In the dying days of his reign PW Botha became increasingly defiant of world opinion. But the more brutal he became, the more militant and defiant did the people become. And the more brutal he became, the more the world saw of his dementia.
He lost friends left, right and centre. In the end only Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan and a handful of tinpot dictators dared be seen shaking hands with South African officialdom.
This week Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe was very much the apartheid despot he so despised in the 1980s.
By emulating Botha’s total onslaught or kragdadigheid tactics in crushing this week’s protests, Mugabe extended a long middle finger to the international community.
Trapped in the military edifice he has created around himself, he had no friends this week as his neighbours voiced concern about the deteriorating situation in his country. But all they could do in the face of blatant brutality was to meekly call for dialogue.
Like Botha’s South Africa at the height of the State of Emergency, Zimbabwe this week crossed a point of no return. The brutality was the worst the country had witnessed since the early 1980s Matabeleland massacres.
As an eyewitness to this week’s events related: “I have just returned from the Avenues Clinic [in Harare] where I saw with my own eyes the horrendous evidence of the use of brutal force that the Zanu-PF government, military, police and militia forces have employed in mostly unprovoked situations.
“The Avenues Clinic’s outpatients ward is full of victims of Mugabe’s retribution. MDC activists, young women, young men, older men and women are either walking in the foyer of the admission ward, sleeping or seated on the benches of the outpatients department of the hospital in severe pain owing to severe injuries sustained as a result of beatings, toture and harassment committed by these government forces,” the Harare resident said.
As opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) organisers geared up for D-Day in the week of protest, two people had been confirmed by police chief Wyne Bvudzijena to have been killed in the clashes. More than 400 were said to have been arrested while hundreds of injured were packing clinics and hospitals.
One of the dead was Amon Nyadongo (41) of Mbare, who was stoned to death near Gwanzura stadium in Highfield as police and army clashed with people attempting to march into the city centre on Monday morning.
An MDC official, Tichaona Kaguru, also of Mbare township, died after being allegedly abducted and tortured by government security agents. Kaguru is alleged to have been abducted together with Sydney Mazaranhanga, a Harare City councillor.
Mazaranhanga alleges that a group of 40 armed soldiers and police officers descended on his Mbare home, where he was with Kaguru, on Tuesday. The security agents accused the two of leading MDC demonstrations in Mbare and began assaulting them with sjamboks and batons. They then bundled them into an army truck, where the beatings continued.
Prominent legislators such as Job Sikhala, Bulawayo mayor Japhet Ncube and Tendai Biti were among those arrested for allegedly trying to participate in planned marches in Harare and other cities from Monday.
After four days of defiant action by the MDC, the party was gearing to make Friday a showcase day in its action.
The MDC said said that given the army’s brutal reaction to its marches, it was now revising its strategy and would modify the protests to culminate with bigger and better planned demonstrations throughout the country on Friday.
The party, in an apparent bid to organise smaller demonstrations that might prove difficult for the army and police to trace, told supporters living in the capital city to congregate at Harare’s Africa Unity Square, while those in the nearby dormitory town of Chitungwiza were to assemble at three shopping centres.
“Rise up in your millions to demonstrate publicly your utmost disapproval of this violent dictatorship,” the MDC said in statement on Thursday.
In anticipation of this the authorities supplemented the large security force presence with an estimated 2 500 Zanu-PF militiamen, who were brought into Harare from other parts of the country.
They have joined the Central Intelligence Organisation in threatening businessmen with withdrawal of their licences if they do not reopen their premises. They have also been tearing up independent newspapers, often in full view of the police.
The security forces are also reported to have moved into Harare’s nightclubs and bars from Monday night beating up revellers whom they accused of supporting the MDC action.
The Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR), an umbrella group, says it has received reports of arbitrary detentions, assaults and torture by the state machinery.
“Detainees are being held in squalid conditions where there is generally poor sanitation, ventilation and hygiene,” it said.
Harare’s Avenues Clinic, where at least 30 badly injured opposition party supporters were receiving treatment, was on Wednesday closed to the media, and both local and foreign journalists were chased away by soldiers guarding the premises.
The Zimbabwe Association of Doctors for Human Rights (ZADHR) said in a statement on Thursday it condemned the invasion of the hospital premises by policemen. The organisation said a patient had been abducted by uniformed police from a Harare hospital while receving medical attention.
“We are concerned that the heavy presence of and intimidating behaviour of the uniformed forces in hospital premises will prevent patients from accessing treatement,” the ZADHR said.
Despite the ruthless crackdown and attempts by the government to undermine the strike through the state media, the strike has crippled the Zimbabwean economy.
Some businesses in the smaller towns reported that they had been forced to open by the army and the police, while the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange said it had not conducted business for the whole week for the first time in its history.
The bourse said it was likely to register losses amounting to about R50-million because of loss of business.
The Zimbabwean government tried to force companies and shops in Harare to open by threatening that it would revise their commercial licences if they failed to operate from Tuesday but the threat was widely ignored as most firms, excluding some commercial banks, remained shut throughout the week.
In the two largest cities, Harare and Bulawayo, almost 90% of shops and factories were closed, including smaller corner grocery shops that had opened to the public during previous stayaways organised by the MDC and the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions.
MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai, who was expected to lead street protests in Harare early Monday morning, was briefly detained by state security agents on Sunday morning and released later on Monday.
He was expected to appear in court facing contempt of court charges for publicly saying he was pressing ahead with protests that the state had declared illegal.
Meanwhile, the government this week tried to stop Tsvangirai from making comments on the political and economic crisis in the country by appealing to Harare High Court Judge Paddington Garwe to gag him.
Garwe is presiding over the opposition leader’s current treason trial during which Tsvangirai and two senior members of his party are being accused of trying to assassinate Mugabe ahead of last year’s bitterly contested presidential election won controversially by Mugabe.
The ZLHR says it has received reports of arbitrary detentions, assaults and torture by the state machinery.
“Detainees are being held in squalid conditions where there is generally poor sanitation, ventilation and hygiene,” it said.
Most towns were deserted on Monday and Tuesday with shops, banks and factories closed. There was a slight increase in activity on Wednesday but most workers heeded the MDC’s stayaway call.
MDC secretary general Welshman Ncube and MDC member Giles Mutsekwa had their homes besieged by uniformed forces.
While the government media has declared the stayaway a “flop”, the jury is still out.
An impression has been given of a regime clinging to power by the use of brute force, selective application of the law, and partisan behaviour by the police.
Like Botha, Mugabe is increasingly becoming a prisoner of events, bereft of solutions to the chronic problems facing the country. He has resorted to anti-colonialist language and the securocrat rhetoric of “defending our sovereignty” to justify his brutality.
In the end Botha suffered a stroke and gave way to a younger man. Meanwhile, Jaspreet Kindra reports, the South African government continued to emphasise initiating talks between the Zanu-PF and the MDC, as Zimbabweans faced the last day of the stayaway.
Foreign affairs spokesperson Ronnie Mamoepa said: “There is no substitute for dialogue between the Zanu-PF and the MDC.”
He said the South African government would continue to push for “national reconciliation” in Zimbabwe through a regional initiative.
The South African stance tied in with that of United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan earlier in the week, who also stressed dialogue but significantly offered for the first time to contribute “to the search for a negotiated solution to the serious difficulties facing the government”.
South African foreign affairs insiders believe that Mugabe and Tsvangirai are caught up in egotistical fights.
“It is time they set aside those issues for the sake of ordinary Zimbabweans to sit down and negotiate,” said one insider.