Viewing the broad spectrum of the political landscape in Zimbabwe at the end of 2011, one is left with the distinct impression that all the political forces are caught under a spell of  indecision. The dilemmas of leadership renewal, electoral strategy and a broad vision for the future are all inducing a sense of hesitancy, that in the case of Zanu PF, manifests itself in  renewed aggression and political hubris. Moreover if the Wikileaks reports have any validity this sense of uncertainty is not new, as all parties have, over the last decade,sought out the father confessor of the American Embassy to vent their fears and schizophrenic party psyches, none more so than the outwardly macho Zanu PF.

To start with Zanu PF, it is clear that the decision at the recent Bulawayo conference of the party to nominate Mugabe once again as the presidential candidate for the next election tells us a great deal about a party that is simply unable, at this stage, to visualise a regenerative strategy outside of its octogenarian leader. The lack of trust in an open discussion over the succession issue, is based on a  party that fears its own internal contradictions and history as much as it does the judgement of an open and fair plebiscite. Zanu PF is also a party that assumes that the Zimbabwean state is its private property and therefore finds it difficult to understand any other means to secure its ill- gotten gains except through the continued stranglehold over the military- security apparatus. For all these reasons and more Mugabe and his party remain the major obstacle to political progress in Zimbabwe. Yet Mugabe and his party are not about to disappear and their future, even if it may not be a long one for the President, must be a part of any longer term settlement in the country.

Tsvangirai’s MDC have their own set of doubts. A popularly elected party that was denied the fruits of victory, the party has had to confront the challenges of learning statecraft in an inclusive government with a ruthless, violent and wily ‘partner’. This challenge has had to be undertaken with a party apparatus that requires a huge amount of organisational strengthening and capacity building, and which has had its fair share of problems with internal accountability and intra-party violence. The recent personal problems of Morgan Tsvangirai have added to the leadership struggles that have also emerged in the MDC-T.

The smaller MDC formation led by Welshman Ncube faces an even greater sense of uncertainty about its future, as a result of an ongoing legal battle over the leadership,  continued defection of its membership, and the knowledge that its current survival depends on its capacity to manoeuvre between the two major parties. Added to this is the constant vilification that this formation and its leader have had to face from all sides in Zimbabwe.

For their part the regional and international players in Zimbabwean politics  confront their own uncertainties. After the more critical position taken on the Mugabe regime in Livingstone in March this year, SADC followed this up with resolutions in Sandton and Luanda that endorsed this position, even if in less critical language. However there has been a lull in the SA mediation in the last quarter of 2011 with President Zuma, confronted with his own set of problems in the ANC, slow to take up some key outstanding issues in the GPA. Foremost amongst these challenges is the problem of the role of the security sector in the next election. This is an issue that the negotiators have been unable to resolve and have therefore determined that the matter can only be taken up by Zuma and the Principals in Zimbabwe. Zuma’s hesitation around this issue echoes Mbeki’s unwillingness to deal with it in the discussions leading to the GPA, but it remains the central problem in the political equation.

SADC’s work has been made more difficult by its differences with the EU and the US over the continued sanctions policy of these countries, and the often mixed messages that have been sent out on this issue by the MDCs and the civic movement. For their part it appears that the EU, in particular, are aware of the limited and even counter-productive effects of the sanctions policy, but are more concerned about saving face with their own domestic constituencies, than with the problematic effects of this policy on the politics of the Inclusive Government. Moreover the global politics of human rights has too often been associated with a politics of regime change, making it difficult for human rights defenders in Zimbabwe to articulate this discourse in the face of nationalist pronouncements.

It is clear therefore that if there is indecision in Zimbabwean politics it is based on the growing complexity of the problem and the increasing need for a more assertive mediation process. In the current politics of Southern Africa this mediation can only be led effectively by SADC, with all its weaknesses, with both the EU and the US finding ways to strengthen rather than undermine this process. The central objective of the SADC mediation leading to the GPA was to establish the conditions for a free and fair election. That objective remains to be fulfilled and it is the processes leading to the next election, more than the timing of it, that are the most important factors to keep in focus.

A pregnant woman stands in her empty kitchen, rural Gwanda, October 2011. “No food, no work, no money. If only I could get cattle to help me plough.”

SPT Report

Nationally, Zimbabwe is more food secure at the end of 2011 than it has been for several years. However, parts of Zimbabwe suffered serious crop failure earlier this year and a million people are still predicted to need supplementary feeding. In Gwanda, Matabeleland South, the authors found that almost half of households indicated a day without food in the recent past.[1]  Only 17% of families reported eating three meals a day, meaning that 83% of households were, weeks before the onset of the official “hungry season in October”, already making food compromises daily. Grazing is critical, and people are traveling further to find water. This has been one of the hottest Octobers on record. Several families reported that baboons were killing and eating young goats and chickens, as the hunger now affects all living creatures in this area. Several families had no livestock left at all, not even one chicken.

Of concern by the end of October, is that supplementary feeding has not yet started, nor has the distribution of seed, yet the first rains have arrived. If people are to avoid yet another season of crop failure, there is an urgent need for free agricultural inputs to roll out now. Furthermore, many families are in desperate need of food now.

Deindustrialization in Bulawayo

This hunger – already so extreme ahead of the recognized “peak hunger season” that officially lasts from October to February – is taking place at a time when Bulawayo, traditionally the source of employment and resources for Matabeleland, has seen a cataclysmic loss of jobs in industry in the last two years. This means that part of the greater support system for rural Matabeleland is highly compromised. The report traces the recent economic history of the region, and efforts to regenerate industry.

Deportations

As deportations from South Africa gain momentum, the 17% of rural families that receive monthly remittances stand to lose this little extra means of support. All families with members in the diaspora will have extra mouths to feed during the hungriest months of the year, as or when the deportees return. Deportees to Zimbabwe have little likelihood of finding formal, productive employment and will merely exacerbate the plight of struggling households.

In addition to recommending urgent provision of both food and seeds, the authors make recommendations that include the following:

1. The grinding poverty of many rural Zimbabweans needs to be a priority with government and with the international community: there is a need to urgently address matters of economic development, as food handouts cannot be a permanent solution.
2. It is therefore imperative for the SADC facilitation to proceed with greater urgency in order to facilitate a more constructive dialogue with the donor countries over more substantive development assistance, even during this interegnum phase of the GPA.
3. Civil society in Zimbabwe needs to include the social and economic rights of all Zimbabweans on their lobbying agendas, broadening their current focus from human rights and political rights.
4. The recommendations made to Cabinet to promote the recovery of industries in Bulawayo, need to implemented speedily in order to regenerate some of the 20,000 jobs lost there in the last two years.
5. The Government of South Africa should reconsider its policy of renewed deportations of Zimbabweans, which is poised to exacerbate poverty and hunger in many parts of Zimbabwe.

Notes:

[1] Most of Matabeleland South suffered almost total crop failure in the last growing season – as did extensive parts of Midlands, Masvingo and parts of Manicaland. The hunger we document in this report is being experienced more widely in Zimbabwe.

Please cite this report as follows: Solidarity Peace Trust (2011) “Hard Times” Matabeleland: urban deindustrialization – and rural hunger. Durban: Solidarity Peace Trust

For requests for interviews, please email

Selvan Chetty: selvan@solidaritypeacetrust.org
Shari Eppel: shari@solidaritypeacetrust.org
Brian Raftopoulos: brian@solidaritypeacetrust.org

In Hopley Farm, Harare, 8,500 adults live in makeshift housing: out of 2,000 school age children, 75% are out of formal school. (July 2010)

By Busani Mpofu

The World Bank estimated urban poverty in Zimbabwe in 1990/91 to be 12 percent while the 1995 Poverty Assessment Study found urban poverty to be 39 percent. In January 2009, Save the Children estimated that 10 out of 13 million Zimbabweans, over 75 percent of the population, were living in ‘desperate poverty.’ In April 2010, UNICEF noted that 78 percent of Zimbabweans were “absolutely poor” and 55 percent of the population, (about 6.6 million) lived under the food poverty line while New Zimbabwe estimated that more than 65 percent of Zimbabweans lived below the poverty datum line in December 2009. Recently, commentators have argued that it is very clear that poverty is increasing in the country. The sense we get from the above statistics is that some agencies have defined certain percentages of Zimbabweans as poor, below some abstractly conceived poverty lines. The statistics, however, do not tell us how long those poor people have existed in poverty conditions or the historical and social dimensions of people’s understandings of poverty-what it is to ‘be poor.’

This article attempts to tackle some perceptions about poverty in Zimbabwe, partly addressing the issue of the changing understandings of what being ‘poor’ has meant to those perceived as poor. Drawing from the experiences of the urban poor, I also attempt to explore historical and social dimensions of people’s understandings of poverty-what it is to ‘be poor’. This is partly because what people do for themselves, as poverty alleviation strategies, presumably turns crucially on how they understand their own circumstances (rather than on whether the state or some other agency defines them as poor or not). Inevitably, the centrality of unemployment as the main cause of poverty featured high among urban Africans during the colonial period. The conception of unemployment, however, appeared to have changed in the post-colonial era especially after 2000 when some professional jobs like teaching began to be associated with poverty.

Perceptions on identifying poverty, its causes and solutions as perceived by the poor themselves, politicians, planners, practitioners, academics and outsiders vary considerably. Other scholars have contended that the problem of defining and fighting poverty is more of a political and technical problem than a rational activity while Pete Alcock argued that we need not look further than politics and politicians to find the causes of poverty as they run the country and are therefore responsible for the problems within it. Understanding poverty thus also requires an understanding of the social policies which have been developed in response to it and which have thus removed, restructured or even recreated it.

A challenge with studying poverty is that it has many facets and people have their own varied and changing notions of it. Worse still, the poor themselves are not a homogeneous group, they are diverse. According to John Iliffe, it is their diversity that makes it even harder to study them. The above problematic is also related to various contested definitions of poverty used by anthropologists, economists, development workers, geographers, sociologists and urban planners and historians. Economists sometimes use indexes and formulas to back up their theories that may be very confusing to historians, while sociologists and development workers may feel they have the monopoly of writing about poverty because of the proximity of their work to the poor in societies and also because the they have at times used the word poverty as a catchword for some of their programmes.

There is therefore no one correct, scientific, agreed definition of poverty because poverty is inevitably a political concept, and thus inherently a contested one.

Full article available for download below in PDF format.

