Peter Murphy from the Zimbabwe Information Centre writes:
Opening Remarks
This story of Zimbabwe and its political, economic and social turmoil is really a story about how women are trying to have their human right to a say in their society, about how the people want to help those millions who have HIV, about how the trade unions want to develop a prosperous, peaceful and just society, about how the professional classes want to create a way of governing that is straightforward, fair and works.
It is a story for the whole of Africa, and that is why all of Africa and in particular South Africa, Mozambique, Zambia, Tanzania and Botswana are part of this story.
As I write the people of Zimbabwe are being called out to a one-horse election that they don’t want, because it has already been drowned in blood, violence and cheating.
Between the March 29 presidential and parliamentary elections and today, almost 100 activists from the Movement for Democratic Change have been murdered, often in the most terrible way, over 3,000 have been very badly injured through torture, and now about 100,000 have been internally displaced because their homes and property have been looted or completely destroyed.
Zimbabwe now faces a chaotic regime collapse, with perhaps a minimal role for the international community in the immediate crisis.
Seeds of despotism, seeds of democracy
Zimbabwean people paid a high price for democracy and freedom in the liberation war they fought from the mid 1960s to 1979, especially in the last five years of that war.
The war finished in negotiations in the first year of the Thatcher government, the Lancaster House Agreement was signed, and the 1980 elections planned, mainly because the South African apartheid regime could no longer prop up the Smith apartheid regime.
When the Patriotic Front of ZANU and ZAPU won the elections against the coalition devised by Smith, there was a huge sense of victory and relief among the people. The majority of the whites left the country, and the new President, ZANU leader Robert Mugabe, declared reconciliation with those who chose to remain, and appealed to everyone to build a new Zimbabwe together.
There was a great promise of democracy, but the seeds of today’s despotism were already there in the liberation war. It was a very brutal war, and the methods used by the Smith regime were absorbed as part of the norm by the Mugabe leadership. Some of the liberation forces had training in the Soviet Union and China, and there were some bad lessons learnt there too.
Already in the liberation struggle, the widely respected leader of ZANU, Herbert Chitepo, had been assassinated in Lusaka, and this murder is unresolved today, with many fingers pointing at Robert Mugabe. When freedom fighters objected to unilateral changes in policy, many of them were executed in their camps. This legacy is also unresolved.
When in 1982 Robert Mugabe decided that he had to eliminate the political challenge he felt from ZAPU and its leader, Joshua Nkomo, he accused ZAPU of plotting an armed rebellion and then sent the army into Matabeleland, the base of ZAPU. Somewhere between 20,000 and 40,000 civilians were killed before Nkomo surrendered in 1987 and ZANU really swallowed ZAPU into what we know today as ZANU-PF.
So for anyone paying close attention, the Mugabe leadership was always going to be bad for Zimbabwe, and an oppressive dictatorial regime was on the cards. Western nations who did pay attention to Africa, such as the UK, France and the USA, did note all this, but they chose to ignore Mugabe’s crimes in the 1980s while the bigger question of the future of South Africa was working itself out. And this would have been the view of all of Africa. And in the 1980s, Mugabe’s government presided over economic expansion, and an impressive development of the education and health systems.
This was undone after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and Mugabe’s sudden volte face from a doctrine of one-party rule and a planned economy to multi-party democracy and the free market. The International Monetary Fund developed the now notorious Economic Structural Adjustment Program, privatisation got underway, imports and debt blew out, and jobs and government spending started to be cut. But Mugabe always found a way to eliminate any emerging political challenge, generally by putting his opponent on trial for attempting an assassination.
The sharp downturn in living standards provoked the trade union movement, which was part of ZANU-PF, to launch protest rallies and strikes, over prices, jobs and wages. Like any opposition to Mugabe’s policies, this was met with repression, and eventually agents of the Central Intelligence Organisation tried to murder the ZCTU General Secretary, Morgan Tsvangirai, by throwing him out of his office window. The trade unions shifted out of the ZANU-PF orbit and started to develop a political strategy.
The trade unions joined with the women’s movement, the student movement, and many professional organisations to develop a people’s alternative to Mugabe and ZANU-PF. This led to the Working Peoples Convention of 1998 and the founding of the Movement for Democratic Change in September 1999.
A parallel process was the National Constitutional Convention, which pushed for a new democratic constitution to curb the arbitrary powers of the President. It was so powerful that Mugabe launched his own Constitutional Referendum, which aimed to entrench his power to make decrees, and in particular authorised him to seize commercial farms, which were managed by about 4,000 white families.
