As the economic situation in Zimbabwe deteriorates, security forces are being trained by Chinese military advisers in how to counter popular revolt.
Both the police and the army have been undergoing training in how to ”deal with urban disturbances” after an intelligence report was issued on the potential for massive civil unrest, given the escalating economic meltdown in the country.
A source within the Zimbabwean military said training has been under way for the past six months at Harare King Georg VI army headquarters and the Chikurubi police training depot. According to the same source, the army instructors on urban warfare and disturbances are Chinese, and will be in the country until December.
This week the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) staged a protest against the collapse of the economy. The protest was thwarted by police after they sealed off all roads leading to the ZCTU’s regional offices in the Harare city centre.
Mlamleli Sibanda, an information officer for the ZCTU, said that this week’s protests were ”just the beginning” .
Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), has added his voice to those supporting mass action: ”Our preparations for sustained resistance are complete; we are ready to roll out our programme,” Tsvangirai warned.
Advising the police and military to ”stay out of politics”, Tsvangirai asked the ”security forces to refrain from acts that shall put them on a collision course with the people”.
Political analysts agree that the economic crisis is likely to increase popular protest. ”We are likely to see a shift from planned demonstrations to a spontaneous uprising because the people are fed up,” says Reginald Matshava-Hove, a political analyst. ”The government is facing many challenges and ZCTU, in the long run, might have to change its tactics.”
Political scientist Alois Masepe believes that the ingredients for a political revolt are all there, ”but people needed to be mobilised. Someone has to ignite the flames in the hearts of the people. It has to start from the grassroots, with the opposition talking to the people so that they can own the uprising,” he says. Masepe added that opposition and civic groups haven’t yet sufficiently mobilised, or addressed, the population.
The intelligence report on the potential for mass civil action was prepared by the Central Intelligence Organisation and debated at length in April by the Joint Operations Group (JOG), which comprises the army, police, intelligence and penitentiary services.
It was commissioned to look into whether rising food shortages might trigger popular protest. The Reserve Bank averted the crisis by importing 900 000 tonnes of grain from South Africa in a structured deal involving the Reserve Bank, Merchant Bank of Central Africa, Nedbank and Renaissance Bank.
Although that particular crisis was resolved, the JOG still believed that the growing economic crisis was likely to spark MDC and ZCTU-led protests, and consequently hired instructors from China to train army officers on how to deal with urban disturbances.
Military sources say the current feeling within the government is that widespread discontent is likely to provoke a spontaneous urban revolt similar to the unprecedented food riots which caught the government off guard in 1998.
As pressure to resolve the deepening economic crisis mounts at home, the European Union Parliament has upped the stakes by demanding that the 82-year-old Mugabe ”stand down, sooner rather than later”.
The EU believes this ”would be the largest single step possible towards reviving Zimbabwean society, politics and the economy”, and towards positive transition negotiations between the country’s political stakeholders.
According to the EU, its sanctions against 120 senior Zimbabwean government officials have ”failed to have the desired impact on those directly responsible for the impoverishment of Zimbabwe”. The EU now wants sanctions to be extended to include Zanu-PF members, supporters and workers, as well as their family members, and business people and other prominent individuals associated with Zanu-PF.
The EU has also cautioned South Africa ”that the Mugabe regime must derive absolutely no financial benefit or propaganda value from the run-up to the World Cup and the tournament itself … it calls on South Africa … and on Fifa, to exclude Zimbabwe from participating in pre-World Cup matches, holding international friendly games or hosting national teams involved in the event.”