Robert Mugabe is no African Hero

After the unexpected but entirely justified withdrawal of Mr Morgan Tsvangirai from the just concluded presidential election run-off in Zimbabwe, a Nigerian Newspaper, The Daily Trust published a cartoon which I found rather offensive. This prompted me to email the following letter to the Editor of the paper. Not that I expect my lonely voice to influence perceptions in Nigeria, but I now believe that every bit of noise contribute to resolving the ever deepening crisis in Zimbabwe.

The cartoon in your publication (Daily Trust, Tuesday June 24 2008 - page 12) cannot go unchallenged because it is extremely misleading and portrays a distressing and disturbing misunderstanding of the events and developments in the recent Zimbabwean electoral process. In case some of your readers missed the cartoon in question, it depicts an elderly and confident Robert Mugabe triumphantly romping across the finishing line of a 400 metre race track while his opponent Morgan Tsvangirai flounders on the ground appealing for assistance.

One of the features which I have most admired about Nigeria is the fiercely professional, candid and independent media, especially and particularly your newspaper which I read often. I have always observed a remarkable depth of critical analysis in both the news articles and features and irrepressible but objective exposition of current issues regardless of who is involved or their status and level in society. However the cartoon in question has planted a seed of doubt that your editorial department fully appreciates the nature and severity of the events taking place in Zimbabwe, otherwise they would not have passed this utterly deceptive and offensive illustration.

On the somewhat positive side what the cartoon does, however, is to accurately reflect a general sentiment which I have observed in my interactions with many Nigerians including the educated professionals. The sentiment is that Robert Mugabe is a great African hero who has socked it up to the whites by reclaiming the land which was taken from them during colonialism. In this context, the events is Zimbabwe are cast as retribution against him by the former colonialists for that very noble act. This is quite misleading and a misconception of the facts on the ground and it is important that this impression is corrected especially in the minds of Nigerians because of two main reasons.

First, as Africa’s largest country (in population terms) and the second largest economy in black Africa, Nigerians have the greatest capacity to positively influence change in Zimbabwe. Second, Nigeria is still grappling with their own traumatic election experiences and are still deeply scarred by the events of last year and it is therefore not in their interest to either ignore or promote incidents of electoral malpractices. It is also important that Nigerians get engaged in what is happening in Zimbabwe and actively help to promote a solution for that problem because the tragic events there have an effect on the peace and security not only of the Southern African region but of Nigerians as well. By way of example, Nigerians have very recently been victims of the xenophobic attacks of migrants in South Africa which events were directly precipitated by events which have been taking place in Zimbabwe over the past decade.

The problems in Zimbabwe, far from being a manifestation of the machinations of neo-colonialists, reflect a sad failure of African democracy, diplomacy, good governance and sound policy judgement. More than four million of its people (a quarter of the population) are now exiles and refugees in neighbouring and other far flung countries. (In Nigerian terms that would amount to about 40 million citizens!). Inflation is estimated in millions of percentages – there are no official figures because the office responsible for providing such information gave up doing so a long time ago when the rate had hit sextuple figures. Unemployment is well over eighty percent; more than seventy percent of the people are classified as poor and depending on some handouts for sustenance. The shops are empty, the hospitals are in dire shortage of drugs and qualified staff, schools are limping towards extinction. And the Zimbabwe dollar which was stronger than the US$ at independence in 1980 is being exchanged at a few trillion to a US dollar (it is actually about 7 billion to a US$ but I have factored back the three zeros which were knocked off the currency in 2006).

The cartoon also conveniently ignores the real issues behind the withdrawal of Tsvangirai from the election which are clearly articulated in various articles in the very same newspaper (on pages 3 and 23). Amongst some of the key reasons for the withdrawal were a) the unprecedented levels of vicious violence perpetrated against the opposition supporters – over 90 brutally murdered by Mugabe’s army and supporters, more than 2000 tortured and severely injured, and an estimated 200,000 displaced by the violence (to give you a sense of proportion in relation to Nigeria again multiply these figures by 10); b) illegal arrests, detentions and harassment of the candidate and most of his senior officials and overt disruption of all campaign activities – rallies banned or disrupted, campaign vehicles impounded by the police, campaign advertisements banned from the state owned (and only) media; c) highly compromised electoral processes – a subjugated, incompetent and ineffectual electoral commission, restrictions on election monitors, polling stations staffed by Zanu-PF militia. And so on and so forth.