Mugabe suffered his first electoral defeat in that referendum in early February 2000, and he launched his war against the white commercial farmers and their 400,000 black farm labourers, and MDC, within a week.
We know the broad picture since then. Parliamentary elections in 2000 and 2005 were stolen from MDC. The Presidential election of 2002 was stolen from MDC.
The farm labourers and their families, numbering up to three million people, were expelled from the farms.
In mid-2005, Mugabe launched Operation Murambatsvina in the poor areas of Harare and other urban areas. Over 700,000 dwellings were demolished and millions more uprooted and driven into the bush.
As the economy plummeted down by over 40% in five years, millions of skilled, and then unskilled able-bodied Zimbabweans fled, mostly to South Africa, but also to the UK, USA, New Zealand and Australia.
Out of a population of about 12 million in 2000, there are really only about 6 million left inside the country. At the March 29 elections, just over two million votes were cast. That gives a picture about the adult population after all these devastating upheavals, all of which took place because Mugabe’s regime wanted to destroy the social base of the MDC vote.
Prospects for democracy or despotism
We know that Morgan Tsvangirai pulled out of today’s presidential run-off vote, leaving Mugabe to declare himself the victor, but a pyrrhic one.
But at last this week Zimbabwe’s neighbours, and the United Nations Security Council, declared that the run-off cannot be legitimate and called on Mugabe to postpone it. By defying them, Mugabe has almost completely isolated his regime, and hastened its demise. Only South Africa’s President Mbeki stands by him now, and even he has been forced to criticize today’s vote.
Summits this weekend by the African Union and by SADC on Monday can be expected to further criticize Mugabe, and perhaps SADC will withdraw President Mbeki as their ‘mediator’ between the Mugabe and MDC.
All this will help hasten the end of the regime, but the most likely scenario now that all constitutional avenues of change have been closed off, is for a chaotic collapse of the regime as some parts of the security forces decide that change must come and Mugabe must go. It could become very bloody.
Whatever process brings change, there will then be a need for a high level UN coordinated reconstruction effort, and a need for a high level of unity within MDC to ensure that the transparent democratic governance it has advocated is actually what is practiced.
Division that opened up inside MDC in October 2005 do demonstrate that there are many shortcomings inside MDC. These can be broadly related to the different interests and attitudes of the trade unions and the women and youth on the one hand, and business and professional interests on the other. There are those in MDC with a strong orientation to international sponsors, and others who want to rely primarily on the Zimbabwean people for political success.
This is not to endorse Mugabe’s endlessly repeated accusation that MDC is a puppet of western imperialists. It is more about class interests and the methods preferred by business, compared to those of the masses. In MDC this came down to choosing between the method of Democratic Resistance Campaign or just the ballot box alone.
The Democratic Resistance Campaign was endorsed at MDC’s 2006 Congress, and it spluttered along, into 2007, with hot and cold support from the top leadership. But it was this movement that led to the March 11 2007 bashing of the top Opposition leaders, and the ensuing witchhunt of MDC youth leaders was aimed at the DRC structures. Much of the killing in recent weeks is also best seen as part of this.
It was the March 11 2007 outrage which finally provoked Africa, and SADC appointed South African President Thabo Mbeki to mediate between ZANU-PF and the Opposition. By a tortuous route, this led to this year’s March 29 elections and the shock victory by MDC.
So you can see how the nuances of democratic struggle in MDC itself also affected today’s situation and options.
Given the likely prospect of a chaotic regime collapse, it will be harder for the democratic option to emerge. However, there are the people and structures in Zimbabwe, in MDC, to create a new democratic Zimbabwe and to blaze a new trail for all of Africa.
Here in Australia the Zimbabwe Information Centre Inc will try to take part in the reconstruction, especially through a Foundation we have helped to create called Africa Works Foundation, and its primary projects will be mental health programs for survivors of torture and trauma, and education.
June 27 2008.
Thank you for writing Peter. I finally feel I’ve been told the whole story rather than the bits and pieces from mainstream media channels. Sometimes it feels as though Mugabe won’t be satisfied until he’s the only one left in Zimbabwe. That his rule has lasted so long is a sad indictment of the international community.
Thanks so much Peter, you’ve filled in a lot of big gaps in my understanding of the situation, esp. in respect of the MDC.