Rights reserved: Please credit the Solidarity Peace Trust as the original source for all SPT material republished on other websites unless otherwise specified. Please provide a link back to http://www.solidaritypeacetrust.org/1109/some-perceptions-on-the-poverty-question-in-zimbabwe/ for this report

This article can be cited in other publications as follows: Mpofu, B. (2011) ‘Some Perceptions on the Poverty Question in Zimbabwe’, 16 September, Solidarity Peace Trust: http://www.solidaritypeacetrust.org/1109/some-perceptions-on-the-poverty-question-in-zimbabwe/

Food aid being distributed in Zimbabwe

By Norma Kriger

Western donors understandably tread warily in Zimbabwe where ZANU PF remains the overwhelmingly dominant governing party in a formal coalition government. The “Inclusive Government” (IG) was formed in February 2009, following the signing of the Global Political Agreement (GPA) in September 2008 by ZANU PF, Tsvangirai’s MDC (MDC-T) and a smaller MDC formation. Western governments, initially opposed to the formation of a coalition government, continue to enforce travel bans and asset freezes against ZANU PF individuals and ZANU PF-affiliated entities. ZANU PF has persisted with its strident animosity to Western governments and donors, and has made these sanctions policies a major reason for stalling on the implementation of the GPA. While ZANU PF blames the sanctions for retarding economic recovery, Western bilateral donors rightly point to their substantial humanitarian aid – nearly US$651 million or 15-20% of GDP in 2009. This aid also happens to boost the image of the MDC parties, which were allocated Ministerial control of services, including health and education, while ZANU PF ensured it retained the security and foreign affairs Ministries, among others.

The role of Western foreign aid in this highly polarized internal politics is surely one reason why analysts have not focused much on its actual political impact. Instead, the politics of the political parties’ discourse or rhetoric has received much more attention, with particular focus on how ZANU PF depicts the West as undermining national sovereignty and seeking regime change. Another reason for the relative dearth of analysis about the political effects of foreign aid would seem to be some acquiescence that Western donor aid has generally benefited the opposition forces, chiefly MDC-T and civil society organizations, as intended.

Using a few cases drawn mainly from recently published reports whose main concerns were not about foreign aid, I highlight some dilemmas of foreign aid in Zimbabwe today. These cases suggest that, as in many other countries (Gourevitch, 2010), foreign aid has also had unintended and/or perverse political consequences in Zimbabwe. Its perverse impacts appear to include the strengthening of ZANU PF’s power and patronage resources and arguably a weakening of opposition forces or the shaping of an opposition ill-suited to transforming authoritarian rule.

International NGOs’ aid hijacked by ZANU PF

Recently, while reading The Anatomy of Terror (2011, anonymous, to protect researchers and informants) – a fascinating document that examined ZANU PF militia bases’ organization, resources, and personnel through detailed studies of 15 selected constituencies – I learned that some high profile international NGOs had their aid partially or fully hijacked by ZANU PF since the signing of the GPA. In some constituencies, the study noted, the operations of the international NGOs (INGOs) were “judged to be entirely ZANU PF run”, while in others aid distribution was compromised. The list of INGOs included Environment Africa, Mercy Corps, GOAL, Catholic Relief Services, Oxfam GB, and World Vision. The report also identifies local NGOs’ projects which have been compromised by ZANU PF intervention in aid distribution. Since most local NGOs survive primarily on foreign donor funds, such aid diversion is also relevant for this discussion.

Based on the report, INGOs which operate in ZANU PF-controlled districts and use local councilors and traditional authorities to distribute aid are prime candidates to have their aid hijacked by ZANU PF. In ZANU PF-controlled districts, these institutions are run by ZANU PF loyalists. But aid channeled through MDC councilors, as in particular wards in Zaka West (Masvingo Province), was also apparently captured by pro-ZANU PF traditional authorities. In at least two other cases, individual strongmen were able to redirect aid from its intended beneficiaries to ZANU PF loyalists. One example comes from Buhera South (Manicaland Province) and involves Joseph Chinotimba, a losing House of Assembly candidate in 2008 and a notorious “war veteran”. The report, like many others, describes him as having been directly involved in multiple rapes and two murder cases and also as a leader in urban company and farm invasions after 2000. He reportedly set up a committee chaired by a ZANU PF chief to control the entry of NGOs into the constituency. According to the report, Chinotimba acts as if Mercy Corps’ borehole drilling project belongs to him: he distributes the organization’s equipment to beneficiaries, claiming the funds and clean water assistance come directly from him.

If The Anatomy of Terror is accurate, what should be the response of the organizations whose aid has been diverted? Article 16.4(b) of the GPA forbids NGOs to provide humanitarian assistance that discriminates on the basis of political affiliation. Should affected NGOs invoke the GPA prohibition against the partisan distribution of humanitarian assistance whenever and wherever it is violated? Should they threaten to suspend all their other projects in the country if aid diversion occurs in select areas? Should they at least publicize who is diverting aid and where it is being diverted? If they maintain a silence about non-transparent aid distribution, how do we even know how widespread aid diversion is? How should they balance their organizational interests in maintaining their projects, the jobs they provide for locals and international staff, and the benefits they provide to locals in some areas against the direct role their aid has had in bolstering the local power and patronage of ZANU PF henchmen?

Donor-funded constitutional outreach program creates opportunity for ZANU PF to rebuild rural influence

The writing of a new constitution, a referendum on the draft constitution, and then an election are key components of the GPA. The constitutional outreach program, an important step in the constitution-making process, was designed to solicit the preferences of the population. The model for the constitution-making process agreed to by the three principals in the government was that Members of Parliament (Senators and House of Assembly representatives) would head each outreach team. Between June and November 2010, the outreach program made Parliament inactive as MPs earned handsome per diems from foreign donors, over and above their MP salaries and allowances.

In January 2010, SWRadio Africa published a list of perpetrators of political violence associated with the 2008 presidential election run-off who would be involved in the constitutional outreach program. Of the 44 named perpetrators along with details of the ways in which they were involved in electoral violence, many were ZANU PF Senators or MPs or ZANU PF candidates who lost in the 2008 elections. Objections were raised about UNDP, a major funder, paying per diems to known perpetrators on the teams, the issue being that it fostered impunity and lack of accountability. But at least according to ActionAid Denmark, the political impact of multilateral and bilateral foreign donor support for the constitutional outreach program was significant for reasons beyond funding individual human rights violators.

ActionAid’s report, A Gathering Storm (November 2010), claims that ZANU PF used the outreach process both to successfully campaign for its positions on the new constitution in rural areas and also to rebuild its party’s rural influence, especially in Mashonaland East, West and Central Provinces and Manicaland. Because ZANU PF’s campaign for its preferred constitutional provisions often used violence and intimidation, the party also shrank the political space available for other political parties and positions at outreach meetings. ActionAid noted that unlike ZANU PF, “neither MDC nor civil society have launched any attempt to seriously influence, let alone dominate, the process.” (s.8) In a footnote, ActionAid commented that ZANU PF’s successful strategies were heavily dependent on donor funds and listed not only the UNDP but also Australia, Denmark, the EU, France, Holland, the UK, and the USA, saying: “It is ironical that Zanu-PF in this way seem to have re-conquered lost ground utilizing a process almost entirely funded by its declared Western arch-enemies.” (fn 18, s.33)

If an unintended consequence of the donor-funded constitutional outreach process was indeed to facilitate ZANU PF’s re-building of its rural influence, donor support for democracy-building backfired. Should donors treat all governing parties in an even-handed manner in their democracy promotion programs, even when it means supporting a party that has shown no signs of abandoning its authoritarian agenda and strategic use of political violence and intimidation against its opponents? Bilateral donor funding of the outreach program meant at least indirect support for many ZANU PF MPs and other ZANU PF leaders who are on Western sanctions’ lists because of their involvement in human rights abuses – and, according to the January 2010 list published by SWRadio Africa, still other ZANU PF leaders who were central organizers of local level violence in 2008 but seem to have escaped Western sanctions. How do donors reconcile support for the constitution-making process with at least indirect support for those on Western sanctions’ lists?

Civil society organizations and the MDC-T

There is some consensus among observers and analysts that opposition forces – local civil society organizations and NGOs and the MDC formations – have lost steam during the GPA and are in a defensive mode. Some analysts have accorded donors a role in the weakening of opposition forces, thus highlighting the unintended consequences of donor aid. While Raftopoulos (2010) highlights donors’ emphasis on human rights agendas and the removal of a single leader at the expense of developmental issues since the emergence of an opposition in the late 1990s, ActionAid (2010) hints at donor per diems themselves having affected the nature and character of civic organizations – largely urban-based, and chiefly Harare-based (like the donor organizations themselves), seldom membership-based, and as Raftopoulos also notes, heavily focused on monitoring and reporting. Mindful of the enormous obstacles to organizing in rural areas where ZANU PF-organized coercion and patronage still prevail, the report remarks on the astonishing lack of rural organizations under volunteer leadership that mobilize against local authorities on the basis of local grievances. ActionAid comments:

“Even after several decades of realizing that the political power in Zimbabwe mainly rests in the rural areas and that the rural areas are host to the majority of the people needing the largest improvement in livelihood, the rural areas are practically nude of locally implanted or [locally] connected CSOs. Some watchdog organizations might have local representatives in rural areas … but it appears that their task is mainly that as of conduits of information… They are rarely autonomous local leaders linked to a national network.”

These broad brush claims about the impact of donor aid on domestic organized opposition need to be supplemented or checked against more detailed examinations of specific organizations. The coexistence of a remarkably subdued population and an opposition movement that had plenty of donor support requires careful analysis for its lessons for organized opposition and democracy-building programs. Did donor support unintentionally contribute to creating an opposition movement that is not only donor-dependent but also ill-suited to the type of opposition movement needed to confront authoritarian rule in the rural hinterland?

Humanitarian aid

Humanitarian aid has been critical to the revival of basic service delivery, including health and education. Most of this aid does not go directly to the government because Western bilateral donors would like to see more government progress in the implementation of the GPA. At the end of 2010, some INGOs told me that they looked forward to the normalization of donor-government relations as they were accustomed to working with governments in other environments. Donors have now committed funds to the African Development Bank for projects that do provide more scope for government involvement. While criticisms of donors for not directly funding the government abound, internal and external actors rarely, if ever, voice criticism of humanitarian aid for helping to keep alive a government (albeit primarily “one section of it” as ZANU PF is often referred to in diplomatic parlance) that has failed to adhere to most provisions of the GPA.

An unfulfilled provision of the GPA relates to the provision of humanitarian assistance to internally displaced people (IDPs), yet one seldom, if at all, hears the international humanitarian community even raise the issue. Article 16.4 (c) of the GPA stipulates “that all displaced persons shall be entitled to humanitarian and food assistance to enable them to return and settle in their original homes and that social welfare organizations shall be allowed to render such assistance as might be required.” IDPs constitute as many as almost 8 per cent of the population (1 million people), making Zimbabwe among the countries with large percentages of IDPs. (IDMC, 2010) Most of these IDPs are the product of the previous ZANU PF government’s actions – farm invasions that displaced farm workers, arbitrary evictions of people from their homes in cities and towns, evictions of informal mine workers, and electoral violence. Under the IG, forced displacement continues, chiefly through ongoing farm invasions but also arbitrary evictions in areas of mining operations.

When the IG was formed, it showed some openness to addressing issues of forced internal displacement but soon retreated. The IG conducted a small-scale assessment of IDPs with UN agencies in August 2009 but the government has refused to release the results (IDMC, 2010). Unfortunately, the MDC parties seem to have no political motivation to challenge ZANU PF on the issue as the majority of IDPs are farm workers, many of whom are not even registered to vote. So another component of the GPA remains unenforced, and unlike those provisions relating to MDC governmental positions, is largely a suppressed issue. Should the international humanitarian community advocate for IDPs, a group that ZANU PF still apparently prefers to treat as if it does not exist, if seeking government permission to help IDPs might threaten the provision of humanitarian aid to other sections of the population?