Such conditions would not be acceptable for an election in Nigeria and anywhere else in the civilised world. Tsvangirai was obviously correct to pull out of this sham of an illegal electoral process, not because he is a coward or because he was worn out (it is still quite conceivable that he may still have won the vote despite and in spite of all these irregularities!) but because it was just not right to continue to participate to legitimise a patently illegitimate process particularly given the ever rising costs in deaths and injuries to his supporters. The UN Security Council on Monday, 23 June passed a resolution condemning the violence which anyone around the world with satellite TV has witnessed and averring that conditions were not in place for a free and fair election.

I would suggest that your readers should learn as much as they can about the events in Zimbabwe and, in this regard, I would invite them to read my weekly blog on the internet at http://pragmaticinsights.blogspot.com. For more analysis, reports and features on events in Zimbabwe I would also recommend the website www.zimbabwesituation.com. Finally, sir, your paper should continue to educate and encourage the Nigerian people to pressure your government to take a firm stand and strongly speak out against the unacceptable brutality that is being meted to fellow Africans by Mugabe’s despotic and now illegal regime. The government of Nigeria should demand that the wishes of the Zimbabwean people for Tsvangirai and not Mugabe to lead them should be respected.

What went wrong with Zimbabwe?

“You have inherited the crown jewel of Africa. Please look after it”, the late former president of Tanzania, Mwalimu Julius Nyerere, is famously reported as having counselled his young protégée Robert Mugabe when he assumed the mantle of leadership in Zimbabwe in 1980. Indeed, Zimbabwe was the crown jewel. It had everything – a prosperous and functioning economy, well educated and hard working people and ethnic diversity. The country had one of the most advanced and efficient transportation systems – rail, air and road, a vibrant hospitality and tourism sector which made it the hub of travel into and out of eastern and southern Africa. Most of the major airlines such as Qantas and Lufthansa flew into Harare bringing lots of tourists.

Agriculture was the backbone of the economy with highly efficient and mechanised large scale farms producing everything from cash crops such as tobacco and cotton, to cereals including maize and wheat, to livestock and game. Even the small scale and peasant farming sector was doing quite well with many households living well above subsistence levels. Social infrastructure and services were efficient if not excellent and hospitals and schools provided the people with well admired and envied services and facilities. The Zimbabwean dollar was strong and in demand with an exchange rate stronger than the US dollar and even much stronger than all the currencies of neighbouring countries.

Twenty eight years later, Zimbabwe has been reduced to a wasteland and basket case. More than four million of its people are now exiles and refugees in neighbouring and other far flung countries. The economy has collapsed. Inflation is estimated in millions of percentages – there are no official figures because the office responsible for providing such information gave up doing so a long time ago when the rate had hit sextuple figures. Unemployment is well over eight percent; more than seventy percent of the people are classified as poor and depending on some handouts for sustenance. The shops are empty, the hospitals are in dire shortage of drugs and qualified staff, schools are limping towards extinction. And the once venerated Zimbabwe dollar is being exchanged at a few trillion to a US dollar (it is actually about 3 billion but I have factored back the three zeros which were knocked off the currency in 2006).

What went wrong in the short twenty eight years? What led to this calamity and pestilence? I have been exercising my mind on this for a long while and I can now hazard some explanation. I believe there are four things that went wrong in Zimbabwe and these are ideology, greed, incompetence and intransigence. There may very well be other reasons why Zimbabwe is where it is today but, in my considered view, these are the top four reasons. I will explain each of these issues in a little more detail.