Considering there is no likelihood of an orderly transition and that the regime is basically collapsing in slow-mo, are these points for having a Govt. of National Unity appointed for a pre-determined transition period until new elections are held? And not so that ZANU-PF can hold onto the reins, but more that the UN, the SADC etc. together with the MDC and whatever sane bits of the ZANU-PF party are left, can put all emergency measures into place in respect of food distribution, planting of next season’s crop etc. and so on, until new Presidential elections can be held.
Sorry Peter, just to clarify on any Govt of Nat. Unity – it would have to be on the proviso of Mugabe stepping down of course. Would this scenario appeal to any junior ZANU-PF leaders and parliamentarians, who surely must be thinking about their long term futures beyond Mugabe - or maybe not…?
This is a good overview, thank you Peter.
I believe you have a very real point in terms of the support and influence of Soviet and Chines military paradigms and the context of the Smith regime’s brutality.
However I believe it is Mugabe’s pursuit of foreign interests and the need to maintain a stable government for investment that lead to the despotism, just like Smith and his predecessors too..
After the revolution, the revolutionary forces and grass roots organisations including the veterans were gradually and systematically alienated from governance and the state agenda. It was Mugabe’s alienation from his own power base, degenerating since the collapse of ZAPU and others at the same time as facilitating foreign interests and agendas (earning him a knighthood for his services) that, I believe, is the cause of the state violence just as was with the Rhodesian regime who had no training in USSR or China.
Mugabe blocked land reform, as the articles states by pursuing the world bank agenda, and the house of cards began falling.
Since the farm invasions of course everthing changed.
Your article identifies a schism between the proffessional classes and workers in MDC, and I suggest that is much more significant than simple diversity in terms of who creates policy and does the deals and controls the leadership.
By the figures in the post, in 2000 the population was 12 million, of which 400,000 were farm workers and 4000 white families - maybe 20,000 as a liberal estimate.
How is it that a minority movement representing the interests of 1/24 of the population and a leadership dominated by the proffessional classes really be the vehicle for democratic change?
Why are the interests of the other 23/24, in particular land reform, considered secondary to the rights and interests of the 1/24 ?
If the MDC leadership is dominateed by the professional classes and it takes government, why would it be any different to Mugabe and Smith in its determination to serve foreign interests above and beyond their own population? Why would Tsvangerai not just be another horse on the merri-go-round?
Wow!,
You gotta read this.
It is compulsory reading for those who believe MDC is a force for the liberation of women and that it doesn’t engage in political thuggery.
“Male Chauvinism betrays MDC”
http://zimdialogue.blogspot.com/2007/10/male-chauvinism-betrays-mdc-mrs-sekai.html
By Sekai Holland
(Go on Jo, explain why she is a Mugabe stooge)
As per my comments on the other thread, social change is much more than changing presidents.
What’s the bet the Zimbabwean Electoral Commission won’t take more than five minutes to announce that comrade president Mugabe received 120 per cent of the vote in yesterday’s election? (The extra 20% will come from God, of course).
that’s pretty funny except the left supported mugabe when he was redistributing land but once the country started going busto they’ve suddenly realised what a prick he is.
That’s pretty bad, John Tracey. But not nearly as bad a sbeing tortured by ZANU-PF. I know what I’d prefer.
There’s no reason necessarilly. It depends.
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But the modern state with its rule of law and government answerable to the citizenry is the best structure we’ve yet developed to enforce such things as property rights (disenabling such as Mugabe’s monarchical favouritism) and human rights which will give women a say inalienably. The middle-class has always been the soil in which the modern state grows. Just because the interests of one group are indulged does not mean the interests of others are neglected.
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Naturally this depends on the fibre of Zimbabwe’s middle-class.
If I may select from the post: “When in 1982 Robert Mugabe decided that he had to eliminate the political challenge he felt from ZAPU and its leader, Joshua Nkomo, he accused ZAPU of plotting an armed rebellion and then sent the army into Matabeleland, the base of ZAPU. Somewhere between 20,000 and 40,000 civilians were killed before Nkomo surrendered in 1987 ”
Now that alone, friends, tells us so much about Robert Mugabe, doesn’t it? In recent years: starvation, repression and “war veterans”. But what was Australia doing about Zimbabwe back in 1982-3 ???? I think it’s a fair question.
It wasn’t 200 he had killed or 2,000 it was
20 bloody thousand.
20,000 is - oh, let me see now - about SIX times the death toll in the attacks on NYC and Washington on 11/9/01
Ambigulous,
Because he was our good friend and doing what the world bank wanted him to do in 1982. Good friends don’t quibble about little things like the genocide of black people. As long as Sir Robert protected white wealth and priveledge he could do no wrong.