Another serious dilemma for the humanitarian community is its support for basic services while ZANU PF loots diamond mining revenue for its own party purposes, including paying salaries and providing patronage to the security sector and recently even paying civil servants a salary increase. The MDC-headed Finance Ministry meanwhile is deprived of control of a substantial source of revenue. The international humanitarian community’s logic is presumably that improvement in service delivery (which remains enormously deficient) not only produces benefits for the local population but will redound to the credit of opposition parties which have Ministerial control of services. But the premise is that there will be a democratic election which the MDC will win – a prospect that grows dimmer by the day. At what point does the international humanitarian community say that the economy is generating enough revenue for the government to be able to provide basic services to its population?

Conclusion

The politically charged environment in which donor aid is provided in Zimbabwe and the role that aid itself plays in inflaming domestic politics should stimulate rather than mute analysis and debate about the role of foreign aid. The cases presented above illustrate the unenviable dilemmas facing foreign donors in Zimbabwe’s difficult operating environment where well-intentioned aid seems to have unintentionally contributed to weakening the opposition forces and strengthening ZANU PF. The road to hell is paved with good intentions and Zimbabwe seems well along that road for many reasons that have nothing to do with foreign aid. It is important to know if and how foreign aid may have unwittingly pushed Zimbabwe perhaps faster and further along that path and to begin to consider how withdrawal of aid or its redesign may enable taking a less destructive way.

Rights reserved: Please credit the author, and Solidarity Peace Trust, as the original source for all material republished on other websites unless otherwise specified. Please provide a link back to http://www.solidaritypeacetrust.org

This article can be cited in other publications as follows: Kriger, N. (2011) ‘Foreign Aid Dilemmas under Zimbabwe’s Inclusive Government’, 12 August, Solidarity Peace Trust: http://www.solidaritypeacetrust.org/1092/foreign-aid-dilemmas/

References

ActionAid Denmark, A Gathering Storm: Zimbabwe’s final hope for reform? December 11, 2010. http://www.kubatana.net/docs/demgg/msdk_zimreport_101211.pdf (accessed July 29, 2011).

Anonymous, The Anatomy of Terror (June 10, 2011, distributed by Sokwanele). http://www.sokwanele.com/thisiszimbabwe/archives/6800 (accessed July 29, 2011).

Gourevitch, Philip, “Alms Dealers: Can you provide humanitarian aid without facilitating conflicts?”, The New Yorker, October 11, 2010.

IDMC, Global Overview of Trends and Developments in 2010, March 2011 http://www.internal-displacement.org/publications/global-overview-2010.pdf (accessed July 20, 2011).

Raftopoulos, Brian, “The Global Political Agreement as a ‘Passive Revolution’: Notes on Contemporary Politics in Zimbabwe”, The Round Table, 99:411, December 14, 2010, 705-718. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00358533.2010.530414 (accessed July 20, 2011).

Statement by Owen Sheers

In 2004 I published The Dust Diaries, an account of my journey tracing the life and legacy of my great, great uncle, the maverick missionary and activist for African rights Arthur Shearly Cripps. My journey in Cripps’ footsteps finished at his graveside in the knave of a ruined church deep in the Zimbabwean veldt. The church was built by Cripps in the style of Great Zimbabwe. It was midnight and hundreds of people were packed between its walls, dancing and singing around my uncle’s grave. Fires picked out the shape of the kopje that rose above us, testament to the 700 Zimbabweans who had, despite fuel shortages and other difficulties, made the journey to this isolated place to celebrate Arthur’s life and remember his fifty years living and working with the Shona people around Chivhu. The celebrations lasted for three days. Remarkably ecumenical in nature, both Anglican service and traditional Shona pungwe, they constituted the annual ‘Shearly Cripps Festival’, an event attended by Zimbabwean Anglicans for over fifty years.

This year the Shearly Cripps festival has not been allowed to happen. On August 2^nd it was reported that excommunicated Anglican Bishop Nolbert Kunonga, an outspoken supporter of President Robert Mugabe and ZANU PF, claimed to have ‘taken over’ the Shearly Cripps Shrine, along with all other church properties in the Masvingo Province. Sadly the local police have enforced Kunonga’s claims, despite repeated court orders ruling access to Anglican properties should be open to all. This claim follows over ten years of similar actions by Kunonga, including inciting violence against those attending services under the direction of the legitimate Archbishop of Harare. As with his actions over the Shearly Cripps Shrine the police, ignoring court orders, have often acted in collusion with Kunonga, even tear-gassing church-goers.

As a descendent of Arthur Shearly Cripps I strongly condemn Kunonga’s illegal seizure of the Shearly Cripps Shrine and all other Anglican Church properties in Masvingo Provience and call upon Kunonga to revoke his false claims. Given the nature of Cripps’ activist work – fighting for indigenous land rights, defending local people against colonial injustice, building the country’s first VD clinic for indigenous Zimbabweans – Kunonga’s actions in denying access to his shrine and inciting violence against the Anglican community are particularly sickening and perverse. Extraordinary though the actions of Kunonga and the police may seem they are also, unfortunately, all too indicative of the cronyism, corruption and injustice that have marred the ZANU PF regime in Zimbabwe for over the last ten years.

Cripps strived all his life for equality and justice. When he died he left all his land to the local people who had lived and farmed on that land for many years. In the light of his work and his legacy it is particularly saddening that the kind of actions Cripps fought against during his time in colonial Southern Rhodesia should be echoed now by Kunonga in a post-colonial Zimbabwe.

Notes for Editors

- Bishop Kunonga was excommunicated from the Anglican Church in Africa after his violent actions, including encouraging physical attacks on people attending Sunday services under the direction of the legitimate Archbishop of Harare.

- It was recently reported that Kunonga broke into the church in Chivhu with the connivance of the police, who refuse to take any complaint from the Anglican church about these events. Government controlled Zimbabwean television has endorsed Kunonga’s activities, and have publicized his takeover as a matter of fact.

- Arthur Shearly Cripps was a poet, activist and independent missionary to Zimbabwe who lived in Zimbabwe from 1901 until his death in 1952. Throughout his time in the country he fought tirelessly for African rights, and specifically African land rights, publishing a book entitled An Africa for Africans in 1927.

- Both Muriel Spark and Doris Lessing have cited Cripps as an influential figure in the development of liberal social activism in Southern Rhodesia/Zimbabwe

- Jodi Bieber, winner of the premier World Press Photo of the Year Award 2011, attended the Shearly Cripps festival with Owen Sheers in 2000.  To contact Jodi about these images please visit this link.

- Owen Sheers is a poet and author. He recently wrote the script for National Theatre of Wales and Michael Sheen’s The Passion. The Dust Diaries won the Welsh Book of the Year 2005 and is currently being translated into Shona. Owen is available for interview.

Links

• Life for Zimbabwe Anglicans worsens with properties commandeered, priests arrested
• The Dust Diaries by Owen Sheers

For authoritarian parties like Zanu PF, all these forms of having to answer to various fora are anathema, as they provide varying means of eroding the monopoly of power that the regime has become completely accustomed to. The accumulation of small reforms and the slow dispersal of power provide a major challenge for such structures of authoritarian power, as they provide the possibility of a cumulative momentum of dissent that can be very difficult to control. When combined to the major challenge of the succession problem in Zanu PF, now an very urgent issue in the light of Mugabe’s waning health, these factors have pushed Zanu PF into emergency election mode.

The challenge for Zanu PF since the signing of the GPA, and more urgently following the Livingstone meeting, has been to decide on what strategies to deploy in the next election campaign. The party’s recidivist impulse to return to violence is clearly very strong, particularly given the increasing control of the party and the state by the securocrats. Moreover the reports of various human rights organization have shown growing evidence of the low level, pre-election intimidation emerging in the country designed to pre-empt any forms of opposition activity in the public sphere, with the specter of North Africa clearly haunting the calculations of the military-political elite. The Zanu PF election campaign message has concentrated on the dual issue of the indigenization and anti-sanctions campaign, with the connection being that both are designed, in the party’s view, to confront the continuing threats to national sovereignty.

However whereas in the period between 2000-2008 the message around the land had some purchase both in the country and the region, the recent attempt to reload the message in a different form, has proved much more hollow both nationally and regionally. The stern rebuke of SADC at the Livingstone meeting placed the issue of Zanu PF violence and coercion at the forefront of its resolutions. Moreover the resolution to appoint a team of officials to work with JOMIC to ensure the monitoring, evaluation and implementation of the GPA, was a direct challenge to the Mugabe regime’s persistent rhetoric on national sovereignty.

The frantic, angry and strategically stupid attacks by Zanu PF spokespersons to the Livingstone position, SADC, and the South African President, indicates the very real threat that the SADC position holds for Mugabe’s party. The once taken- for- granted regional solidarity against the West is no longer so easily available, and at a stroke a key part of the Zanu PF strategy over the last decade has been placed under threat. The vehement lobbying by Zanu PF representatives ahead of the full SADC summit in Sandton on the 11-12 June was another indication of the panic that the recent SADC position has caused in Zanu PF.

Moreover the resolutions of the Sandton meeting, notwithstanding the claims of the state media in Zimbabwe, largely confirmed the resolutions of the Livingstone summit, even if the language of the communiqué was calibrated in more moderate terms. More particularly the SADC summit in South Africa confirmed the Livingstone resolutions through the facilitator’s situation report, confirmation of the decision to appoint SADC representatives to join the JOMIC team, and through its commitment to the election roadmap. Both the Livingstone and Sandton meetings thus confirmed the central purpose of the mediation and the GPA, namely the establishment of conditions for generally acceptable elections in order to settle the central problem of state legitimacy in Zimbabwe.

Notwithstanding the continuities in the objectives of the mediation from the Mbeki to the Zuma administrations, the one major difference between the two, as South African analyst Siphamandla Zondi has noted, has been that while Mbeki’s emphasis was placed on building consensus amongst the primary actors in Zimbabwe, Zuma has complemented this by his concentration on building a stronger regional consensus against the obstructive behavior of the Mugabe regime.  In particular Zuma has developed closer relations with the Angolan president who always felt slighted and marginalized by former President Mbeki. Zuma’s strategy was also determined by Zanu PF’s attempts to undermine the ANC in the region in order to ensure the solidarity of the region. There has now been a shift in this regional balance that has also been affected by the more effective lobbying in SADC by both MDCs, and the greater respect they have earned in the region since 2008.

The fact that the West was largely marginalized in the SADC mediation, also allowed Zuma to build a more effective African consensus to take a stronger stand against the abuses of Zanu PF. This factor is one of the key differences with the current situation in North Africa, the Middle East and particularly Libya, where Western intervention, both diplomatic and military, has clouded the issues much more for the opposition. Western intervention in the Middle East is of course dictated by the major issue of oil reserves, its strategic military positions in the region, and the position of Israel, all of which dwarf the West’s interests in democratization in this part of the world. The Mugabe message peddlers have not been slow to point out the duplicity of the West on the democratic agenda, but Zanu PF’s depravity on this issue has removed the sting from any critique it once offered in this area. Progressive anti-imperialism abroad cannot long outlast vicious repressive practices at home.