When Zanu-PF came into power at the cessation of hostilities in 1980, it pronounced itself as a Marxist-Leninist party and sought to transform a well functioning free enterprise system into a centrally controlled egalitarian system. The Marxist-Leninist ideology was intended to serve both political and economic objectives. Politically, it was intended to drive Zimbabwe into a one party state in which Zanu-PF would rule on its own and in perpetuity. It was a grand scheme to abolish all opposition parties and secure unopposed rule. Economically, it was intended to redistribute the wealth from the white minority to the black majority especially through nationalising some strategic industries.

In pursuit of this doctrine, Zanu-PF embarked on a systematic decimation of Zapu-PF which was then the strongest opposition party controlling the western half of the country. The North Korean trained Fifth Brigade militia was unleashed on Matabeleland to force the people to support Zanu-PF. The manner they went about doing this is now a matter of shameful record. By some estimates, more than twenty thousand people were massacred, thousands more brutally assaulted, raped and displaced. By the end, Zapu-PF capitulated and agreed to be absorbed by Zanu-PF. Peace was consequently restored in Matabeleland and, with the near simultaneous abolition of reserved seats for whites in Parliament, Zimbabwe became a de facto one-party state. Some small opposition parties emerged after Zapu – notably Zimbabwe Unity Movement in the late eighties and Forum Party in the mid nineties but they were small and of no real threat to the Zanu-PF hegemony.

At the economic front, the Marxist-Leninist ideology resulted in a significant onslaught on the private sector. There was government interference in almost all aspects of business enterprise through control of incomes and prices. Many small businesses closed or were taken over because they could not afford the prescribed minimum wages in the face of price controls on their products. Throughout the eighties and into the early nineties, the shape of the private sector in Zimbabwe changed from many small family owned enterprises to a few large holding companies – such as TA Holdings, Apex Corporation and Delta Corporation which had the financial muscle to acquiesce with government dictates and which had significant influence on government policy makers. The death of the small and medium enterprises resulted in a significant contraction of the private sector and consequently on its capacity to generate employment.

The second problem for Zimbabwe was greed and corruption by the ruling elite. I remember in the early eighties that many of the government ministers and senior officials went on a buying frenzy acquiring all sorts of choice properties and farms around the country. I remember visiting the homes of some of the politicians and thinking that most of them had got too rich too quickly for people who had been in the bush fighting a war. This acquisitive rapaciousness began to manifest itself in various high profile scandals such as “Willowgate” scandal in which ministers were caught abusing their positions to buy vehicles from a government owned assembly plant and reselling them at astronomical profits on the black market. A number of ministers were forced to resign and one committed suicide as a result of these revelations. The other high profile scandal involved the abuse of war victims’ compensation fund by high level politicians.

These scandals were, perhaps, a tip of the iceberg. By the mid nineties corruption was so rampart and endemic in high political circles that the erstwhile allies of the ruling elite, the so-called ex-combatants who had fought the war of liberation began to violently agitate for a share of the spoils. Led by the late Dr Chenjerai Hunzvi (who incidentally was a key player in the war victims compensation fund scandal referred to above), the ex-combatants won a large payout from government which was not budgeted for. This payout precipitated a run on the Zimbabwe dollar triggering an economic recession that has morphed into the crisis that we are all now sadly witnessing.

The third problem for Zimbabwe has been incompetence leading to significant policy failures. The payout to ex-combatants which I have just referred to was one such failure but there were many other notable ones. The intervention in the war in the DRC which benefited no one but the army generals and politicians was another. So was the whole fiasco of land redistribution and, more lately, the reckless printing of money by the reserve bank. The one unintended and undesirable outcome of Zanu-PF’s one party state agenda was that the president became surrounded with incompetent hangers-on who lacked the intelligence to provide adequate policy analysis and the courage to advise President Robert Mugabe against precipitous and unworkable policy actions.

The last problem is that Zimbabwe embarked on a confrontational and isolationist route in which fought against international institutions and opinion. Because of his Marxist inclinations, Mugabe was always suspicious of international institutions such as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. While he recognised that he needed their support, he believed, quite wrongly as it turned out, that such support had to be on his own terms not on theirs. This intransigence and belligerent attitude led to an estrangement with the western countries around which the country’s economy was inextricably linked. The rest is, as they say, now history.

