Voting booths in Zimbabwe have closed following what observers call ‘a peaceful poll,’ reports the BBC. Yet the context of today’s parliamentary election could not be more dramatic. President Robert Mugabe has lately shut off humanitarian aid to his starving population, declaring that only members of his own party, the ZANU-PF, will have access to food. And this is just one of his many foul ploys to gain an absolute majority in Parliament, giving him full control over an already lawless country sinking deeper into misery and violence every day.
Below is Part I of an attempt to outline the background of this drama.
Following the conquest of its territory led by British financier Cecil Rhodes, the entity now known as Zimbabwe was established in 1890 as a commercial venture owned and run by his British South Africa Company. In 1923 the white settlers were offered a choice between annexation and self-government within the British Empire, choosing the latter. Between 1925 and 1980, ‘Rhodesia’ enjoyed the somewhat paradoxical status of an autonomous colony with its own parliament, laws, and police. More than in the London-run colonies, however, the black majority was surpressed and utterly denied participation, causing no small amount of tension with the British Colonial Office.
From 1953 to 1963, Rhodesia formed a union with North Rhodesia (now Zambia) and Nyasaland (now Malawi). This decade saw a massive confiscation of land on behalf of white farmers, which, combined with the winds of independence by now sweeping the continent, provoked the 1961 founding of the Zimbabwean African People’s Union (ZAPU). Two years later it was followed by a splinter group, the Zimbabwean African National Union (ZANU). Both were banned.
The white minority also wanted full independence from Britain, but on its own terms – this meaning continuation of the apartheid system. As Britain made independence conditional upon the abolition of the latter, Prime Minister Ian Smith issued what would be known as the Unilateral Declaration of Independence in 1965. This was rejected both by the Brits and the international community. The UN imposed economic sanctions on Rhodesia, which became an international pariah state.
Government garden party, 1966, Salisbury (now Harare). Photo: Marion Kaplan.
Pressure intensified during the 1970s, and not least from within. The ZANU, led by the Marxist Robert Mugabe, was based upon the Shona people, representing 75% of the population. Perhaps because of its leader’s ideological hue, it received military aid from China. The ZAPU, led by Joshua Nkomo, had its base in the Ndebele people of the South-East, representing 20% of the population. Through effective guerrilla struggle, the two movements forced the Smith regime to accept majority rule ‘in principle’ by 1976. Further negotiations led to independence in 1980.
It was settled that land reform would only take place by agreement and in return for compensation at market price, paid by the British government. Whites were encouraged to stay; the new coalition government stressed reconciliation and included all ethnic groups. Mugabe, whose ZANU won 57 of 89 contested seats in Parliament, took office as Prime Minister while Nkomo became Minister of the Interior. All appeared to be well.
However, that illusion was shattered already the next year as Mugabe accused ZAPU of plotting a coup, firing Nkomo. When ZAPU supporters launched a local revolt in response, Mugabe unleashed a feared army brigade upon the ethnic Ndebele, slaugthering thousands in an act of genocide that his followers have described, chillingly, as Gukurahundi – ‘the rain washing away the chaff.’
This occurred in the mid-80s and allowed Mugabe to strengthen his grip on power after his 1985 reelection. In 1987 the ZAPU was absorbed into the ZANU, renamed ZANU-PF, ushering in a de facto one-party system. That same year, he assumed the title of Executive President with additional powers. A final ominous event of 1987 was the expiry of the treatise which, based upon the so-called willing seller/willing buyer principle, outlawed farmland confiscation.
Ever since taking power, Mugabe had continued the Smith regime’s economic interventionism. Yet he had shied away from land reform, hesitant to meddle with the 6-7000 white farmers whose estates, located on the most fertile land, yielded most of the national exports. Instead he quite successfully bettered the living conditions of the rural blacks in other ways: building schools, creating infrastructure, and supporting small-scale black farmers, boosting their productivity. Infant mortality dropped and the proportion of children attending school sky-rocketed from 20% in 1980 to 80% in -88. Economic growth was a respectable 3.2%.