SADC and the democratic forces in Zimbabwe must now move to ensure a broad consensus with the West in implementing all key aspects of the GPA, with the regional body leading the construction of such a consensus. Zanu PF must be left with little doubt that any further attempts to forestall the GPA through violence and repression, will be met with a more unified condemnation that will leave little room for continued unilateral actions. Such pressure may also lead to more realistic political discussions between the parties that will deal not only with elections processes but the possibility of transfer of power, in which area both the mediation and the GPA has been very weak. Thus the role of the security sector has to be dealt with by SADC, even if it is unrealistic to expect major security sector reform in the pre-election period. Such reforms are a long-term process, but at the minimum the role of the security sector in the elections process and pre-election violence, must be placed under close enough scrutiny to make it a non-viable election strategy for Zanu PF.

Please cite this article as follows: Raftopoulos, B. (2011) ‘SPT-Zimbabwe Update No.3. June 2011: Beyond Livingstone’, 24 June, Solidarity Peace Trust: http://www.solidaritypeacetrust.org/1079/spt-zimbabwe-update-no-3/

Violent land seizures began in Zimbabwe in 2000 carried out by "war veterans"

Paper presented by Wilfred Mhanda to the SAPES Trust Policy Dialogue Forum in Harare on 7 April 2011. Wilfred Mhanda, aka Dzinashe Machinugura, was a commander of the Zimbabwe People’s Army (Zipa), and in the leadership of the alternative Zimbabwe Liberators Platform.

Zimbabwe’s former liberation fighters have become a household name for all the wrong reasons. This paper will seek to trace the development of the role of war veterans in Zimbabwe’s political and economic processes particularly from 1997 onwards to date and provide a contextual background for their perceived role and put the public perception of the former fighters in perspective.

The war veterans came into being with the demobilisation of those former ZIPRA and ZANLA fighters who were not attested into the Zimbabwe National Army, ZNA in 1980. The advent of Zimbabwe’s independence on 18 April 1980 and the subsequent formation of the Zimbabwe National Army made the former liberation armies both superfluous and redundant as their mission of liberating Zimbabwe had been accomplished. ZIPRA and ZANLA no longer had any role to play in an independent Zimbabwe. From then onwards, we could only refer to former ZANLA and former ZIPRA fighters. It is these fighters who then became referred to as veterans of the national liberation war. Maintaining the ZIPRA/ZANLA labels and their links to the liberation parties would have only served to undermine the unity and cohesion of the new army as evidenced by the counter-productive ZANLA/ZIPRA clashes in places like Entumbane in 1980/81.

The former fighters were weaned off from their parent political parties ZANU and ZAPU and their welfare became the responsibility of the new Government of Zimbabwe and not of their former mother parties. Any links with the political parties could only now continue in terms of individual membership of those political parties. It is instructive to note that, technically, the overwhelming majority of the former fighters were never card carrying members of the political parties ZANU and ZAPU that parented ZALNLA and ZIPRA; nor were they required to do so. They became registered members of the parties’ armed wings and not the parties. All that was required of them was the commitment to fight for the liberation of their country. For the fighters on the other hand, the political parties and their armed wings became vehicles and instruments for the liberation of Zimbabwe.

Indeed, the former fighters had both political and economic roles during the liberation war in addition to their fighting role. The liberation armies were simultaneously a fighting, political and economic force. Their role as a fighting force entailed waging war against the illegal racist, minority Smith regime to inflict defeat on them. Their role as political force encompassed fighting for democracy, self-determination and liberation and mobilisation and organisation of the masses of the people to support the liberation war as their war; a people’s war that could only be won by fully mobilising the people and relying on them. The economic role of the liberation forces was determined by their engagement in production related activities to sustain themselves. They hoped for external assistance but principally they were dependent on their own efforts which underpinned the concept of self-reliance. Furthermore, fighting the enemy did not only entail engaging his forces but the destruction of the economic base supporting his war effort like road, rail and communication infrastructure and the disruption of agricultural and farming activities. This was another economic role of the liberation armies; the destruction of the enemy’s economic lifeline to complement the United Nations economic embargo imposed on Rhodesia after UDI.

The period from 1980 to 1990 could be characterised as a phase of dormancy for the former fighters as they tried to adjust to the new reality of finding their way back into society. This was a very crucial period as it planted the seeds of some of the problems associated with the former fighters that surfaced almost two decades later, as the chickens came back home to roost. It is generally accepted that in post-conflict situations, there is a need to provide for equitable, sustainable assistance to veterans as part of their disarmament, demobilisation and re-integration into society. Failure to do so invariably leads to instability engendered by the disaffected veterans. Indeed, the ZANU-PF government has been castigated by independent researchers and analysts for failing to adopt a sound veterans’ policy for their re-integration back into society. They have also decried the initial efforts at demobilisation in 1981 as inadequate.

According to A.G. Dzinesa:

…no elaborate reintegration policy was designed, besides the provision of a grant of $400. The opportunity to plan a comprehensive DDR strategy at the earliest possible stage was lost. The limited reintegration strategy resulted in ineffective integration of these demobilised combatants, the majority of whom registered under the demobilisation Programme of 1981 .[1]

Gerald Mazarire and Martin Rupiya concur:

Given the impact of resources at the individual level, set at Z$185,00 per month over 24 months, the sums were generally far short of what was required to adequately assist former combatants to ease themselves back into the capitalist economy inherited from Rhodesia. Many lacked the necessary skills while those in command of the economy spurned the new entrants. Furthermore, serious government corruption was later unearthed in the selection and allocation of scholarships. As a result, these did not really benefit the intended beneficiaries – the ex-combatants. [2]

Muchaparara Musemwa adds:

The government’s demobilisation package which in the words of an ex-guerrilla Albert Nyathi was a ‘pitiful alternative to Operation Seed ‘, is in fact ‘notorious’ for falling far short of adequately preparing ex-combatants to returning to civilian society. It was an impetuously designed programme that overlooked the diverse socio-economic needs of each and every demobilised ex-combatant. Very little if anything was done to assess the extent to which society at large was prepared to absorb them. Some ex-combatants had practical problems like not having a place they could call home … [3]

According to Dzinesa:

Notwithstanding the existence of a dedicated Demobilisation Directorate, there were programmatic and institutional gaps. These included a lack of broad and consistent socio-economic profiling of combatants, the failure to implement financial management skills training for the many ex-combatants inexperienced in handling (demobilisation) money, incompetent and corrupt directorate staff, an absence of elaborate and workable business or cooperative support mechanisms and the lack of proactive monitoring mechanism. The majority of the ex-combatants enterprises collapsed due to these factors while agro-based enterprises were also hard-hit by drought. [4]

The same conclusions were also reached by Musemwa. [5]

It is instructive to note that the problems of violence, anarchy and lawlessness that Zimbabwe associated with war veterans from 1997 onwards can be attributed to the failure by the government, society and the donors to implement a sound, sustainable policy of demobilisation, catering for the welfare of the former fighters and facilitating their reintegration into society.

It is also noteworthy that the former liberation parties, ZAPU and ZANU were notable by their silence as the former liberation fighters struggled to find their feet in the new Zimbabwe that they fought so hard to bring about. War is a very excruciating and traumatic experience and the first thing that should have been addressed ahead of any financial and material benefits, was to facilitate the former fighters’ re-integration into society through providing counselling to help them cope with post traumatic stress disorders. Sadly this was never done.

The first decade into independence saw the former fighters slide into extreme poverty and destitution. They were so to speak, war veterans in themselves. It was this desperate situation and misery that saw them form the Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans Association, ZNLWA as a vehicle to champion their forgotten interests. With the formation of the association in 1990, with Justice Charles Hungwe as the founding chair, the fighters transformed from being war veterans in themselves to become war veterans for themselves. It was against a lot of resistance that the association was formed as both the political and bureaucratic establishment were apprehensive about the move, with most of them not being former fighters. They feared that the new association could de-legitimise them on that account. The war veterans association was registered as a non-partisan membership organisation in terms of the Private Voluntary Organisations Act to cater for the welfare needs of the former fighters. It was not a case of all former fighters automatically becoming members of the organisation. Some of the actions that were later associated with the organisations are clearly inconsistent with the provisions of the Act and could easily be used as arguments for its de-registration.

The government responded with the enactment of the War Veterans Act two years later to cater for the welfare of the former fighters in a desperate effort to contain the reach of the new organisation. The Act was meant:

to provide for the establishment of schemes for the provision of assistance to war veterans and their dependants; to provide for the establishment of a fund to finance such assistance; to provide for the constitution and functions of the War Veterans Board; and to provide for matters incidental to or connected with the foregoing (War Veterans Act: Chapter 11:15, 1996).

These were indeed very altruistic and well-meaning objectives that could have gone a long way to uplift the former fighters and mitigate their miserable plight. But for the record, other than the formation of a War Veterans Board and the creation of a dedicated ministry nothing came of the Act’s noble intentions. The former fighters had to take to the streets five years later to get any form of assistance despite the clear provisions of the Act.

The country’s former liberation fighters hit the headlines in the in the years 1996-97 in connection with compensation payments based on War Victims Compensation Act that had been on the statute books since the time of the Rhodesian war against the guerrillas. The Victims of Terrorism (Compensation) Act of 1973 was introduced by the Smith regime to compensate for death, injury and damage or loss of property caused by an act of terrorism on or after 1972. [7] At independence, the Act was amended to include almost all who could have been negatively affected by the war be it in education or loss of income. The beginning and cut off period was set at March 1962 to March 1980. [8] Under the War Victims Act, injury means ill health, physical and mental incapacitation caused by war inside Zimbabwe and in the neighbouring countries between 23 December 1972 and 29 February 1980. [9] The ZANU-PF government established a War Victims Compensation Fund in 1980 for payments to victims in terms of the Act. As noted in the previous sentence, the majority of the former fighters were eligible for compensation in terms of the broad provisions of the Act. However the rank and file of the former fighters were not aware of its existence and provisions. The politicians, on the other hand, had drawn benefits from it. According to the weekly Zimbabwe Independent publication of 17 May 1996, with the column heading ‘Chefs help themselves to war veterans compensation fund’:

Top politicians, senior government officials and other influential people in Zimbabwe’s liberation war have allegedly drained the national fiscus of millions of dollars through inflated compensation claims for disabilities they say they sustained during the struggle.

Operatives in the pension’s office, most of them war veterans themselves, observed who was benefitting. Word soon got around in 1995 that the former fighters could submit applications for compensation for various claims. A flood of applications followed. These were processed by the relevant department in the Ministry of Labour and Social Welfare. Initially a number of medical practitioners made the disability or injury assessments but subsequently it was Dr Chenjerai Hitler Hunzvi [10], then stationed at Harare Central Hospital, who took it upon himself to do the bulk of medical evaluations.

