Zimbabweans have come to learn that mass action counts for more than policy. Iden Wetherell reports
Zimbabwe’s beleaguered government this week responded to the crisis engulfing it by a familiar mix of bravado and brute force. But the steps it has belatedly taken only serve to expose a pattern of misrule where populist impulses substitute for policy.
A week of unrest has seen thousands take to the streets in often violent protests against food prices. Shops have been gutted, businesses closed and the city centre transformed into a war zone as demonstrators went on the rampage.
The protests reflected popular anger with a privileged order that has so conspicuously benefited from its political stranglehold at the expense of the poor.
Anywhere else turmoil on this scale would have sent a powerful message for change. But President Robert Mugabe has blamed the violence on a conspiracy by political opponents and threatened to re- introduce the state of emergency repealed in 1990.
The army was called in on Tuesday after rioting continued unabated, despite an edict from Minister of Commerce Nathan Shamuyarira ordering millers to reduce the price of maize meal by 21%. Sporadic protests and incidents of violence persisted well into the week, seriously disrupting business activity.
Mugabe, who had been loftily ignoring the mayhem around the capital, was finally induced to break his annual holiday and convene an emergency Cabinet meeting on Wednesday, the first coherent government response to the crisis.
After five hours of deliberation the Cabinet appointed a four-man ministerial task force headed by Shamuyarira to recommend what measures may be adopted to prevent “profiteering”.
“The government is appealing to people in the riot-affected areas to go back to work and not be hoodwinked by hooligans, arsonists, and other forces who have their own political motives,” a government statement read.
Minister of Information Chen Chimutengwende identified “other forces” as the energetic, but tiny International Socialist Organisation, which had called for a general strike. He did concede, however, that their capacity to mobilise workers was limited.
Chimutengwende, who had earlier accused white businessmen of raising prices in order to discredit the government, returned to the attack on Wednesday by alleging industrialists and farmers were funding the rioters. He also lashed out at international donor agencies whose support Zimbabwe desperately needs if the economy is to recover.
“A country that has implemented a structural adjustment programme will have mass poverty and automatic suffering,” he complained, saying Zimbabwe was being punished for trying to address colonial anomalies such as land distribution.
While the Cabinet was sitting, rioting spread to the eastern city of Mutare. Gweru, Chegutu, Norton and Masvingo were also affected. Casualties in Harare have been difficult to estimate as the police have refused to release details. However, unconfirmed reports suggest at least five people have been killed by police gunfire, or by individuals guarding their premises. Amnesty International has strongly condemned the use of lethal fire. Many of those arrested have been savagely beaten.
The Grain Marketing Board, which precipitated this week’s events by indicating it would raise its prices to millers, is a state-owned body. Prices have been increased by other government-owned agencies including the Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority, Air Zimbabwe and the Posts and Telecommunications Corporation.
The price rises, matched by increases in all sectors of the economy, follow hikes in sales tax and the collapse of the Zimbabwe dollar, both symptoms of arbitrary and ill- considered fiscal policies, observers say. The dollar fell dramatically in November after Mugabe promised hefty payments to veterans of Zimbabwe’s liberation war without any thought as to where the money was going to come from.
His decision in November to nationalise half the country’s commercial farms, many of them highly productive, precipitated a flight of capital from the Harare Stock Exchange.
In the absence of any visible leaders, this week’s protests soon took on a life of their own as the city’s disaffected under- class vented their frustration on retailers.
The violent eruptions have taken many by surprise, not least the government. But analyst Lupi Mushayakarara sees the pattern as inevitable given the state’s own record.
“There is a growing culture of lawlessness and looting,” she says. “Lawlessness in the master begets lawlessness in the subject.”
The damage caused by rioting will cost firms millions of dollars to repair and is bound to take the shine off Zimbabwe’s claim to be a friendly investment destination free of the sort of problems bedevilling South Africa.
With a team from the International Monetary Fund in Harare to supervise the resumption of balance-of-payments support, the government’s room for manoeuvre is limited.
The Cabinet has already been obliged to make far-reaching concessions on the vexed issue of land reform as a condition for support from the European Union. In talks with Mugabe in Brussels on January 7, the European commissioner for development, João de Deus Pinheiro, offered EU support for a donors’ conference on land.
But far from endorsing Zimbabwe’s arbitrary and opaque land acquisition policy, the conference will lay down strict guidelines, EU diplomats have indicated.
This week’s events, by scaring off investors, have made the government even more vulnerable to donor pressure. But they have also strengthened the country’s fledgling civil society which moved quickly to rebut government attempts to shift responsibility for economic problems.
A joint statement by church and civil- rights organisations accused the government of promoting “a culture of confrontation and crisis management”, and said the blame for the country’s present predicament lay squarely with the authorities, whose mismanagement of the nation’s finances had forced up the cost of living for the majority to intolerable levels.
While human-rights groups may have identified the problem as one of governance, Zimbabwean workers and the seething lumpenproletariat in the townships have learnt that the power of the people pays. The government surrendered to civil service strikers in 1996; to a whole variety of protesters last year, including war veterans and trade unionists; and now to the mass action on prices.
Receiving President Sam Nujoma of Namibia this week, Mugabe appeared unruffled by the traumatic events unfolding around him. His complacency may be misplaced this time. While the latest protests may not be the turning point some observers are reporting, they certainly reflect growing resistance to the 73-year-old president’s hitherto unassailable grip on power.