But when you touch the white farmers, well thats a different matter. Australians do not tolerate such things.
Tsvengarai is our good friend now.
Not true in my case. I thought he was a murderous bastard in 1982 when he sent in his North Korean trained troops to slaughter the Ndebelele people. I thought that then someone, in a just world, should be sent to stop him. And I feared then that events would pan out just as they have.
But now you have explained it all to us already.
It was all part of a vast conspiracy orchestrated by the Rockefeller Foundation.
And fractional reserve banking.
I can’t work you out John T. You thank Peter for his ‘good overview’ yet your comments confirm you do not understand anything he wrote (or Zimbabwe for that matter). Your pathetic attempt to paint Mugabe as a victim of the World Bank and the need to secure (foreign)investment are a disgrace. ESAP was necessary to restructure the economy from the Rhodesian model, which developed as a response to trade sanctions, to a modern market economy. Land reform and ESAP failed due to massive looting Mugabe and his ZANU cronies and featherbedding in State-owned enterprises. Your hero murdered his way to the top of ZANU and has continued to murder, even members of his own party, to remain in power. Just a typical communist really.
Trackback.
Many thanks, too, for such an informative backgrounder.
context of Greg’s comment can be found here
http://larvatusprodeo.net/2008/06/18/zimbabwe/
comment 263 onwards.
Greg, if you feel I have misrepresened the role of reserve banking I suggest that thread would be the best to tackle it but i will not respond to you there until you provide the apology asked for on that thread.
Yes, I don’t want any thread drift, please. If there are continuing issues at stake on the other thread, please argue them out there. Particularly on a guest post, it’s appropriate to show some respect for the writer of the post by keeping comments germane to the issues raised. There should be no expectation that Peter’s aware of the previous thread or differences people may have had on LP in the past.
Thanks very much.
Steve,
Mugabe was no victim of the world bank, he was rewarded hansomely and even given a knighthood.
ESAP was designed to fail, it was the mechanism to stop land reform, not progress it.
Your comment is simplistic, denialist, emotive reductionism to say that the governments looting was a more significant factor than its failure to provide fertile land to the massive majority of the population.
MDC land reform and agricultural policy is a replication of the ESAP program except this time it doesn’t have the Lancaster House agreement, a compromise on land reform, to argue about.
So, in terms of the seeds of despotism, we have the MDC with an ESAPish policy, conference stacking and violent intimidation in the lead up to the election, women systematically excluded from the leadership, a great ally in George Bush and they have called for a military coup and now foreign military intervention, not to protect an election as the SADC want and MDC factions outside of the Tsvengerai clique (or “the dictatorship” as Sekai Hoolland refers to them) want but to militarily oust Mugabe.
And for some reason, someone who is concerned about these things and sees sense in the idea of a government of national unity to avoid war is called a Mugabe worshipper?
For the record!
please see the other thread regarding the repeated pronunciation of me as a Mugabe apologist. I am sick of repeating myself.
Hmmmm,
Despite the MDC pulling out of the presidential run off, they participated in 3 by-elections on Friday. It is most interesting to see the reasons for the by-elections.
“MDC spokesman Nelson Chamisa claimed last night that the three by-elections –which could not be held during general elections on March 29 because of the death of candidates from a rival MDC faction led by Arthur Mutambara — were “not part of the current impasse”.”
http://www.newzimbabwe.com/pages/mdc235.18399.html
No, apparently nothing sinister, just bad luck for the Mutumbara faction, a stroke, a car crash and old age. Plus Mutumbara being arrested for treason.
But its still a fascinationg story.
Two of the deceased were sitting M.P’s
Unlike the general election where the factions negotiated seats and candidates, the Tsvangerai faction ran against Mutumbara candidates in the by-elections and have already claimed victory in at least one of the former MP’s seats. In so doing, the fragile peace between the two MDC groupings has been broken for one factions unilateral grab for power. The main internal rivals to the Tsvangerei leadership, and those likeley to support a government of national unity, have been depleted while the Tsvengerei machine gets bigger.
Perhaps this is why the MDC considers the 3 seats are “not part of the current impasse” and exempt from the boycott.
Given the comments by Seiki Holland in my link @5 and and the other articles and links on that blog and the fracturing with Mutumbra and the disillusionment that Tsvangerai did not go all the way despite such a huge sacrifice by so many to go all the way (yet contesting the by-elections) suggests to me that the MDC is starting to fall apart and Tsvangerai is bulding (or has built) a machine based around his own powerbase not dissimilar to Mugabe’s rise to the top of the dung heap at the expense or exclusion of his former allies.