Queues of up to 500 fighters could be seen for weeks at the War Veterans Association HQ in Belgravia. The rank and file former fighters started drawing compensation from the fund in 1995 i.e. two years before the alarm was raised that the fund had been looted by the former fighters, primarily service chiefs, senior army commanders and civil servants. It was the Zimbabwe Independent which first exposed the scam in 1996. [11] Compensation payments were stopped in April 1997 following a public outcry. According to The HERALD of 18 April 1997:

The unexpected high figure, age of some of the claimants and purported beneficiaries and alleged abuses of the War Victims Compensation Fund recently led the Government to suspend further disbursements of funds under the facility and order investigations into the allegations and come up with a water tight policy on who should qualify.

The government subsequently established a commission of inquiry headed by then Judge President Justice Chidyausiku a couple of months later in 1997. Senior commanders and prominent fighters were paraded before it in a humiliating fashion to answer for their compensation awards and vouch for their disability.

According to the Herald report of 18 April, Minister of Public Service, Labour and Child Welfare, about 70 000 compensation applications had been processed, with a possibility of rising to 100 000. It is highly improbable that more than 20 000 former fighters had benefited from the fund by the time it was stopped. Besides, also according to the same issue of the Herald:

Whilst mostly former combatants are among the list of those who have benefited from the fund, former Rhodesian soldiers are also drawing from the fund which does not restrict it to former Zipra and Zanla combatants only as is now commonly believed.

Also in the same HERALD issue, Minister Chitauro commenting on the magnitude of the figure of beneficiaries says:

The figures were astronomical given that about 35 000 former Zanla and Zipra forces were demobolised in 1980 while the war veterans registers had even less.

Furthermore, the same HERALD issue under the headline ‘ 23-year-olds among war fund claimants’ quoted Minister Chitauro:

There were reported cases of 23 year-olds applying for compensation yet these should have been toddlers when the war of liberation was being waged in the country. “The youngest person to qualify should be around 33 t0 35 years old” she said.

The HERALD issue of 6 June 1997 also carried a report of a fraudster Lovemore Nyirenda who swindled the Pensions Office of Z$ 400 000 from unlawful claims from the War Victims Fund and was convicted of fraud by a Harare magistrates court.

All these foregoing factors suggest that the former fighters could not have been the major beneficiaries of the War Victims Compensation Fund although public perception suggested otherwise. This led the former fighters to conclude that they were victims of a deliberate campaign to target them for smearing. The Financial Gazette issue of 26 August 1997 carried a headline in its National Report of ‘Ex-combabtants cry foul as ernquiry unfolds – We are being made sacrificial lambs”:

Former freedom fighters in Zimbabwe’s war of liberation testifying before the presidentially-appointed commission charge that there are attempts by “hidden hands” in the top echelons of the party and the government to use them as fodder in the crisis surrounding allegations that the fund was looted of millions of dollars by top politicians and others in Zimbabwe .

“The is something wrong if we now must appear before a commission to explain why we were compensated for our injuries, while the real looters of the fund remained unscathed by the investigation” said Rushesha, now Minister of State for Gender issues. .. “We see a deliberate ploy to embarrass comrades yet there are people in the party and government who bought apartments in Harare and additional farms through the War Victims Fund but these people are not being hauled before this commission”: she added.

Her testimony and emotions dovetailed those of other ex-combatants highly active during the war who have appeared before the commission which enters its seventh day..

Chris Mutsvangwa, a former detachment commander with ZANLA forces, the armed military wing of ZANU PF during the liberation war said: “There is no doubt that this commission’s hearings are exposing what many of us who participated in the war have always known: the welfare of the ex-combatants was never on their priority list.. They were too busy lining their pockets to care about us.” He said it was unfair that ex-combatants continued to line up before the commission while ‘the real people with a case to answer continue to live in opulence and ridicule the lives of the ex-fighters.

Not all the fighters benefited as the payouts were abruptly halted with charges that the former fighters had looted the fund. [12] This development raised tensions between the war veterans and the state, as the former felt they were being used as a smoke-screen to disguise the looting that had earlier occurred by politicians and others who had been nowhere near the war. In addition, to many war veterans, the Chidyausiku Commission, established less than two months after the compensation payments had been suspended, was merely a device to discredit them.

The animosity between the war veterans and politicians was not something new. Norma Kriger has explored the differences between the two groups over state assistance to war veterans and state pensions for heroes. She based her study on excerpts from debates in Zimbabwe’s Parliament. Kriger refers to the lamentations of excombatants:

Excombatant MPs saw ‘the enemy’ as being within the government and the ruling party – the associates of Bishop Muzorewa and Ndabaningi Sithole, and the cabinet ministers who had advanced their education during the war. One excombatant said that some representatives left the House or went to drink tea when the House was going to debate ex-combatants. In 1980 some of these people were already ‘sitting pretty’ – they owned farms, supermarkets and so forth. ‘These same people do not like to see ex combatants near them. Some were working closely with Muzorewa and now they do not want ex-combabtants near them’ [13]

It is noteworthy that all the nationalist detainees who either died in detention before independence or were murdered by the Smith regime were recognised as heroes for their contribution to the struggle whereas those captured guerrillas that were executed by the regime have their remains still lying in prison cemeteries like Chikurubi without being either rehabilitated or recognised as heroes . [14]

The war victims’ compensation fund saga went a long way towards creating negative public perception of the former fighters and they never fully recovered their honour after this episode where they felt they were made scapegoats.

Their continuing miserable plight pushed the war veterans association in 1997 (now under the leadership of Chenjerai Hitler Hunzvi as national chairman) to demand for pensions and other related benefits from the state. President Mugabe finally succumbed to the demands of the former fighters, after facing unprecedented humiliation by the leadership of the former fighters. He undertook to make lump-sum payments of Z$50,000 (USD4000) to all the former fighters and agreed to pay them Z$2000 (US$150) monthly pensions; provisions for health, education and burial were also agreed. It has to be said that President Mugabe had his back against the wall when he acceded to the war veterans’ demands in the face of unrelenting and humiliating demonstrations against the government that the police did nothing to stop. The grants and pensions had not been budgeted for, thus throwing the fiscus off balance. Soon after the payouts to the veterans, the Zimbabwe dollar crashed on 13 November, 1997 losing its value to the American Dollar by 73 per cent thereby eroding the value of the payments and nullifying the intended benefit. [15]

There was a subsequent public outcry against the war veterans blaming them for crashing the economy. Most economists and analysts trace the economic slide down to the war veterans’ gratuities payments despite the rampant corruption within the state parastatals that ran into billions of Zimbabwe dollars and the DRC war that was consuming up to one million United States Dollars per day. There is need to put the payments in context. All countries that fought for liberation, resistance or patriotic wars have a special place for their heroes and heroines in both their institutional memory and their national history just as we hold Mbuya Nehanda, Lobengula, Sekuru Kaguvi and others in eternal esteem for their sacrifices. This is generally expressed in material and other forms of genuine appreciation. The material acknowledgement in the form of pensions, farms, residential stands etc that former Rhodesian soldiers, black and white, received from the British Empire for fighting its wars, is living testimony for this. To this end, the former fighters need neither be ashamed of nor be derided for what others elsewhere would ordinarily deserve or enjoy.

Hunzvi had been elected national chairman of ZNLWA in 1997. However one year later he was deposed by his executive, which passed a unanimous vote of no confidence in him for his authoritarian leadership style and allegations of corruption involving the embezzlement of the association’s investment companies’ funds. The companies were formed through the pooling of funds from the war veterans’ gratuities. His deputy was Moffat Marashwa with Cosmas Gonese as the association’s secretary general. Hunzvi did not accept his removal but did not contest it with the executive. Instead, he set up an alternative executive with Patrick Nyaruwata as his deputy. For the first time we had men appearing in the national executive such as Douglas Mahiya, Andy Mhlanga, Mike Moyo, Andrew Ndlovu and Joseph Chinotimba, whose junior status during the war gave them no authority to speak on behalf of the war veterans,. Mahiya, Mhlanga and Moyo had been in the Harare provincial leadership of the association. In early 1999, Hunzvi’s new executive split up again amid allegations of the embezzlement of funds of the association’s investment companies like ZEXCOM. Nyaruwata became the leader of one of the factions supported by Mahiya, Mhlanga and Moyo. Hunzvi’s new faction was supported by Chinotimba who now became his deputy with Ndlovu as the secretary general. Allegations of fraud and embezzlement continued to dog Hunzvi’s leadership and by the end of 1999, Hunzvi had been arrested by the police on allegations of corruption and remanded in custody for approximately three months. (He was subsequently released from custody before his case came to trial.) Shortly thereafter, the ZANU-PF politburo re-imposed him as leader of the war veterans with Joseph Msika, ZANU’s vice-president, announcing the fact to a bewildered nation on ZTV toward the end of 1999.

The active involvement of war veterans in the country’s political and economic processes can be traced back to this period of problems within the ranks of the association’s leadership amid serious allegations of corruption and embezzlement of association funds. This was at a time when the War Veterans Board had been disabled and emasculated with President Mugabe’s complicity. This was also at a time of the rise of civic activism in the form of demands for a new people driven and democratic constitution and accountable government. The government was under pressure with its back against the wall first from the war veterans’ demands for payments and civic demonstrations for a new constitution that soon gave birth to a new vibrant labour opposition party. The government enlisted the help of war veterans in brutally suppressing NCA demonstrations in 1998 marking the first partisan political involvement of the former fighters since independence in 1980. This was at a time when the war veterans association had no legitimate leadership and at time when those spearheading the suppression of civic demonstrations were facing serious corruption allegations of defrauding the association’s companies. Most of the former fighters had pooled their funds from the government gratuities to invest in ZEXCOM and never realised the expected returns.

The question to be asked is why the government chose to recognise people who had not been elected to their positions as the leaders of war veterans, people facing serious corruption allegations for prejudicing fellow war veterans? What was the trade off? Why did the ZANU PF government and the state controlled media turn a deaf ear to the legitimately elected executive of the association that had constitutionally and procedurally deposed Hunzvi? Is it any coincidence that these so-called war veterans were spearheading the repression of civil society with impunity and a time that the government had its back against the wall? In my view, it was the unconscionable decision by the government to ignore the elected leadership of the association that deposed Hunzvi and to turn a blind eye to the corruption of the unelected so-called leaders of war veterans that set the stage for the partisan political involvement of war veterans that continues to cast aspersions on their integrity. This development paved the way for the subsequent involvement of war veterans in ZANU PF election campaigns and the violent farm invasions that wrought untold havoc in our economy. An inglorious public perception was created that the former fighters had regressed from being war veterans for themselves to being war veterans for the ZANU PF state.

There was a lot of violence and well documented cases of human rights abuses in election campaigns from 2000 onwards that encompassed murder, rape, torture, destruction of property and internal displacement on perceived ZANU PF opponents. All these heinous actions were attributed to war veterans. The defeat of ZANU PF government’s constitutional review proposals in February 2000 saw the involvement of war veterans in violent farm invasions under the banner of the so-called ‘fast track land resettlement programme’. This marked the beginning of the involvement of war veterans in the country’s economic processes. Furthermore, the war veterans became involved in the dubious resolution of labour disputes from around 2002 onwards even before the formation of the Chinotimba led self-styled trade union federation ZFTU.