A dangerous doctrine from a dangerous man

In every situation of human suffering, whether through disaster or conflict, there always emerge heroes. One of the most enduring stories of heroism is told by Jesus Christ in the Bible in the parable of the Good Samaritan. In this story, a Samaritan comes to the rescue of a traveller who had been waylaid and injured by armed robbers. He administers first aid to the injured man and takes him to a hotel where he pays for his lodging until such time as he is fully recovered. Throughout history there has been similar stories of courage, compassion and leadership in times of adversity – Admiral Nelson at the battle of Trafalgar, Nelson Mandela in the Rivonia trial and Rosa Parks who refused to vacate her seat on a bus during the dark days of racial segregation in America.

The situation in Zimbabwe at the moment reflects some of the worst aspects of human suffering in which the whole nation is being brutalised and traumatised in a bid to keep Robert Mugabe in power. There are many heroes who are emerging from this traumatic situation and who will forever be remembered when the history of the country is recited. Some of these heroes are already household names internationally and may not need much mention – Morgan Tsvangirai, Tendai Biti, Nelson Chamisa, Jenny Williams, Pius Ncube, Arthur Mutambara, and many, many others. Others may be lesser known as the many men and women who have been murdered by Zanu-PF thugs for supporting the opposition stand against the brutality and dictatorship of the Mugabe regime.

Somewhere in between these high profile heroes and the lesser knowns is another group of highly active but unassuming individuals who have been working extremely hard to bring about positive change in the country. One such person is Advocate Eric Matinenga, the newly elected Member of Parliament for Buhera South who is now languishing in one of Mugabe jails. Eric is a close family member and he is someone I have known very well for most of my life. Our interactions over the years have transcended both social and professional boundaries and I have always had the highest regard for his social skills, his legal talents, his personality, charm, humility, humanity and empathy. Admittedly, there have been some embarrassing moments. Like one time I was contracted as a technical expert on a case in which he was representing the opposing litigants. But this was an exception – we almost always are on the same side on most aspects of our interactions.

In case you are not familiar with the case of Eric Matinenga, let me provide a brief outline of the essential facts of the case against him. A recently elected MP, Eric went to the courts to obtain an order for the army to be withdrawn from his constituency where its members were harassing, intimidating, beating-up and murdering the people who had voted for him. He asked that the army be confined to what it is constitutionally mandated to do – defending the country against external threats. The high court acceded to the request and issued the order restraining the army. This infuriated the Zimbabwe National Army Commander, General Constantine Chiwenga, who ordered Eric’s arrest and encaceration for the rest of Chiwenga’s life. As a result Eric is being held at unknown detention centre where he is inaccessible to his family, his legal counsel and his friends and colleagues. And this against a court order barring the police from arresting him!

The arrest and detention of Eric reflects and symbolises everything that has gone wrong with the great nation of Zimbabwe. The present ruling clique and its cabal of military supporters have become a law unto themselves with no respect for the constitution, for the legal rights of individuals and for normal human decency. We have become kind of used to President Mugabe wantonly disregarding court orders and issuing illegal instructions but, hey, he is the president and may believe, rightly or wrongly, that he has power over everything in “my Zimbabwe”. But when an army general, a mere civil servant who has no responsibility for police matters and internal law enforcement, can issue an illegal dictate to arrest someone and when such an illegal order is obeyed then the country is in the deepest of troubles.

The arrest of Eric is also symptomatic of a most disturbing and absurd doctrine that is being spread by Mugabe and his cronies. A few days back Mugabe made the announcement that because he came to power through the barrel of a gun, he will not relinquish the power to the might of the pen i.e. the vote of the people. The suggestion being that he will only be removed from power if people take up arms and defeat him. This is a most dangerous doctrine which sets an entirely unacceptable precedent for the country, the region and the world as a whole. More critically it is a doctrine grounded on a patent falsehood which is that Zanu-PF won the war of independence.