Mutumbra, like Sekai Holland, are former ZANU PF members and while they can maintain a facade of unity with the Tsvangerai faction for the purposes of an election framed simply around getting rid of Mugabe, the policy tensions and divisions are already beginning, if they weren’t always there. Tsvangerai is already repressing these factions, the seeds of despotism are already sprouting.
This is history folks, we are watching a new dictator emerge and like Mugabe, to the rapturous applause of the west.
John T
The first stage of land reform was finished before ESAP started. Britain withheld funding as the program steadily became a mechanism to transfer land to the ZANU chefs at the expense of the povo. The ESAP era saw wholesale looting of public housing funds (Grace’s first mansion was funded by public housing funds)and pension funds. ESAP also saw the rise of ZANU crooks such as Roger Boka and Phillip Chiyangwa who enriched themselves while professing to support ‘Indigenisation’ for the benefit of the masses. Parastatals such as the National Oil Company of Zimbabwe (Noczim)maintained their monopolies and became bloated through the unnecessary employment of party loyalists.
“mechanism to transfer land to the ZANU chefs” - you mean something like native title?
I don’t deny the corruption but things like native title principles being represented as some evil land grab by greedy violent and uncivilised natives is just white propoganda to justify the mass theft of African land by Europeans.
No, not all. It had absolutely nothing to do with Native Title, an expression which I have never heard used in Zimnbabwe. Simply, if you weren’t in the ZANU club, you didn’t qualify. Nevermind that your forebears were dispossessed from that land. It became State sanctioned looting, pure and simple, and the Brits quite rightly refused to finacially support it.
And I wouldn’t make too much of Sekai Holland and Mutambara being ex ZANU PF members. I’ll bet Tsvangerai was also. There is hardly any adult in Zimbabwe, black or white, who hasn’t been a member of ZANU PF. Which is NOT the same as saying they were supporters. It simply reflects the intimidation and corruption that has and continues to exist.
Steve,
Yes it is interesting that native title never comes into the discussion about Zimbabwe, despite the principle being the essense of the land reform program. The MDC program certainly contravines the United Nations declaration on Indigenous rights by denying land rights.
And you are wrong about everyone being in ZANU PF, the white farmers certainly were not and I doubt they had much white support at all, most fled the country.
But, in general, you are correct which is an interesting point, that large sections of the MDC support land reform and the old nationalist agenda but have joined MDC simply as a vehicle to get rid of Mugabe.
If the MDC forms government and institutes a new ESAP program backed by foreign military to repress ZANU PF and its own control of (un)democratic process to exclude the non-Tsvangerei factions within MDC then most of the MDC will fall away and fight the new dictatorship. Apparently MDC vote has fallen in the last three elections, all of which were rigged, not just this one and this one had MDC scrutineers calling numbers. Instead of gathering momentum it is losing it and from reading recent reports from Zimbabwe indicate chaos and division dominating MDC while the Tsvangarei is being represented as someone who continues to make foolish decisions undermining MDC and the possibility of government.
I do not think he is a fool. I think he is doing what he is told in a clever plan to make sure land reform stalls and nationalists from MDC as well as ZANU PF are kept from government.
John Tracey,
The only “natives” that have title in Zimbabwe are those that are politically aligned to Mugabe. The rest are only free to have it stolen from them.
.
If there is this big conspiracy you are alleging, I would still say it si better to change the government. That establishes the precedent that governments change as a result of an electoral process. If the MDC comes in on a vote - and is becoming less popular as you allege then they can and will be voted out next time - perhaps with ZANU-PF being voted back in. Provided it is a free and fair election I would have no problem with that.
It would be as it should be - up to the Zimbabwean people. At the moment it is only up to the ruling clique of the ZANU-PF.
Andrew,
The fact that Mugabe resisted land reform is no justification for the MDC doing the same thing. Until there is land reform the vast majority of Zimbabwe’s poulation will remain starving subsistance farmers in overcroweded unfertile land.
It is clear that many in Zimbabwe agree with you, that the only real objective is to remove Mugabe and work out the rest later. However now that there is no longer an electoral strategy the choice appears to be between negotiated settlement or foreign invasion. The Tsvangarei faction may well be able to maintain connections with the US and England to orchestrate a military coup but the grass roots movement including dissident (not necessarily minority) factions in the MDC are likely to go through a considerable re-alignment and many, including in the MDC, still hold land reform as a given in the reconstruction of the country post-Mugabe.