Notwithstanding the foregoing, the pertinent question to be asked is whose agenda were the war veterans pursuing by getting involved in these political and economic processes? Was it a war veterans’ agenda? If so was there any resolution passed by any legitimately constituted forum of war veterans calling them to engage in those activities? This could hardly be the case given that from 1998 onwards Hunzvi and the other characters purporting to be leaders of the war veterans association were not the organisation’s legitimately elected leaders as narrated above.

In the circumstances, I would argue that the ascription and attribution of violent election campaigns and brutal farm invasions to the war veterans association or war veterans in general is totally misplaced. These were the actions of ZANU PF supporters to further their partisan interests and bolster the party’s electoral fortunes by people who happen to be war veterans. It would therefore be a travesty of justice to hold the generality of war veterans or the war veterans association for that matter accountable for the actions of ZANU PF activists doing the party’s bidding. As discussed above, ZANU PF had lost popular support towards the end of the 1990s and could no longer count on the mobilisation of the party’s machinery to campaign for them. It therefore became necessary to enlist the services of some rogue war veterans to prop up their flagging electoral fortunes just as was the case with partisan abuse of the youth militia in ZANU PF election campaigns. It is little wonder that the involvement of the veterans in the country’s political economic processes coincided with the beginning of the breakdown in the rule of law, impunity for crimes committed by ZANU PF supporters and the selective application of justice.

It is noteworthy that war veterans never participated in partisan political party election campaigns under the label of war veterans until the elections of 2000 and thereafter. The major reason for this is that ZANU PF had become so unpopular that it was unable to win free and fair elections in the face of a vibrant opposition presented by the MDC. They had to throw caution to the wind and resort to unorthodox means to retain power at all cost. Hence the need to enlist rogue war veterans, youth militia and the security forces as shock troops to embark on a scorched earth policy ahead of all elections.

In the climate of lawlessness and anarchy it became difficult for war veterans with alternative views to be heard on account of the state’s support for rogue war veterans. My organisation, the Zimbabwe Liberators Platform, formed in response to the wave of lawlessness and anarchy that gripped the country, for example, was subjected to state repression with its assets seized and disposed of by state agents who also claimed to be war veterans. The organisation’s director and programmes coordinator endured a two year long lawsuit for misappropriation of funds that in the end came to nothing. State agents used the time to destroy the organisation leaving no alternative war veterans opposition voice to the ongoing state sponsored mayhem.

The rehabilitation and reorganisation of war veterans is compounded by ZANU PF’s meddling through the imposition of compromised and pliant individuals as leaders of war veterans, some with dubious liberation war credentials. I find it incomprehensible that senior army officers, with impeccable liberation war credentials have to endure the humiliation of subordinating themselves to such leadership on retirement from the defence forces.

All self-respecting and genuine war veterans have their role in the country’s political and economic processes cut out. They have to rise above partisan political interests and become role models in safeguarding the values and ideals of the liberation struggle that encompass freedom, democracy, social justice, respect for human dignity and peace. They should constitute the first line of defence against the violation of these sacrosanct principles of humanity and propagate the respect for the rule of law as the basis of an orderly society. During the war we prided ourselves on the philosophy of self-reliance in the struggle to liberate our country. We believed in liberation through our efforts and not in subcontracting the struggle. We should continue to cultivate a good work ethic and a culture of hard work and not expect to get something for nothing or reap where we did not sow.

We should strive to be successful farmers and entrepreneurs through hard work and not through expropriation, entitlement and preferential handouts ahead of the common people. We should not become negative role models that bring shame on the honour and integrity of the former fighters. Where we feel that our ideas and views are at variance with the people, we should engage in dialogue and persuasion to win their support just like the mobilisation during the war. We should spare a thought for our urban and rural folks who rendered unflinching support to the liberation war and not turn against them in furtherance of retrogressive partisan interests. That way, we reduce ourselves to the notorious level of our former oppressors who indiscriminately committed atrocities against the black population.

We, the former fighters should, through exemplary participation in the country’s political and economic process, help build a new Zimbabwe that future generations will feel proud of. We should uphold a value system founded on respect for the people’s rights, hard work, honour, service and integrity.

Rights reserved: Please credit the author, and Solidarity Peace Trust, as the original source for all material republished on other websites unless otherwise specified. Please provide a link back to http://www.solidaritypeacetrust.org

This article can be cited in other publications as follows: Mhanda, W. (2011) ‘The Role of War Veterans in Zimbabwe’s Political and Economic Processes’, 13 May, Solidarity Peace Trust: http://www.solidaritypeacetrust.org/1063/the-role-of-war-veterans/

References

1. Dzinesa A G. (2000), ‘Swords into ploughshares: Disarmament, demobilisation and re-integration in  Zimbabwe, Namibia and South Africa’, Occasional Paper 120, January, Institute of Security Studies, p.3. < http://www.iss.co.za/pubs/papers/120/Paper120.htm>

2. Mazarire, G. and Rupiya, R. M. (2000), ‘Two Wrongs Do Not Make  a Right: A Critical Assessment of Zimbabwe’s Demobilisation and Reintegration Programmes, 1980-2000′. Journal of Peace, Conflict and Military Studies, Vol. 1, No. 1, March 2000. University of Zimbabwe, Centre for Defence Studies, p.3.

3. Operation SEED is an acronym for ‘the Operation of Soldiers Employed in Economic Development’ introduced in 1981. It was designed to encourage excombatants to swap their guns for picks and shovels and to work on land acquired by the government for that purpose; ‘Zimbabwe Liberators- Guerillas Today’, Consolidating People’s Power, Afrosoc, Zimbabwe, University of Cape Town: 1981:42

4.   Musemwa, M. (1995) ‘The Ambiguities of Democracy: The demobilisation of the Zimbabwean ex-combatants and the ordeal of rehabilitation, 1980-1993,’ Transformation, 26.

5.   Dzinesa A G. (2000), ‘Swords into ploughshares’: op.cit., p. 6.

6. Musemwa, M. (1995) ‘The Ambiguities of Democracy’ op.cit. p. 37-8.

7. THE HERALD 18 April 1997

8. Ibid

9. Dzinesa A G.,  op cit..

10. Chenjerai Hunzvi was a ZAPU political activist who served as the party’s representative in Poland before independence. He subsequently studied medicine there after independence, and did his housemanship at Parirenyatwa Group of Hospitals before working at Harare Central Hospital. He subsequently established a private surgery in Harare’s Budiriro high density suburb. Senior ZIPRA commanders have disputed that Hunzvi ever underwent military training

11. Zimbabwe Independent January 16 1998 to January 22 1998

12. Seventy thousand war veteterans were said to have looted the fund of Z$45 million, a great deal of money in 1996. The Daily News, 10 February, 2010.

13. Norma Krieger: From Patriotic Memories to ‘Patriotic History in Zimbabwe, 1990 – 2005; Third World Quarterly, Vol 27, P 1159

14. For instance the remains of freedom fighters like James Bond and Lizwe are still interred at Chikurubi Maximum Prison cemetery and no efforts have been made to locate the remains of Edmund Kaguru (aka Benjamin Mahaka), a former member of the ZIPA MC who was shot and mortally wounded during the Nyodzonya attack and taken back to Rhodesia by Reid Daly’s  Selous Scouts.

15. Dzinesa A G. (2000), ‘Swords into ploughshares’: op.cit., p. 6.

16. Meldrum, A., The Guardian, Tuesday 5 June, 2001.

Cover: Polarization and Transformation: Social Movements, Strategy Dilemmas and Change

By Erin McCandless – Erin McCandless consults with the United Nations on a range of peacebuilding, statebuilding and development issues, and teaches part-time at the Graduate Program for International Affairs at the New School, in New York. She is also Co-Executive Editor of the Journal of Peacebuilding and Development.

Introduction

It is common and understandable for people living in divided or developing countries to tire of international researchers coming to examine their plight, observing their situation from particular disciplinary and/or experiential lenses, often rapidly assessing the situation after a short period in the country and after speaking with a limited number of people. They often don’t share the fruits of their labour with the society that hosted them.

Having lived in Zimbabwe (January 2001-June 2004) where I conducted my doctoral field research, followed by numerous trips back to the region in the years that have followed, I am finally publishing a book. I am guilty of taking a long time in sharing findings; like most doctoral students, I had to make a living in the interim and the book was put on the back burner. But my belief in the importance of these issues that drove my research ensured that I kept coming back to Zimbabwe.[1] In this short paper I want to present some of the findings of my forthcoming book – Polarization and Transformation: Social Movements, Strategy Dilemmas and Change. I also want to share my motives and assumptions that drove the research, and my thoughts on why I think Zimbabwe’s challenges matter greatly to a larger international audience, beyond the powerful forces focused on regime change.

After coming to Zimbabwe to start my fieldwork, my intended research focus changed considerably, often the case with qualitatively oriented researchers. Originally I was planning to examine the Structural Adjustment Participatory Review Initiative (SAPRI), which sought to create a process for civil society to evaluate the impacts of structural adjustment policies. Zimbabwe was one of about seven cases chosen by the global Structural Adjustment Participatory Review Network (SAPRIN). I was an activist minded critic of structural adjustment amidst my peace work at the time. Upon reaching Zimbabwe to start my field research however, I learned that the primary aim of SAPRI – a tri-partite dialogue between the World Bank, the government of Zimbabwe and civil society would not be possible – because government had pulled out, with the effect that the Bank could also not participate. The ZANU-PF government pulled out because one of the themes that Zimbabwean civil society had chosen to look at, among the many economic focused topics, was governance.

As I had wanted to examine social movements and state-society-international relations, my focus shifted to the vibrant constitutional movement – headed up by the National Constitutional Assembly (NCA). But I was not content to only look at governance; the land issue had long resonated for me as something of vital import to large sections of the Zimbabwean polity. I had examined the land issue previously, in 1997, coming from South Africa where I had been doing research on reconciliation and justice, but was concerned that little attention was being paid to the latter, at least in no meaningful way with respect to economic justice. I was convinced that any solution to Zimbabwe’s crisis had to engage with both economic and political issues, and that reconciliation always had to be built upon some sufficiently agreed measure and type of justice.

My research in Zimbabwe for the next three and a half years, where I lived in Harare and taught part-time at the Africa University in Mutare, focused on both the land and the constitutional movement, and the organisations behind them – the NCA and the Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans Association (ZNLWVA). In case study research, I sought to deeply understand the perspectives of both of these organizations and movements, and the politics driving both sides of Zimbabwe’s polarization of which these were apart. This was instinctual given my disciplinary training – long rooted in areas of peacebuilding and development and the nature of my professional work, where I have long sought to identify and strengthen integrative approaches to address structural sources of conflict. These values also underpinned the lens that I brought to my research in Zimbabwe.

Overview of Study and Paper

Polarization and Transformation investigates Zimbabwe’s polarization and prospects for transformation through the lens of two pivotal organizations and the social movements they led. It deeply analyses the nature of these organizations, the strategy dilemmas they have confronted in trying to mobilize change, the choices they made and results that have ensued, and the implications for wider social goals of transformative change and peace. While the book spans the period of 1997-2010, there is a strong focus on the years 1999-2004, on understanding the NCA and ZNLWVA structure and identity, their strategy dilemmas and key strategic actions. The outcomes and impacts of their actions are considered up until the Global Political Agreement was signed in 2008, and then reflections are made on the current, Inclusive Government context for understanding the strategy dilemmas, polarization, and transformation.

