David Moore
A SECOND LOOK
One of the things that makes the tragic events to South Africa’s north almost farcical is the historical amnesia of many of the commentators. How could the promoters of an “African renaissance” (is Andrew Young, former mayor of Atlanta, really one of them?) have ever held Robert Mugabe up as an example to us all? How could they forget the Matabeleland massacres so shortly after his taking of the Zimbabwean throne? And well before that, how could they overlook the way he treated dissent during the liberation war?
The truth is that Mugabe has acted similarly in the past when his back has been against the wall. He and his immediate allies have made coalitions with many different groups – both inside and outside Zimbabwe – to grab and hang on to the nationalist mettle. These coalitions have sometimes included veterans and international powers – including Britain and the United States. Mugabe has turned against the soldiers who brought him to power more than once in the past. Similarly, he has marshalled the British to his cause when he has had the need.
In the wake of the Portuguese coup which accelerated Angola’s independence, Guinea- Bissau and Mozambique, Tiny Rowland, Kenneth Kaunda and John Vorster decided that it was time to bring Zimbabwean nationalists into the fold of moderation. To that end, a few Zimbabwean nationalists were released from Ian Smith’s gaols for discussions in Lusaka. The presidents of the frontline states, including Samora Machel, were confronted with the fact that Mugabe and a few of his cell mates had deposed Ndabaningi Sithole from his Zanu presidency. Machel responded: “What, you’ve done a coup in prison?!”
In the months following that prison coup a number of “rebels” were killed by Zanu’s militariat, and national chair Herbert Chitepo was assassinated. Opinion in Zimbabwe is still divided over who was responsible for his death -Rhodesian agents or opponents within the liberation movement?
In the wake of the internecine struggles inspired by this “revolution from above” the Zambian state declared Zanu illegal and incarcerated those of its soldiers within its borders. This left a small, very young, very radical and very well-trained group of officers with the task of reigniting the war from bases in Mozambique and Tanzania. They did so in short order.
Along the way they made a credible attempt to implement Julius Nyerere’s desire to unify Zanu and Zapu armed forces, as well as starting up a college devoted to materialist analysis of the shortcomings of nationalism as they were experiencing it. They succeeded to such an extent that the West soon arranged for the infamous Geneva Conference of October 1976. There, the leaders of the “free world” could find out who they could deal with among the many pretenders to the mantle of Zimbabwean nationalism.
In the meantime, Mugabe and colleagues such as Edgar Tekere were cooling their heals under house arrest in Quelimane. The new young leaders of the war were admitting him to their camps – against the wishes of the Mozambicans – because they had been so badly betrayed by Sithole. Mugabe was the only one in the “old guard” they could trust to some degree – or so they thought. He took this grace as the signal that he was their man. When he visited London he announced to the world that he was with the guerrillas.
When the call for the Geneva conference was issued, the young soldiers were told by the frontline presidents to “pick a leader”. They refused, advising instead the formation of a coalition that could not be torn asunder by Smith. Such a united front would have even included “puppets” like Bishop Abel Muzorewa and Sithole, because they did not see much difference between them and Mugabe, the leader who appeared to be speaking in their name. Their stance was essentially that of the national democratic revolution: if a decent victory could have been scored at Geneva, they would have been glad to return to Zimbabwe and fight a clean democratic election on behalf of the people. Deprived of their chance for a united front, they refused to go until forced.
Mugabe never forgave them. Within months they were in Mozambique’s prisons, wherein they stayed until the 1980 elections. It is possible they could have challenged Mugabe’s hold on the soldiers in the Mozambican camps, but the first generation of guerrillas – in control of most of the security apparatus – was probably against them. Also, had they followed popular pressure in the camps the Mozambican army may well have intervened: for reasons that he may well have later regretted but followed him to his grave, Machel had turned against the young Turks.
Smith did manage to pull the slacker nationalists into his desperate prognostications, thus prolonging the war by more than three years. Halfway through 1977 Mugabe consolidated his leadership at the first party congress since 1964 with a declaration that the Zanu axe would fall on the heads of people with critical tendencies. The young soldiers’ efforts at bottom-up Zanu-Zapu unity was maintained only at a tactical, very fragile, political level, under the “Patriotic Front’s” thin banner. The Matabeleland massacres show how deep that unity was.
It is doubtful that the land invaders up north represent all the “war veterans”. They resemble the anti-democratic and anti-intellectual allies Mugabe’s supporters recruited in the mid-1970s. Since then the soldiers have never been, and almost certainly are not now, unified in their uncritical support for a leader who has gone way beyond his mandate.
Furthermore, it as just as likely now as then that a good proportion of these ex- soldiers would support the broadest range of allies as the “national democratic revolution” so badly skewed by Mugabe would allow. Given that the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC)is a part of that process, it had better make some careful alliances with the soldiers in and out of uniform.
Moreover, if one remembers Mugabe’s 1975 trip to England, one should not rule out a deal with the old colonial masters. They have always preferred a firm hand they can count on to unruly democracy, and it is likely that even now Mugabe is more reliable to the old colonial hands than the MDC – especially if he can claim to have old and new soldiers on his side. After all, if the MDC did win the election and hold a commission for truth and justice, it would not only be Mugabe’s past that would be on open display.
David Moore is a professor in the department of economic history and development studies at the University of Natal