The issue of land reform will tear the MDC apart after Mugabe, whether he steps down, dies of old age or is assasinated. The only way the Tsvangerei faction, if it continues to control the leadership, can ensure a stable investment environment in Zimbabwe is to repress or eliminate the supporters of the land reform process, not just ZANU PF but in the MDC too.
Same problem Comrade Bob had.
John Tracey - IMHO, Bollocks. Land reform is a given and has never (AFAIK) been an issue to the MDC. The UK has consistently offered to fund it and the only thing that is likely to change is that the process will not now be one that steals it from a few white farmers to give it to even fewer black Mugabe hangers-on but will be one that actually returns it to the original owners who can then choose to deal with it in any way they choose.
I would very much doubt that the (white) farmers would go back in any case. They are probably doing too well in other countries in Africa to go back. OTOH - they may choose to use the money they get from actually properly being compensated to buy the land back.
That is what security of title does. It allows proper, rules-based, transfers - the sort of thing we enjoy here.
John
What evidence do you have for stating that white farmers were not members of the ZNAU PF? Party membership is simply a cost of doing business, a passport to dealing with Govt, a way of avoiding harassment from party thugs. It is the Zim Amex card. “Don’t leave home without it”.
The post 1999 land reform also saw appropriations from black commercial farmers.
How can you say that the MDC vote has fallen when for the first time the MDC won control of Parliament (admittedly they are yet to be sworn in!).
Tsvangerai doesn’t have to achieve much to be a success. He must purge the senior ranks of the public service, parastatals, the police, the armed forces, judiciary and ideally shut down the CIO and the state-owned media. He also needs to be somewhat less corrupt than Mugabe. Donor nations will be in a position to require the establishment of an anti-corruption body. Most importantly of all he needs to be a democrat and be prepared to stand down if defeated.
In my opinion, his biggest challenge if he ever takes power, which I doubt, will be an almost certain ZANU insurgency supported by China which will see a ZANU demise as a geopolitical setback.
The MDC has factions. Who’d a thought that was possible? That the MDC may be male chauvinist in a country where polygamy is legal? Wow! If one catalogued the international conventions that Zimbabwe has signed you’d draw the conclusion that Zim was some sort of tropical Sweden. It’s all a sham. Zim’s even had a carbon tax for at least 6 years. Bugger all petrol or electricity but what’s that matter if they’re green?
“How can you say that the MDC vote has fallen when for the first time the MDC won control of Parliament”
My mistake, the following was written shortly before the election. However in terms of what the link says about anti-Mugabe is different to pro-MDC, as well as the recent backlash to Tsvangareis leadership, in particular their breaking their own boycott and running in the 3 by-elections, then I believe it is still fair to suggest that MDC support is declining.
according to this Zimbabwean commentator…..
http://www.newzimbabwe.com/pages/opinion307.17703.html
“One key factor to consider is that unlike Zanu PF, the MDC’s electoral success has depended consistently on a large pool of floating voters. The MDC has for a long time been sustained by an anti-Zanu PF sentiment, which is not the same thing as a pro-MDC sentiment.
Zanu PF, on the contrary, has a more solid support base; they have a bigger constituency of core supporters. You only have to check the consistency of its voters in urban centres; they almost always score the same numbers. In sharp contrast, there’s a consistent decline for the MDC with each new election. In other words, the people on the outer concentric circle of the MDC are like loose electrons - they can move on to more attractive options.”
Thanks to Steve for getting me to track down that link. I have found some other things that may be of interest.
Firstly, an explanation for the real reason that Tsvangarei withdrew from the presidential run off.
The Tsvangerei faction program as of May includes….
http://www.newzimbabwe.com/pages/senate208.14321.html
“(MDC) provide a framework for resolving the national crisis. The Road Map for achieving this is anchored on three pillars, namely, a Political Settlement and Agreement between the MDC and Zanu-PF on the framework of the Road Map, A Transitional Authority to preside over the writing of a New People driven Constitution and the conducting of Free and Fair Elections for all arms of government which are internationally supervised.”
Last weekend…..
http://www.newzimbabwe.com/pages/mdc238.18421.html
“Tsvangirai told the Sunday Telegraph that he would consider an arrangement where Mugabe remains as a titular head of state.”