Three interlocking aims guide the study:

1. Depolarizing concepts

In Zimbabwe the nature and role of civil society is deeply questioned. Accusations about political and self-serving agendas and motives of different actors, and their alliances and relationships with political parties, the government and donors, I argue, are at the heart of polarization. The study unpacks these issues through in-depth examination of the NCA and ZNLWVA, aiming to contribute to efforts to transcend liberal/Marxist interpretations of civil society that, I argue, contribute to Zimbabwe’s polarization. [2]

Choosing to examine the ZNLWVA as civil society is no doubt controversial, given the nature of the ZANU-PF government’s role in the process at the time, and the historically close relationship of the war veterans with the party. At the same time, reality, perhaps more often than not, does not fall within neat conceptual categories. This is reflected upon below and in detail in the book.

2. Transcending strategy dilemmas

Secondly, the book seeks to shed light on the nature and operational mechanisms of ‘strategy dilemmas’ and how processes of polarization are effected by and entrench these dilemmas, in an effort to highlight ways to transcend them.

As conceptualized in the study, there are two primary strategy dilemmas confronting Zimbabwean civil society organizations and social movements. The first is whether and how to work with government and/or donors given, in particular, with their political, economic, and social agendas (participation or resistance). Participation here refers to the strategy of partnering with, or working within, processes set up by government or donors, and resistance to the strategy of fomenting change by working outside the system, challenging and transforming existing structures of authority or processes that visibly reinforce the status quo, or creating entirely new, parallel structures and processes. The second strategy dilemma is whether to prioritize political or economic rights and concerns in efforts to foment nation-wide transformative change (rights or redistribution). Rights discourse is often associated with liberal thinking, concerned in particular with civil and political rights and individual liberties. Redistribution, as discussed above, is often associated with Marxist thinking, in particular, with the redistribution of wealth, and often land and other natural resources.

3. Contributing to transformative change and peace

Finally, the book aims to contribute to thinking and practice about how social movements and wider civil society can work to ensure their actions contribute to transformation rather than polarization. As such, the results of key strategic actions of the NCA and the ZNLWVA are assessed and analyzed in depth: the NCA’s “No” vote campaign and ongoing use of “mass action,” and the ZNLWVA-led land occupations. The “social process outcomes” of each are examined, and then a “Transformative Change and Peace Impact Assessment,” developed for this study and drawing heavily on Zimbabwean conceptions, is undertaken. Transformative change and peace are conceptualized as both valuing constructive changes of (rather than in) the system and structure, and of the movement towards constructive inter-group relationships. Both are process- and outcome- oriented. Both are rooted in practices of people-centered democracy and development.

The rest of this short paper aims to give a “taster” of the lessons for civil society that emerged from the analysis of the above three aims. I assume the reader knows something of the history and dynamics of the Zimbabwe situation, and if not, there is plenty of quality literature on this.[3]

Lessons Learned from the Zimbabwean Case

While some of the lessons that follow may appear obvious, they are often ignored, overlooked in planning, and/or not accounted for when weighing the costs and benefits of particular social actions. It is hoped that this analysis will provide insights for those working to transform the deep divisions and to prevent new forms of polarization emerging in the Zimbabwean context and beyond.

Depolarizing concepts

A strong social base can come in many forms and is shaped by context: While there is little doubt that a strong social base is needed to build a legitimate, nationally based movement, assumptions are often made about the nature of the social base – constituencies and interests in particular – that fuel polarization. As the study illustrates throughout, generalizations are not helpful for the following reasons. A social base is likely to change in composition as different interests come to the fore. It is likely to change over time, particularly as the organization grows and especially if it operates democratically. Critically, it is heavily shaped by contextual factors, and in social movement discourse the “political opportunity structure.” Both the NCA and ZNLWVA set precedents and effectively raised the bar for civic organizations in achieving organizational forms with strong decentralized structures along the lines of Zimbabwe’s political administrative systems down to the grassroots level. They both developed and led national social movements at particular points in time that had robust and diverse social bases. It is clear that Zimbabweans value both issues the NCA and ZNLWVA have struggled for, a testament to the desire for democratically achieved social change, in both the material and political realms.

Interests and motivations of an organization’s members are not collective and the social identities comprising them are not monolithic: Individuals within a movement are likely to be bound by a collective goal as they hold great diversity in their ranks in motives for wanting to achieve this goal. Thus while concern about financial motives driving many individuals attracted to increasingly “professionalized” civil society organizations is legitimate, this critique should not apply to a movement or organization involving thousands (or even hundreds of thousands) of people who are engaged at different levels, the vast majority of whom are not paid. Also, volunteerism is likely to be deeply challenged where there are exceedingly high levels of poverty or economic insecurity. In Zimbabwe as in other contexts, polarization often occurs when people assign particular motives and interests of others to specific social identity categories, be they real, imagined, or constructed. In addition to race, ethnicity, class, and gender, the use of terms like “politicians,” “intellectuals,” and “activists” are common in Zimbabwe, with associated stereotypes concerning ideological worldviews and political agendas. Examining the NCA and ZNLWVA, generalizations underpinning the identity categories, more often than not, were not sustainable.

Social movements are political: Accusations that an organization is “political” suggest that decisions are made on the basis of interests of status or authority rather than matters of principle; motives and grievances are questioned and conclusions drawn that undermine the organization’s claim to legitimacy, fuel stereotyping and other processes underpinning polarization. In global scholarship and activism it is widely accepted that social movements and civil society more broadly are “political,” and that their action is part of “normal” politics (Meyer and Tarrow 1998), that is, part of the environment that shapes and gives rise to parties, courts, legislatures and elections. At the same time, Africa’s particular history of unifying struggles for decolonization meant that many civic actors joined post-colonial governments or maintained strong relations with governments in the post-colonial era. As well, the redirecting of donor aid since the 1980s from African governments to their civil societies, often towards professionalized NGOs dedicated to rights-oriented issues (Carothers and Ottaway 2000), has not been welcomed by African leaders, particularly as it has occurred alongside economic liberalization reducing the state’s role in development. These trends have arguably served to undermine the development of healthy state-society relations, and must be factored into understandings of state-(civil)society dynamics in Africa that drive strategy and policy development.

* * *

These lessons illustrate the complexities underlying the nature of civil society in particular contexts, suggesting the need for more nuanced approaches to conceptualizing civil society. In the context of Africa’s post-colonial transitions where civil societies did not develop organically and where they now confront myriad processes of globalization, civil societies will reveal hybrid interests and are naturally marked by internal diversity and contradiction, as Zimbabwe scholars have suggested (Sachikonye 1995; Moyo, Helliker, and Murisa 2008, 2). In divided societies, where the stakes are higher and systems and structures for fomenting change are less reliable or available, and where transitional arrangements are in place to accommodate intractable situations, it should also be assumed that the boundaries of social actor categories are likely to be even more blurred. Zimbabwe illustrates the power of Gramscian insights – that civil society can become a battleground for powerful national and international actors to intervene with hegemonic projects, and/or it can be a site for problem-solving in defence of society against the excesses of both the state and the market. A challenge in achieving the latter requires that strategy dilemmas become entry points for transformative change rather than vehicles for destructive processes of polarization.

Transcending Strategy Dilemmas

Participation and resistance are not mutually exclusive, and both are strategic in particular situations: Social movements and civic organizations draw on different strategies in their relationships with governments, political parties, donors, and international actors. It is not surprising that different approaches will result in different outcomes and that there will be risks associated with different strategies. While many Zimbabwean civic organizations tend to draw upon one or the other strategy, the cases examined suggest that both participation and resistance have been relevant and effective for the ZNLWVA and the NCA at different times and in relation to different actors, although both strategies have also had unintended impacts. More systematic consideration needs to be given to the prerequisites for the use of each and the fault lines – the divisive issues that may disrupt the process and lead to destructive polarization and violent confrontation.

History continues: rights and redistribution both matter: Despite Francis Fukuyama’s “end of history” thesis in 1992, pronouncing the victory of liberalism globally, economic rights – associated in this study primarily with redistribution of land – remain a powerful element for transformative change, particularly where historical injustices remain unaddressed and undermine broad-based, human sustainable development. Redistribution should not be simply ruled out as a worthless vestige of socialism but upheld as a key ingredient for peace. This fact is increasingly recognized beyond Zimbabwe’s borders. One only needs to take heed of the conflict and efforts to bring peace in Sudan, or the popular uprisings across North Africa and the Middle East. On the other hand, Zimbabweans also fought for democracy in the Liberation War. Thirty years on, Zimbabwe’s democratic credentials are deeply in question. The same popular uprisings also illustrate popular fatigue with multi-decade rulers, who obstruct democracy and whose general pursuits in the name of development for all their citizens are questionable. Both the NCA and the ZNLWVA can be accused of not sufficiently addressing the other “side” of this duality. Rights and redistribution has arguably not been as much of a dilemma as it needed to be for most civic actors in Zimbabwe over the last decade, who have tended to be drawn to one or the other without fully recognizing the value of both.

Contributions to Transformative Change and Peace

Violence always has a context but remains problematic for peacebuilding: Violence has been a key tool for social change around the world, and there is need to understand its role and impact in particular contexts. The land tenure context upon which the land occupations were predicated was one of extreme structural violence. In the absence of serious movement on land redistribution through willing-seller, willing-buyer approaches and numerous efforts to negotiate a way forward with both national actors and the donor community, it was only a matter of time before the situation would erupt into crisis. At the same time, violence has taken a great toll on Zimbabwe, one that is impossible to measure. While many agree that healing and reconciliation cannot be realized without justice, the impact of physical violence on human relationships can take decades to heal, if ever. This is why peace theory and practice tends to value the processes, and not only the outcomes, of making and building peace.

Understanding counter-movements as a force for transformation: Social movements and civil society never act in isolation. One group’s actions must be understood within the wider context of social action. The interaction of various movement and actor strategies, actions and outcomes must also be factored into any analysis of change. Polanyi’s notion of “counter-movements” (1944)[4] is used in the study to examine how the NCA and the ZNLWVA’s interactions. I argue that together, they have been strong forces catalyzing and driving a dialectical process of change that, albeit the evident social costs, arguably has contributed to laying critical foundations for transformation. The dialectical exchange that these two movement organizations have together fuelled in both strategy dilemmas needs to happen not just in Zimbabwe but also globally – though preferably in less polarizing and violent ways.

Conclusions

While the Inclusive Government has created a new operational context for civil society that raises fresh questions and challenges, the same strategy dilemmas are alive and kicking. There are still decisions about when and how to participate and/or resist - though now with the Inclusive Government and its three parties, and with donors and other international actors who take varied positions and push different interests that often block organic processes or force them to adapt. Decisions about rights and/or redistribution - issues that have divided Zimbabweans historically – also remain alive, and taking new forms in the changing context.