But alas, this was not to last: Toward the end of the decade, the World Bank and the IMF, worried about Zimbabwe’s mounting national debt, saw fit to demand a ‘structural adjustment program’ of economic liberalization. Combined with severe drought, this sent Zimbabwe spinning into a spiral of negative growth, hyper-inflation, and rampant unemployment, worsening throughout the 1990s. Increasingly, outright starvation made itself felt on the countryside, undermining Mugabe’s popularity. In 1997 he decided that, rather than drowning in this wave of discontent, he would try to ride it.
Part II to follow.
And in such a clear and engaging way. It reads almost like a mystery, and certainly ends with a cliffhanger. I can’t wait til part II! There is quite a bit of information here that I wasn’t aware of, although I knew the basics.
Such a tragic situation there, now and in the past… I sometimes blame most of the current ills of the world on the British. And sometimes I am even joking when I do so :).
Of course, the fact that Mugabe has proven himself to be an insane, megalomanic, corrupt “leader” has created the current untenable situation.
– to the extent that such things can be enjoyed…
The story of an independence hero turning brutal dictator is of course a sadly familiar one in Africa, but Mugabe is an especially demonic example. I don’t think even Moi, in Kenya, was ever quite a monster such as he has become.
A friend of mine, who is very into history and especially WWII and Cold War stuff, pointed out to me that quite a bit of the Cold War was fought in Africa, by proxy, much the same as in Central and South America. Thus, the propping up of truly horrific dictators and brutal regimes, although as Mugube was a Communist, I don’t know that he would fall under this.
It’s a subject I keep meaning to look up and get a good grasp on. One day.
With Zimbabwe, it’s mostly the story of the white farmers losing their land that has brought this to national attention, but they can leave and many have… it’s the African farmers and others that are being starved to death by this madman, and now it looks like he’s going to rig yet another election. Sad.
Another brilliant diary BTW.
A friend of mine theorises that one reason this often happens — especially in countries that have only recently gotten out from underneath empires — is that the conditions desirable for throwing off that imperial yoke (unity, an internally disciplined organisation in which all goals are subordinated to the task of gaining independence etc.) are not readily conducive to establishing a civil society in which dissent, opposition and disagreement are valued by those who hold power.
(Obviously, dissent, opposition and disagreement are valued hugely by a lot of people without power though, because if mute acquiescence were all he were encountering, Mugabe wouldn’t be using starvation as a political weapon.)
I also get the sense that those early years of independence matter hugely. I remember reading that if you get a peaceful power transition early on, that makes it far more likely that subsequent power transitions will also be peaceful.
Here is more on the election from ABC. According to a group of NGOs, 25% were rejected at the polls.
have relinquished power voluntarily. Term limits should be a necessity for all governments be it a parliamentary system or a presiddential one.
But surely term limits are only needed as a fix when a democratic system is not functioning. In a functioning democracy surely the people should have the right to decide.
I would not have liked to have seen 16 years of Ronald Reagan or Shrub Bush running the US. I think career politicans and private financing of elections corrupt just about every democracy on the planet. I’d like to limit terms and severely limit spending. As a species, we can’t handle freedom when it comes to politics.
It is interesting that in the US supreme court judges are appointed (not elected) for life. There is no limit of terms for senators, but there is for president. That seems pretty contradictory to me.
I’m with you on this, not with CA JAY. In California, term limits have contributed to our having a completely disfunctional legislature, dominated by the “permanent experts,” the lobbyists.
But this form of democratic disfunction has nothing on the sad degeneration of Mugabe’s Zimbabwe. I hope the diarist will help us understand whether there could have been another outcome? Given the constraints imposed by international economic arrangements, could a better government than Mugabe’s have dealt with Black land hunger and white land monopoly in a way that didn’t cripple the country?