Tsvagerei’s willingness to negotiate with the regime is not new as Gabriel Chaibva, a senior leader of the Mutambara faction comments in May……
http://www.newzimbabwe.com/pages/senate210.14345.html
“THE MDC is shocked and dismayed to learn of the secret plot by Morgan Tsvangirai and company to open talks with Zanu PF and Robert Mugabe’s government.
We are particularly shocked because it is the same Tsvangirai who was busy denouncing us claiming that we were seeking “Unity Accord Number Two” with Zanu PF.”
Interestingly enough, Chaibva yesterday attended Mugabe’s inauguration despite Tsvangerei’s boycott of the event.
And Steve,
you said somewhat sarcastically “The MDC has factions. Who’d a thought that was possible?” They also ran on two seperate tickets and as two seperate parties at the by-elections.
“They also ran on two seperate tickets and as two seperate parties at the by-elections.”
Sounds like the Libs and the Nats at last weekend’s Gippsland by-election. The horror!
Seriously though John, I believe that any accommodation or ‘govt of national unity’ or similar will be death of MDC. I admit that MDC’s major strength is that it is not ZANU. But if it enters into any power sharing arrangement it will be unable to root out ZANU loyalists from key positions. That be suicide.
I’m with jo, just because Mugabe’s in his endgame doesn’t mean “regime change” necessarily. Given that the status quo is unsustainable, when things change for the better in Zimbabwe you’ll see plenty who did well under Mugabe doing well under the new regime, Tsvangarai or whomever else. It isn’t only cream that rises.
Wow and golly gosh! Different members of the same political party have differences of opinion! Whatever next, John?
Andrew E,
You may need to read the link again
I think it is wrong of you to represent stoning the roof an an old lady for being in the wrong faction (women) and a national conference in the lead up to the election being held in a secret location, locking out opposition factions when they discover the meeting… is a little more than a difference of opinion.
Or perhaps this is business as usual in your concept of democratic procedure?
I do agree that “It isn’t only cream that rises.”, but I do not use such a truism to defend the rise of the Tsvangerei clique as you appear to.
John Tracey,
At the moment the choice that is forced on the people of Zimbabwe is between a dictator of proven murderous and genocidal bent that has driven a once (comparatively) wealthy nation into the ground and made the country an international pariah and a former trades union leader of possibly questionable democratic credentials - which is as far as any evidence you have brought up can (IMHO) go.
The choice is not, to me at least, a difficult one. Your belief that they should stick with the genocidal tyrant is, IMHO, not founded on the evidence coming out of Zim.
I disagree Andrew.
It seems the choice, not to be made by the people, is between a unity government of MDC and ZANU PF elected representatives - or an interim government made up of Mugabe advisors and Changarei advisers.
regarding the high principles of MDC…….
There is only one independent parliamentarian, Jonathan Mayo who until recently has aligned himself with Tsvangerai. The MDC(Tsvangerei) backed him against MDC(Mutambara) candidate.
He is Californian educated and held many corporatte positions including head of Ford Foundation in Nairobi.
Mayo (different one to the links on the other thread) was opposed to the Mugabe regime. then he joined it. Then he became information minister 2000-2005 and banned foreign media and repressed local media and constructed Mugabe’s spin.. Then he was expelled from ZANU PF for plotting a military coup (true or not who knows). recently he has ran with the Tsvangerei faction who supported him to re-election. Now he is publically attacking Tsvangeiri for by pulling out of the run-off. He has repeatedly called for foreign intervention.
For Tsvangerei to endorse and support Mayo, a senior member of the regime who had a major role in having Tsvangerei charged with treason and such things shows one of two things, absolute stupidity or absolute opportunism on the part of Tsvangarei. Either way, it shows little adherence to the democratic principles that the blind white commentariate attribute to him and his clique.
My repeated mistake - Moyo, not Mayo.
A Zimbabwean perspective
http://zimdialogue.blogspot.com/2008/01/jonathan-moyo-must-be-excluded-from-any.html
John Tracey,
It is the very ZANU-PF (the one you said you would vote for) that have forced this situation. You keep bringing up (minor) evidence of the lack of democratic credentials of the MDC while seemingly failing to notice (or at least properly account for) the wholesale, massive and violent failings of ZANU-PF.
“Why do you notice the splinter in your brother’s eye, but do not perceive the wooden beam in your own eye?”
“So by their fruits you will know them.” We seem to know ZANU-PF as it currently is.
