The Root of Zimbabwe's Problems

By Luke D Zunga

If the diagnosis of a disease is wrong the drug to treat it would also be wrong.  In Zimbabwe the diagnosis, which President Mbeki supported at SADC and AU, to characterize the crisis in Zimbabwe as disagreements between two parties, regime change agenda and that Western powers want to reverse land distribution, is wrong. 

So the diagnosis which led to the inclusive government, as the treatment, is unlikely to solve the problem, as we can see?  Zimbabweans in the Diaspora have not been going back.  In fact many are still leaving the country.  They know the problem.

Zimbabweans are hard politicians, talking about the West and land distribution to hide their intentions or what they are doing. Noone focused on why 5 million people have been displaced.  Is it because of the British or America?  Is it land distribution? How does land distribution displace the citizens who are supposed to benefit and be happy about the program? What are the economic issues which displace more people than other countries such as Mozambique, Zambia, Malawi, Swaziland etc?

The root causes in Zimbabwe are two issues. The first was an economy which was poorly managed and failed to pick up after independence, sparking revolt. Before independence the economy grew by 4.4%, at the height of international sanctions imposed on the UDI government of Ian Smith. 

In 1981 it grew by 4.8%. But from 1983 growth started to fall until it was zero in 1999, largely because of excessive spending which choked the economy and a command system e.g. price controls which forced producers to sell below cost, to subsidize the public but stifling further investment.

This is the pinch which pushed civil society to call for a new constitution, around 1996, to find a way to control the government to attend to the economic needs of the people. ESAP was an attempt to rescue the economy but citizens suffered more under it. After the land invasions of 2000, production plummeted sparking the highest inflation, highest interest rates in the world.
 
The second problem, the mother of the root causes, is that one person, Robert Mugabe,  dominates the political scene by blocking the electoral process from functioning. Elections are a valve which nations use to adjust the wrongs and promote the good. If the  valve is blocked,  the nation explodes, scattering people all over the region.

The blockage is in the rural areas where political executioners, vigilantes or militia, controlled by the Mugabe in his private capacity, and a few around him, strike fear and harm citizens. The rural areas now hold 65% of the voters. These armed political executioners work with spotters to patrol villages and wards, to monitor and interview everybody arriving, their movements and to seize newspapers. 

People who resist or suspected of belonging to another party are beaten, banished or abducted, refused food or clinic treatment, their homes burnt. People are forced to attend night indoctrination meetings where armed guys surround them, where suspects are subjected to all kinds of torture. Journalists are not allowed and private cameras are confiscated.

The trick is that the vigilantes or militia are not arrested, but protected and are paid salaries for their dirty work.  They abduct, beat, rape and shoot anyone, but they are not arrested. If a victim reports them to police, the police lie that the war veterans have reported first and the victim is arrested instead.

This way everyone has to succumb or run away. This is what drives refugees into neighbouring countries. The attorney general comes to quash any prosecutions. So Zimbabwe goes down in self suicide.

The politics of Zimbabwe is in the rural areas where opponents are banished with force and elimination.  65% of the voting population reside in the rural areas under these circumstances which removes the freedom to decide. They admit they are suffering but they are forced to vote for Mugabe.

We find that if there is a breather they switch to other parties e.g. Chimanimani constituency who voted for MDC Bennet in 2000,  but soon the hammer comes back to discipline them.  Sanctions is not the answer either.

Schematic Presentation of the President’s Structure vs ZanuPF

The President’s structure are political executioners who operate freely in the rural areas, controlled by a command structure peppered with armed war veterans up to national level where the demographic planners are based, backed by the CIO, the police ingtelligence and the army, but are independent of ZanuPF Political structure.

ZanuPF candidates benefit from the President’s structure but do not control it. The chiefs, headmen and political branches and cells work along, but the executioners operate independently. Therefore ZanuPF, the party, cannot control Mugabe. Mugabe uses the party as a staging post.

A minister or parliamentarian who is at odds with Mugabe cannot go back to his or her constituency.  The person who succeeds Mugabe will take control of the system, and continue with it. ZanuPF as a party is not the main culprit, but an accessory to Mugabe’s antics.

The urban areas are characterized by media clamp downs, refusing public gatherings, CIO activities, POSA and AAIPA, police clamp down and one sided prosecutions.  The urban suppression was not very successful, forcing the demolition of houses in Operation Clean UP, designed to push more people into the rural areas where the clamp down is successful.

The answer could be appointing a neutral police commissioner or a SADC appointed police commissioner, in addition to a neutral attorney general. SADC and commentators miss the root cause.

Luke Zunga is a South African based political and economic analyst