Iden Wetherell
Zimbabwe’s headlong descent in to anarchy was given a further shove this week by President Robert Mugabe’s renewed support for land invasions and the refusal of police to rescue farmers from violent mobs of ruling Zanu-PF party supporters. The police said they didn’t have sufficient vehicles or fuel to intervene but, in reality, a political leash is restraining them.
One policeman was shot dead by farm invaders on Tuesday at Marondera, 70km east of Harare, and another six have been held captive on a farm at Mvurwi, north of the capital.
The Commercial Farmers Union (CFU) reported 50 cases of violence against its members and their workers by midweek, while the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) said one of its members had been murdered and others kidnapped.
A sabre-rattling Mugabe returned from the European Union/Africa summit in Cairo on Wednesday declaring he “fully supported” the farm invasions and was prepared to take on “the might of the British empire” if it came to war. In a chilling reminder of the campaign of terror waged by Zimbabwe’s security forces against Ndebele-speakers in the 1980s, the government has stepped up its threats against besieged white farmers, warning them that any further support for the MDC will result in military intervention. Troops aboard 12 armoured personnel carriers were deployed in the Concession farming district north of Harare last weekend, in an attempt to prevent MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai from holding a rally there. They were backed by the police support unit and the Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO), Mugabe’s secret police.
This followed a meeting where CFU head Tim Henwood was reportedly told by commanders of the army and the CIO that if farmers continued to call on the support of MDC members to resist farm invasions, the military would use force against them. The meeting was described as “very threatening”.
The MDC has evicted squatters affiliated to Mugabe’s Zanu-PF party from white- owned farms in several districts close to the capital. Last Saturday’s attack by Zanu-PF supporters, including veterans of Zimbabwe’s liberation war, on 4 000 anti- government demonstrators in the centre of Harare was seen as retaliation for the MDC’s perceived solidarity with farmers. The demonstration, organised by the civic National Constitutional Assembly, was held to protest against state-sponsored intimidation and violence. Marchers had been cheered on by construction workers and motorists in what observers described as the most impressive display of civic activism seen in Zimbabwe for many years.
Their attackers singled out whites, including shoppers and passers-by, for assault. The police, who had tried to prevent the march, stood by as the marchers were set upon and then fired tear gas at those who remained.
Information minister Chen Chimutengwende has dismissed as “lies” reports that the Zanu-PF supporters first gathered at the party’s city headquarters and then returned there after the attack, which left more than 20 people seriously injured. But footage by independent film-makers shows war veterans and others at the headquarters preparing for the attack on the marchers with iron bars, clubs and tree branches. Chimutengwende said the assailants were “incensed” by the marchers’ anti-government slogans.
The attack came hard on the heels of threats by Mugabe that “death will befall” his political opponents. In the past, he has boasted of his “degrees in violence”.
The Legal Resources Foundation, a legal research body not normally given to strong language, described the behaviour of the police and Zanu-PF supporters last Saturday as “intolerable and despicable”. “The conduct of the attackers, the slow reaction of the riot police and their selective use of their powers of arrest are further examples of the breakdown of the rule of law in Zimbabwe,” the legal monitors said. The events of the past week reveal a grim determination by Mugabe and his followers to use force to prevent the opposition from making further political headway.
When voter registration ended on March 31, it was clear tens of thousands of new voters were deter-mined to end Zanu-PF’s 20-year incumbency, characterised by endemic corruption and economic decline. As evidence of support for the MDC grows, the crackdown has become more brutish. Marondera farmer and MDC supporter Iain Kay was this week savagely assaulted on his farm when squatters attacked him with axe handles and clubs as he visited the school he had built for his farm workers. In addition to thuggery, the state is preventing opposition voices from being heard or seen in the media. The Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation has blocked adverts for the MDC while giving saturation news coverage to the ruling party.
Editors of state-owned media who had run MDC adverts were given a dressing-down by Chimutengwende and told not to repeat such heresy. The government-owned Herald newspaper, which has, in recent months, broken with tradition in attempting to offer readers a variety of views, particularly in its letters column, has now reverted to its role as a ruling- party mouthpiece, running officially inspired letters that are crudely racist and puff pieces on the “great strides” the government has made in education and health since 1980.
Government representatives claim the MDC, which has attacked Mugabe’s populist posturing on the land issue, is conspiring to restore colonial rule. Civic activist Brian Kagoro says this is nonsense.
“We only want to give it back to the people – even the Zanu-PF supporters that have not benefited at all from the rampant looting of resources by their leaders,” he says.
But Zanu-PF is unrepentant. The party’s secretary for administration, Didymus Mutasa, who has in the past described Mugabe as “Zimbabwe’s king” who should not have to seek re-election, this week told the British media that he would never tolerate MDC demonstrations.
“I will fight them wherever I see them,” he said. “They are coming in sheep’s clothing and we are not going to tolerate them.” Although tensions between Zimbabwe and Britain were defused at the European Union/Africa summit following talks between Mugabe and British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook, Britain has mobilised EU members behind a policy of zero tolerance of misrule by Mugabe’s regime.
As the opposition licks its wounds this week one thing is clear. Mugabe’s democratic mask, worn with great effect abroad, if not at home, has slipped irretrievably.