While the war was an important catalyst in the liberation of Zimbabwe from the racist oppression, it was neither the defining nor the decisive factor. History has recorded that Zimbabwe was born out of negotiations and settlement reached at Lancaster House in London in 1979. The Lancaster settlement was itself a culmination of a multi-pronged strategy involving the armed struggle, political and diplomatic pressure and civil unrest which had been ongoing from the earliest days of nationalistic resistance in the late fifties and early sixties. More importantly, however, the Lancaster agreement led to the elections of 1980 which Zanu-PF won to earn the right to rule the country. It is a patent falsehood and an act of self-delusion to claim that Zanu-PF was brought into power by the force of the gun. It was ultimately the votes of the people which made that happen!

Mr Mugabe should do well to remember that to suggest otherwise would be to undermine the whole basis of the legitimacy of his rule over the past 28 years. Mr Mugabe is in power and has remained in power because the people have voted for him (or as is more aptly the case in recent years, because he has manipulated the people’s votes to reflect himself as the winner of the elections). The people of Zimbabwe should not and cannot be fooled into now believing that their votes have counted for nothing throughout all these past 28 years and that Mugabe’s rule is in fact a dint of his “victory” in the liberation war. I believe that Mugabe is bringing back the whole liberation war record to intimidate voters from voting against him for fear of sparking another war.

Mugabe should be reminded of two important issues here. The first is that many of the voters of today were not yet born to experience the liberation struggle or were too young to understand what was going on. What all these people know is the great amount of suffering which they have gone though under Mugabe’s stewardship of the country. All they know is about the lack of jobs, poverty, the high cost of living, relatives dying all around them from HIV/ aids and other preventable diseases, empty store shelves, queues for everything which is in short supply, collapsed health and education, worthless local currency which depreciates by the second. These and a lot more are what they will remember Mugabe for and not some obscure glory as a revolutionary. The only thing that these young people are yearning for is that he should go now and allow someone who has the potential and ability to change the fortunes of the country to take over.

The second thing that he should remember is that Zimbabweans have decided that there will be no more war, if they can help it. They know that the strongest and most potent weapon in their armoury is their vote which they will cast in secret on 26 June to tell Mr Mugabe once again that he is no longer wanted - that his rule is finished. On many previous occasions in the recent past, people have voted to get Mugabe out but somehow he has wiggled out through rigging and cheating. But the people have now caught up with the dirty tricks and are now, more than ever, very determined and confident that they will have their say and they will be heard. For Mugabe, there is no way out except to capitulate to the inevitable. For General Chiwenga and his ilk, the courts and The Hague await to dispense justice for their crimes against humanity. For Eric Matinenga and other heroes praise, honour and reward in a free Zimbabwe await them. It will not be long.

What’s the point of the Zimbabwe elections?

This has been another traumatic week for Zimbabwe. For a country that has been under constant assault from a regime desperate to hold on to power for the best part of a decade, this may be stating the obvious. But this week has, perhaps, been a watershed in the demonstration of state callousness and disrespect for its people, for its disregard of the rule of law and for its disdain international opinion. It was a week which began with Mr Robert Mugabe in Rome to push his now discredited and well-worn argument that Zimbabwe was a victim, not of his own incompetence and failure, but of international intrigue and conspiracy led by the British and Americans.

But it was at home in Zimbabwe that the real drama and tragedy was unfolding. First was the twice detention of the “opposition” leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, by the Zimbabwean police. What was his crime? He was campaigning for the run-off presidential elections to be held end of June. It should be remembered that this is the same man who convincingly beat Mr Mugabe in the previous round of elections held at the end of March. After more than a month of procrastination in releasing the election results, more than enough time to manipulate the numbers, Tsvangirai still beat Mugabe by five percentage points (about the same margin with which Nicolas Sarkozy, the reigning French President, beat his rival, Sigolene Royale, in the 2007 French elections). It is also Tsvangirai’s party which is now the majority in the Zimbabwean parliament. So to keep referring to him as a leader of the opposition, though this may reflect the status quo, is a serious contradiction in terms and a disregard of the democratic will of the Zimbabwean people.

