Donna Block
President Robert Mugabe’s government is now targeting top Zimbabwean businesspeople who are independent of the ruling Zanu-PF party as land invasions and violence against farmers and opposition supporters continue.
The head of Zimbabwe’s third-largest company, Strive Masiyiwa, is now pondering his future surrounded by bodyguards in London after being warned by sympathetic security police that his life could be in danger if he returned to Harare.
Masiyiwa, CEO of Econet, the largest cellular provider in the country, believes one of the reasons he is under threat from the government is that subscribers to his network circulated slogans supporting the opposition during Zimbabwe’s referendum earlier this year.
Nigel Chinakara, the CEO of Kingdom Financial Holdings Limited and a member of Econet’s board, was detained for two days last week.
Another prominent businessman, Gordon Christie, the director of Tauya Coach Services, was arrested last month for allegedly stealing diesel for his buses. Christie, who denies the charges, is a prominent supporter of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).
In February, Christie had his buses adorned with pro-MDC stickers, but he removed it after suspected Zanu-PF militants torched one of his vehicles.
In recent weeks, police have arrested four top executives of Innscor (Pty) Ltd, a restaurant group, for allegedly smuggling $118E000 in hard currency out of the country over three years. The men deny the charges.
Zimbabwe government insiders suggest the explanation for the arrests is Mugabe’s suspicions that Innscor’s owners and managers sympathise with the opposition.
More than a dozen other independent businessmen have also recently been detained on dubious corruption charges, hauled before courts and then freed.
Indian businessmen in Bulawayo are now living in fear of their lives following the distribution of a pamphlet urging the forcible seizure of their property and the expulsion of their community – Idi Amin- style – from Zimbabwe.
Other prominent Zimbabwean businesspeople have been accused of conspiring to destabilise the economy. Those who have had talks with the opposition MDC, or who have made donations to the group, told the Mail & Guardian that they have received anonymous phone calls telling them to back off from politics or face unspecified consequences. Some have been threatened with death.
The government claims the arrests of businesspeople is a crackdown on corruption, but well-placed observers in Zimbabwe say the government is trying to cut off all financial support for the MDC. Financial support has been the missing link for the opposition and the main reason why there has not been a serious opposition threat to Zanu-PF in the past.
Meanwhile, a number of white farmers are considering decamping to Mozambique, which is seeking their agricultural skills.
The government’s campaign against the country’s top independent businesspeople started in February after Mugabe was defeated in the referendum to adopt a new Constitution that would have given him sweeping new powers.
The “No” vote handed Mugabe his first electoral defeat in 20 years. Furious at the rejection, he unleashed the campaign, first against white farmers and then opposition supporters.
The harassment of Zimbabwe’s business community could not come at a worse time for the country. The economy is in a desperate state, with unemployment at more than 50%, an acute shortage of foreign exchange, manufacturing output at its lowest level in 15 years, interest rates at more than 60%, and a crippling shortage of fuel. The country is also in danger of defaulting on its debt.
The businesses being targeted are among the few providers of sustainable and new employment opportunities.
Mugabe believes Masiyiwa had a role in his defeat because his network carried most of the traffic of a simple six-word message that was transmitted from cellphone to cellphone across Zimbabwe hundreds of thousands of times. All it said was: “No fuel No forex Vote No.”
“You can say my latest troubles go back to those messages,” Masiyiwa told the M&G. “In fact, everything the president has said and done in recent weeks reflects the impact of that referendum.
“The whole thing started with just 50 messages. It was probably started by teenagers,” says Masiyiwa, pointing out that youngsters are the biggest users of the free short-message service.
Within days, the number of people receiving the message multiplied as subscribers passed it on around the country. “It was a deluge,” said Masiyiwa.
Realising that there could be severe political implications, he says he immediately called an investigation to ensure that none of his staff were behind the wave. He ordered overnight billing and system diagnostics records. He discovered the messages originated from subscribers themselves.
But Mugabe took a different view. According to newspaper reports and government insiders, Mugabe accused Masiyiwa of being behind the message campaign – a charge fuelled by the fact that Econet is the only cellphone company with no ties to the government.
Masiyiwa says: “Making me responsible for the messages sent on my network is like holding me responsible for the contents of private conversations. I was told that the president was so angry that he actually said I should be eliminated.”
The government denies that the president made any such comment.