By Ben Freeth
Gukurahundi, a Shona word which means “the early rain which washes away the chaff before the spring rains”, refers to the brutal massacres carried out by President Mugabe’s North Korean‐trained 5th Brigade in the predominantly Ndebele regions of Zimbabwe, most of which were supporters of Joshua Nkomo, the leader of ZAPU.
About 20 000 people from Matabeleland and the Midlands died in horrific ways or disappeared in the conflict. Some of the bodies were thrown down disused mine shafts and have never been found. The violence ended after ZANU and ZAPU reached a unity agreement on 22 December 1987 that merged the two parties to form one party known as ZANU PF.
“History is littered with events that clearly show Robert Mugabe was always a dictator, mind, body and soul,” wrote Lance Guma of SW Radio Africa in a 2009 article titled, “Gukurahundi Massacres: Lessons Drenched in Blood”.
“Since assuming the captaincy of the Zimbabwean ship in April 1980, he has never tolerated opposition to his rule in whatever form. Political scientists contend he set sail well but somehow lost the compass midway hence the current sinking ship. Events however, tell a different story,”
“If the world is surprised at Mugabe’s behaviour it is because it failed to understand his intolerance from the word go. Mugabe is as predictable as the rising sun and none know this more than those who have borne the brunt of his brute,” Guma warned.
In September 2010, the Gukurahundi massacres were classified as a genocide by the internationally recognised group Genocide Watch.
The Language of Racism
The language of racism has been used relentlessly by President Robert Mugabe, his ZANU PF government ministers, officials and ZANU PF groupings over many years and has now become endemic.
Faced with rapidly waning popularity from the mid-1990s as discontent over the government’s manifest corruption and inefficiency spread, President Mugabe has continuously sought scapegoats, lashing out at white people and then with increasing vitriol at the newly formed opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party led by trade unionist Morgan Tsvangirai.
The Rise and Threat of the Movement for Democratic Change
When the MDC was formed in September 1999, it represented the first real threat challenge to President Mugabe’s power entrenched through fear since the Gukurahundi massacres.
“By 2000,” wrote author and journalist Martin Meredith in his book, “Robert Mugabe: Power, Plunder and Tyranny in Zimbabwe”, “Zimbabweans were generally worse off than they had been at independence: average wages were lower, unemployment had trebled, public services were crumbling and life expectancy was falling.”
The MDC was increasingly viewed by both blacks and whites as an alternative to Mugabe and ZANU PF after three decades in power. This called for a combined strategy, so while Mugabe continued to accuse whites of being racists, he accused MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai of being a “stooge of the whites”.
He also derisively dubbed Tsvangirai “a white man masquerading as a black” and “a tea boy for his white boss”. As opposition to his rule mounted, Mugabe proclaimed his determination to stay in power whatever the cost at a state banquet in 2000. “I do not want to be overthrown and I will try to overthrow those who want to overthrow me,” he said.
“… He claimed his ‘revolution’ was under attack from his old enemies: the whites, the British and the West. It was the whites who were responsible for Zimbabwe’s economic plight, he told a party congress. ‘They are trying to sabotage the economy in their fight against the government’.
He urged supporters to ‘strike fear into the hearts of the white man, our real enemy’,” wrote Meredith.
Constitutional Referendum Defeat ‐ February 2000
In February 2000, President Mugabe lost a referendum that would have further entrenched his power. It would also have empowered the government to seize farms owned by white commercial farmers, without compensation, and transfer them to black farm owners as part of a scheme of “land reform”.
The defeat was unexpected and was taken as a personal rebuff for President Robert Mugabe and a political triumph for the newly formed opposition MDC. Mugabe realised that dictatorship and the rule by fear had to be re‐established if the opposition was to be stamped out.
The racial program against the whites that immediately unfolded was a vital component of this strategy. A ZANU PF MP said in the wake of the rejection of the Government proposed constitution in the referendum in 2000:
“Let me assure you whites here, that once you support MDC, ZANU is not going to treat you as business people, but as politicians. Then if you are treated as politicians, it is like signing your own death warrants. The political storm will not spare you. Let you be informed that our reserve force, the war veterans, will be set on you.”
Roy Bennett, the MDC’s exiled treasurer‐general, says the reasons for the invasion of white commercial farms were two‐fold:
1. First of all it was an electoral gimmick. ZANU PF hoped that a free‐for‐all on white farms would help it recover some lost support.
2. Secondly, some of the MDC’s key support structures were on white farms…. A very large proportion of the million‐strong white farm workforce were anti‐ZANU PF and were working with their employers.
This rural constituency threatened not only to make inroads into ZANU PF’s traditional rural support base but it was merging with the MDC’s strong urban labour structures in what was looking to be a powerful and well‐balanced opposition.
ZANU decided that it had to break these linkages. The white farmers had to be disrupted or driven off the land and their workers scattered. Within days, Mugabe sent gangs of party activists, so‐called ‘war veterans’ ‐ although most were too young to have participated in the struggle for independence – to rural areas to violently seize control of white‐owned commercial farms.
“All black opponents he denounced as mere dupes of the whites, and he gave ‘war veterans’ licence to attack and terrorise opposition supporters at will,” wrote Meredith.
At the beginning of 2000, white commercial farmers owned approximately 18 percent of the land in the country. This percentage had dropped from approximately 30 percent at independence in 1980.
All land transfers up to that time had been undertaken legally – either with “black” people or with Government purchasing the properties. In 2000, after the violent land invasions, the “transfer” of land took place without any legal process or compensation being paid.