While land conflicts continue as legal challenges and policy dilemmas proliferate, the discovery and exploitation of a rich diamond field has unearthed this dilemma for Zimbabweans again. This time, however, there is no former colonial power involved. While the equitable allocation of natural resources presents extreme challenges for effective governance, Zimbabweans have a precious opportunity to apply the lessons of the land reform process and to work together for rights and redistribution to ensure that the diamonds serve as a resource for economic recovery rather than a curse leading the country into deeper turmoil.

In Polarization and Transformation I argue that over the decade (2000-2010), despite exhaustive efforts on the part of civil society to bring change, the two strategy dilemmas have not always been well managed; they have often served as obstacles rather than entry points for transformative change. The empirical research and assessment in the study illustrates how civic actors have at times been drawn into polarization, and how their activities, have even served to fuel polarization. This is unsurprising if one takes the view, as I do, that Zimbabwe has struggled largely because the issues matter to enough of the Zimbabwean polity to form the social base of this polarization. This does not mean to suggest that there is no political manipulation of societal views, that popular uprisings against Mugabe’s rule would not occur if there was greater operating space for social action and less fear on the part of society to rise up, or that the Movement for Democratic Change would not be in power had there been free and fair elections – to the contrary. These are all likely true.

I am simply arguing that the issues underlying Zimbabwe’s polarization and driving the strategy dilemmas I have described represent poignant and legitimate grievances that need to be properly valued and fairly addressed for genuine peace to emerge in Zimbabwe. International actors have a role to play here – to back their rhetoric with reality, employing principles they have associated themselves with – i.e. taking context as a starting point and doing no harm. Too often a clear understanding of Zimbabwe’s historical and present social context is totally absent from proposed action. Blame is too easily placed entirely on the shoulders of the three-decade ruler, without due recognition of the role of political-economy factors often beyond Mugabe’s control, notably the peace agreement preventing desperately needed non-voluntary land distribution at Independence, and the destructive effects that structural adjustment had on the economy in the 1990s. Over time, international donors have overwhelmingly focused their support towards the rights agenda without due recognition of the redistribution and basic human development needs in the country. Both sets of issues are vitally important – both are reasons Zimbabweans went to war in the first place. Recognizing one and devaluing the other however, has arguably played a role in deepening Zimbabwe’s polarization, with implications for deepening the chasm of understanding and trust, broadly speaking, between the North and South.

There is certainly no easy route to transformative change and peace in Zimbabwe. As I try to illustrate in my book, ignoring issues of vital concern to large portions of Zimbabwean polity does not produce constructive results – something both the NCA and ZNLWVA, amongst many others, have been guilty of thereby undermining their potential transformative power. These are not simply issues of import to Zimbabwe, and thus it is my hope that Zimbabweans will work to embrace the issues holistically and build a sustainable peace. Zimbabwe has profound lessons to share if the world listens, and hopefully acts, without violence, to actually learn from them.

Rights reserved: Please credit the author, and Solidarity Peace Trust, as the original source for all material republished on other websites unless otherwise specified. Please provide a link back to http://www.solidaritypeacetrust.org

This article can be cited in other publications as follows: McCandless, E. (2011) ‘Transforming and Preventing Polarization by Embracing Strategy Dilemmas: An Outsider View on Lessons from Zimbabwe’, 20 April, Solidarity Peace Trust: http://www.solidaritypeacetrust.org/1042/transforming-and-preventing-polarization/

Notes

[1] The book draws on four years of sustained fieldwork (2001-2004) conducted during the years when Zimbabwe’s crisis was pivotally unfolding and shorter visits to the region in 2007 and 2010.
[2] Liberal views tend to view civil society as autonomous from the state and market, protecting individual rights and liberties, while Marxist tend to see it as an executive arm of the bourgeoisie, upholding the socio-economic base of the state. Efforts to articulate more Gramsican notions of civil society are not new to Zimbabwe scholars, i.e. Raftopolous 2010; Rich Dorman 2001.
[3] See in particular: Raftopoulos, Brian and Alois Mlambo (eds.) Becoming Zimbabwe, Harare: Weaver
Press, 2009a.
[4] For Polyani the “movement” was for economic liberalization and integration and the “counter-movement” was led by “enlightened reactionaries” who were rallying to mitigate the social disruptions of market-led liberalization in the early part of the twentieth century.

References

Carothers, Thomas, and Marina Ottaway, eds. 2000. Funding Virtue: Civil Society and Democracy Promotion. Washington D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Meyer, David S., and Sidney Tarrow, eds. The Social Movement Society: Contentious Politics for a New Century. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1998.

Moyo, Sam, Kirk Helliker, and Tendai Murisa eds. Contested Terrain: Land Reform and Civil Society in Contemporary Zimbabwe. Pietermaritzburg: S&S Publishers, 2008.

Raftopoulos, Brian. “The Global Political Agreement as a ‘Passive Revolution’: Notes on Contemporary Politics in Zimbabwe.” The Round Table 99 no. 411 (December 14, 2010): 705-718.

Raftopoulos, Brian and Alois Mlambo, eds. Becoming Zimbabwe, Harare: Weaver Press, 2009.

Rich Dorman, Sara. “NGOs and the State in Zimbabwe: Implications for Civil Society Theory.” In NGOs and State in Zimbabwe: Implications for Civil Society Theory, in Civil Society and Authoritarianism in the Third World – A Conference Book, edited by Bjorn Beckman, Eva Hansson and Anders Sjogren, Stockholm University: PODSU, Stockholm University, 2001.

Sachikonye, Lloyd, ed. Democracy, Civil Society and the State: Social Movements in Southern Africa. Harare: Sapes Books, 1995a.

Polanyi, Karl. The Great Transformation. Boston: Beacon Press, 1944.

Zimbabwe lawyers fail to gain access to their clients, accused of treason: Harare High Court, February 2011.

Since the signing and initiation of the Global Political Agreement in Zimbabwe in September 2008 and February 2009 respectively, the politics of the country has been convulsed with a recurring set of problems even as it has allowed for a certain political and economic stabilization. The agreement, with its attendant Inclusive Government, was set up to establish the conditions for a free and fair election. However it was always clear that, in a more determinate sense, it would provide the site for intense struggles over the state between the contending parties, with Zanu PF always in an advantageous position because of its control of the coercive arms of the state. It is thus not surprising that the Mugabe regime has used its control of the police, security and military sectors to contain the constrained promise of the GPA to open up democratic spaces. It is also clear that both MDCs have made strategic mistakes that have added to the already difficult challenges that confronted them at the outset of the process. Moreover the problems of the GPA have, on occasion, been compounded by the different roles of SADC and the West.

In recent months the Zimbabwean crisis has been somewhat overshadowed by the uprisings in North Africa and the Middle East, as well as the violence that has broken out over the contested election in the Ivory Coast. Both events, but particularly the developments in North Africa, have predictably forced comparisons with the Zimbabwe situation. This has often lead to over-optimistic hopes for an ‘Egypt moment’ in Zimbabwe, that are based less on a concrete analysis of the conditions in the country, than a desperate yearning that Zimbabwe’s authoritarian state face such a reckoning. The complex politics of the GPA in the context of the particularities of Zimbabwe’s history make any simple comparisons with North Africa difficult to sustain. This report thus sets out to think through the politics of the last two years in Zimbabwe, setting out the challenges that have had to be confronted, but also noting the opportunities it has provided, and the possibilities for the near future.

Please cite this report as follows: Solidarity Peace Trust (2011) The Hard Road to Reform. Durban: Solidarity Peace Trust

There are 206 bones in each human body – each hand has 27 bones and each foot has 26, meaning half of our bones are in our hands and feet – does the average war veteran currently hurling around the dead in Mount Darwin know this, or care? What is happening to all those delicate wrist and hand bones, in the chaos that is going on?

Does the average Mount Darwin exhumer understand that in order to age, or sex, a set of human remains, they need to be complete – an expert will consider various indicators on a human skull, pelvis, long bones and a particular rib, before drawing a probable conclusion on whether the deceased is male, or female, and 18 years or 65 years old. Knowing that the majority of people in a particular site are of a certain age and sex, for example, could help unravel the circumstances of their deaths. But this opportunity has already been largely taken away by the fact that it is not possible to be sure which bones make up which person at this stage.

An expert forensic anthropolist will be able to tell you not only that a certain set of remains is a woman, but will be able to tell you whether she was pregnant or not at the time of murder, and whether she gave birth during her life time. An expert will be able to tell you that a particular man was 1m 78cm tall when alive, that he was left handed, and that he broke his leg as a child. In short, an expert can give an unusual voice to the dead – can return identity and life experiences to an otherwise silent pile of bones.

Bodies decay in different ways and at different rates depending on the circumstances of the site. There is talk at the moment of apparent soft tissues on some of the bones – but this is not necessarily an indicator that these bones entered the grave more recently, although it could be. A process of mummification can occur when bodies are piled in such massive numbers one upon another, and to all but the most expert of eyes, mummified flesh will look the same as rotting soft tissues from a more recent era.

A forensic anthropologist can very often identify precise cause of death, even decades later, and can also identify era of death. The latter is very often identified by personal effects either in the pockets or in the vicinity of the bones in the original burial site – coins, ID documents or situpas, litter indicative of products that were made during a certain era only – these items can help date the moment in which the body entered the site, to within a few years at least. Totems to fend off death, commonly worn by ex combatants, could be indicators of who these dead are – and there could well be particular amulets, or types of equipment or clothing, that could help solve the riddle of whether these dead are ZIPRA or ZANLA, in the event of them being combatants and not civilians. And personal effects, such as wedding rings, distinctive cigarette lighters, or even a particular pair of shoes or belt buckle, could help distinguish Peter from Paul. But for this to be possible, extensive interviews with possible relatives of the deceased have to take place – preferably prior to exhuming – and relatives ought to be consulted and involved at every step of the way, to ensure that the process of exhumation is done in a way that respects their wishes and cultural needs.

I have seen personally, how exhumations can result in healing of individuals and communities. I have heard the bones speak, as a result of experts listening very carefully to what they are trying to say. I have seen the voices of bones giving back the historical past to their families and villages – indeed, giving themselves back with definite identities, to be buried where they are supposed to lie, so that at long last, after decades of silence, their spirits can rest in peace – and the living, that have mourned them for so long, can have closure.

What is happening in Mount Darwin is a travesty – the dead are being forever silenced by the disrespectful way in which they are being treated right now. These bones were once human beings, people who apparently died brutally. It is an abdication of responsibility for the government to simply say – we are not involved so far.

Yes, Zimbabwe desperately needs exhumations, most likely in every province of the country – but there are experts in the world who are ready and willing to help, if invited, such as the Argentinean Forensic Anthropology Team, who have exhumed in more than 20 countries around the world and who have thirty years experience in expertly giving a voice to the dead. Before the voices of the Mount Darwin dead are irretrievably lost, we need to call a halt to what is happening there and seek expert help. Bones speak quietly and in a language only an expert can hear – let’s not silence them forever, but bring them the help they need to be heard.

Please cite this article as follows: Eppel, S. (2011) ‘SPT-Zimbabwe Update No.2. March 2011: The Silencing of the Bones’, 24 March, Solidarity Peace Trust: http://www.solidaritypeacetrust.org/1004/spt-zimbabwe-update-no-2/