It is thus a very sad indictment that the popularly elected leader of the people of Zimbabwe has not only been denied the right to lead the people who have elected him to but is now being intimidated and humiliated through unjustified arrests and detentions so that he cannot effectively campaign to prove, yet once again, that he, and not the present incumbent, is the preferred choice of the people of Zimbabwe. As if stopping Tsvangirai from campaigning was not enough, the police have now banned all campaign rallies of his party, the MDC. There is an element of desperation now amongst the ruling elite in the country which borders on recklessness. The army and security services chiefs have been issuing all manner of threats to force their subordinates and their families to vote for Mugabe and have, in blatant violation of the provisions of the constitution, taken very partisan positions in support of their despotic mentor and benefactor.

The question now is, what is the purpose of holding the election if the intention is to ensure that only Robert Mugabe emerges the winner? What is point of spending the very scarce national resources and of wasting the energies of a tired and traumatised society in holding yet another election when the voice of the electorate is not going to be respected? It has become all too apparent that the run-off will neither be free nor fair by any measure or standard. However Mr Tsvangirai believes that his hour has come and that, despite all the odds and all the shenanigans of the ruling elite, he will emerge victorious yet again. Well, this remains a possibility but not the probability it would have been had the turf been a bit more even.

The second bad news for Zimbabwe this week was the detention of foreign diplomats in Bindura which triggered an international furore. It is reported that the British and American diplomats were detained for a long while and threatened by war veterans and security forces with harm when they went to investigate reports of political violence. I am not a buff on diplomatic conventions, but I believe that this sort of thing cannot be done without triggering a serious international incident. The respect for diplomatic immunity is one of the most sacred international conventions and it is both sacrosanct and inviolable. So for the Zimbabwe government to allow its supporters to engage in activities that violate this important tenet is either an act of sheer stupidity or recklessness. How they can expect to have gotten away with that, only God knows.

For me this incident raises two critical issues. Firstly why is it that it is only the British and Americans who are interested in investigating human rights abuses in my country? Where are the rest of the African diplomats, especially those of the SADC which have been mandated with resolving the political logjam in Zimbabwe? If Africa’s problems should be left to the Africans to solve, why should the British and Americans continue to play a prominent role in diffusing the serious human rights violations taking place in the country? In my mind it has become all too clear that our African leaders do not care a hoot about issues of human rights. They are much more concerned with observing meaningless and self-serving niceties of national sovereignty and Pan-African solidarity.

I believe it would have been weightier if, for example, the South African and Zambian embassy officials had been investigating the human rights cases so that they can accurately brief their principles who are grappling with the problem of finding a solution to the meltdown taking place in their neighbourhood. But no, the African diplomats prefer to stay in their spacious chanceries and pretend that there is nothing amiss. Of course, I do sympathise with them because I know that the reality is that they will not receive any protection from their own governments if they started poking their noses into so-called “internal matters” of a sovereign country. Imagine what would happen to the South African ambassador if he told his president that there are actually problems when his boss believes that there is “no crisis”!

The second concern I have with this diplomatic incident is that it will discourage some other diplomats from continuing to investigate the serious abuses of human rights taking place in the country. There will be a belief that if diplomats from powerful nations can be mistreated with such utter contempt of international norms, much worse can happen to diplomats of weaker nations. This is an intimidation tactic that seems to work very well. But as with any negative tactic, it can backfire quite dramatically, as the Zimbabwean government are just waking up to. After much effort to keep the country out of the UN Security Council agenda, the incident has just pushed the country back onto the agenda. But much worse, the country has now acquired a reputation for roguishness which, even its erstwhile supporters, is ashamed to be associated with. So the country is quite assuredly moving backwards.

To cap what has been a dramatic and eventful week, the Zimbabwean government announced the suspension of all aid activities in the country until after the election. This was done under the pretext that aid organisations have been campaigning for the opposition. This decision means that millions of people who now depend on aid organisations for food, health, water and other social services will loose that support and will be left exposed to hunger and suffering. The expectation may be that hungry people will vote for the government but the truth is that people now know that the aid agencies are there because the government has failed in its first and foremost duty – to look after its people. The people no longer believe in the government and that is why they voted for the opposition. No amount of threats, intimidation and punishment will assuage the people from their disdain and dislike of the present government. Not even the imposition or threat of hunger will stop the tide of change.