What John said. So Tsvangirai does deals with scum like Moyo. So what? Australian politicians do/did deals with f*ckwits like The Greens, the Dems and One Nation. Didn’t the great Philip Adams (sorry, Climate Change Coalition) do a prefence swap with Pauline Hanson last year? What is the difference exactly?
John Tracey is exhibiting a clear double standard in terms of the democratic credentials he demands from Zanu-PF versus the MDC.
The MDC must not merely accord better with his ideology, they must also be squeaky fucking clean about it. Whereas Zanu-PF may do more or less as they please provided they maintain the rhetoric against foreign influence.
John - at what point (is there any?) does the boogie-man of foreign influence become an “acceptable risk” in the face of self-determined abject misery?
Please see the other thread regarding….
a/various characatures and demonisations of my position without addressing what I have said.
b/The construction of an illusion about Zimbabwe and the MDC by the MSM in particular Murdoch and the apparent ease with which it has been swallowed by some.
As for my position, it has been clear and unambiguous. Zimbabwe’s political problems are caused by its economic structure, in particular the vast majority of the population being disposessed of land while 4000 white families control Zimbabwe’s productive land.
Also. World bank and debt regimes maintain Africa as a dependent and obedient economy.
Until there is real land reform and Zimbabweans can prosper from their own land then there will be no relief from either poverty or despotism.
Smith, Mugabe and Tsvangarei are all puppets of the money that backed them.
John Tracey,
As for “failure to address” do you have anything to say about the simple fact that the UK has time and again offered to buy the farms and distribute them to the former holders provided it is done transparently? That Mugabe has refused to do it this way, preferring to steal them and give them to cronies, rather than the traditional owners you seem to think they are going to?
Personally I would think, even without that offer, that it would be better that the farms were in the hands of 4000 people who actually farm them than 5 (or so) families that get them now and then let them go to waste.
Andrew,
An English condition of independence was the entrenchment of monority white property rights. This puts all England’s “goodwill” towards Zimbabwe in perspective up to today, as does the fact that these property rights are presently under threat - not by Mugabe who protected intenational capital but by the grass roots of ZANU PF and veterans who in frustration from Mugabe’s resistance to land reform took the matter into their own hands.
Land was not previously distributed or attempted to be distrubuted to the “former holders”. It was distributed to whoever could replicate the original white farmers mode of production for export, that is, those who had access to capital and markets - not the landless peasents.
Never, ever has England conceded anything like native title in Zimbabwe as a basis for land reform.
The following is a link I put on the other thread, a Zimbabwean perspective on land reform. It also deals with the reason why you have been brainwashed to believe that black people cannot feed themselves without white farmers.
http://www.newzimbabwe.com/pages/opinion318.18126.html
The author of that article also has his own blog which some may find interesting
http://kuthula.blogspot.com/
No such “brainwashing” has occured, John Tracey, and I would appreciate it if you withdrew the implicit racism there. Nowhere have I ever said that - only that anyone without experience of farming will not know how to farm. Please withdraw.
Now.
No Andrew I will not withdraw. You said “that it would be better that the farms were in the hands of 4000 people who actually farm them than 5 (or so) families that get them now and then let them go to waste.”
I say the farms would be better in the hands of subsistance farmers developing a growing local economy than a multinational agribusiness producing export crops and sucking food out of the economy.
Whether you like it or not, this is a clash between the interests of 4000 white families and 12,000,000 indigenous Zimbabweans. Racism is a core element, especially in the media’s presentation of the issues to the western world.
And before anyone says white farmers create jobs, consider Peter’s figures above. 400,000 farm workers were supporting 3,000,000 people, each wage supporting more than six people. What is the difference between this and subsistance farming escept dependence on international capital? Structural poverty is structural poverty if you haven’t enough food or if you haven’t enough money.
At least with subsistance farming the other 2,600,000 people living on farms could have been engaged in productive work including the 1/3 of the adults who are HIV positive and do not have career advancement to look forward to.
And it seems to me that those with the farming experience would be the 400,000 farm workers who actually did the farming, not the elite of landowners and corporate agents.
John Tracey,
I will be civil with you if you are so with me. I have never implied that “black people cannot farm”. I did say that the “land reform” is directing farms towards 5 (or so) families - by which I meant various associates of Mugabe and a couple of others on whom he relies.
The farms are not in the hands of subsistence farmers, they are in the hands of henchmen and (occasionally) towns people. The locals AFAIK are not getting a look in. Now, please withdraw and then we can continue. You may then choose to present any evidence you have that that farms are actually going to subsistence farmers - but first, a withdrawal, please.