped their way through the global beforehand that the Congress would ther and to develop coherent pro fog that surrounded them, into the be stage-managed and that deals grammes. third millennium, all they knew for had been brokered around the most This opening is extremely im certain was that an era of history contentious issues. This clearly portant in a context of global pes had ended. They knew very little didn 't happen. Debates were robust simism on the left. Between a else. - the Congress went well over simple acceptance or rejection of time - with many issues resolved globalization Cosatu has begun to In these circumstances it would only after complicated compromises map out ways to use its organiza be churlish to expect Cosatu to between affiliates, or deferred when tional strength, mobilizational ca come up with final solutions to agreement failed . Other critical pacity, and access to formal institu problems that have evaded Nobel issues - including most of the tions to defend worker interests and Prize winning economists. But they socio-economic policy proposals - to open spaces for a socialist pro have begun the task. Labour and could not be entertained due to the gramme. social movements elsewhere in the crowded agenda. world would do well to analyze The September Commission re In his celebrated book, Age this experience and to find ways port was not meant as a blueprint, of Extremes: A History of the of collaborating with it. It will but as a way to open discussion World, 1914-1991 , Eric Hobsbawm be through such joint endeavors concludes: on crucial issues; it was a starting that labour worldwide may begin to point for debate, rather than a fully The Short Twentieth Century ended develop common responses to global rounded conclusion. In many areas in problems, for which nobody had, problems. Southern Africa REPORT november 1997 33 Vol. 9No. 5 Vol.lONo. i July1994 DOUBLE ISSUE INCORPORATI NG WIP 97 Vol. 8No. 5 Namibia: 1May1993 TheN ext SOUTH AFRICA Sou th Africa in the 1990s by Tom Lodge MOZAMBIQUE Debating the Terms of Solidarity C A N A D A Forging the Agenda: Anti-Apartheid Movement Debates 8006~ price: $3.50