‘We shall be doing this (negotiating) as Zimbabweans, entirely as Zimbabweans, with the help of South Africa. There will be no European hand here.’
—Robert Mugabe, 21 July 2008

The above statement at the signing ceremony of the Thabo Mbeki-birthed Memorandum of Understanding hints at the deep and intense struggles that underlie the Zimbabwe crisis. Robert Mugabe claims that the ghosts of colonialism have come to haunt Zimbabwe and caused unforetold suffering to Zimbabweans through western imposed sanctions, and with the MDC the west is the major culprit for calling for sanctions. This attempt to reinvent the political and economic history of Zimbabwe has been discussed in academic circles; thus, Professor David Moore notes the emergence of Agrarian nationalists or what Terence Ranger terms patriotic history. This illusion has informed many policy and position debates on Zimbabwe at regional and international fora as various interested stakeholders seek to unlock the Zimbabwe logjam. However this elisionistic interpretation of the Zimbabwe crisis has been allowed at the expense of Zimbabweans’ quest for change. Exhausted nationalism and anti-imperialism rhetoric has been used by the geriatric regime to gloss over the horrendous atrocities and human rights abuses it has been committing. The maiming, torture, rape, deprivation, murder and arson committed by ZANU PF becomes sanitized as a revolution brewing in Harare or what Sam Moyo and Paris Yeros terms a radicalized state seeking to undo the vestiges of colonialism. In all this blind sheepish intellectualism Mugabe emerges a hero of Black Africa.

The inaction from African institutions despite the flagrant violations of charters and declarations that they have authored reinforces the notion of a dark continent. The Banjul Charter stressing that:

The Member States of the Organization of African Unity parties to the present Charter shall recognize the rights, duties and freedoms enshrined in this Chapter and shall undertake to adopt legislative or other measures to give effect to them (Article 1).

Every individual shall be entitled to the enjoyment of the rights and freedoms recognized and guaranteed in the present Charter without distinction of any kind such as race, ethnic group, color, sex, language, religion, political or any other opinion, national and social origin, fortune, birth or other status (Article 2).

Therefore, given the centuries of slavery and colonialism in Africa, observance of these noble articles ranging from 1-62 is seen as an unnecessary luxury by Most African heads of states. The end justified the means and democracy and human rights had to be sacrificed to defend the revolution. What remains unanswered is which and whose revolution: when was it threatened and by whom? It is in attempting to answer this question that one can appreciate the emasculation of a people’s quest for a decent meal that they end up with anti-imperialism for dinner on the table. Therefore despite all the hardships the general populace is expected to “Rambai Mkashinga [keep on persevering]” — as Jonathan Moyo’s infamous jingle would implore people every 15 minutes on Zimbabwe Broadcasting Television and Radio.[1]

A closer introspection of Zimbabwe’s economic history reveals Mugabe was the blue-eyed boy of the West in Africa. At the height of the 1980s’ madness Mugabe was knighted by the queen and showered with many awards and honorary degrees by universities in the West. Therefore his recent tantrums about imperialism and anti-western diatribes are just grapes that have gone sour. In essence Mugabe has to be grateful to imperialism and the west for having allowed him to ascend to the position where he is now. Heidi Holland, author of the book “Dinner with Mugabe” remarks that:

…whites because they were grateful to be out of range of fire; the British government because it had to stand by its man up north while trying to bring majority rule to apartheid South Africa; the international media because it backed Mugabe to the hilt could not contemplate its flawed judgment (in Mawowa 2007)

Definitely Mugabe’s misadventures with the west are just chickens coming back home to roost. In addition, there has been a tendency to confuse nationalism with anti-imperialism within the third world analysis albeit the two concepts being not synonymous. For example, the ‘Vashandi’ [workers’] [2] movement that attempted to unite the Zimbabwe African Liberation Army (ZANLA) and Zimbabwe People’s Revolutionary Army (ZIPRA) into the Zimbabwe Integrated People’s Army (ZIPA). However Mugabe and his cohorts quashed this movement, which points out one of several contradictions that undermine his self-acclaimed anti-imperialist credentials. Kriger observes that the elimination of Vashandi was an ideological coup marking the beginning of a political culture of leftist rhetoric that has characterised post independence Zimbabwe (in Mawowa 2007). Claims from the supra-Africanists and pseudo-communists that Mugabe is a fighter of imperialism cannot be vindicated by the evidence of history. The regime’s leftist rhetoric is meant to appeal to the ordinary and poor since it captures their aspirations. The self-proclaimed super patriots also claim that Africa has been a communist or socialist society. However, Mugabe’s strong taste for an opulent western lifestyle is no secret as seen in his love for fine suits and shopping at Harrods. Heidi Holland records Dennis Norman alluding to Mugabe’s love for bourgeoisie paraphernalia, insisting ministers put on suits (in Mawowa 2007). Furthermore, Mawowa in his review of Holland’s book observes that:

The man in most respects seems to still subscribe to his western learning even now at the height of his populist authoritarian rule that includes attacks in the west. He still retains his knighthood and one needs to see his entourage during the opening of parliament to observe that the man has lost none of his love for the western representations (2007:5).

Mugabe’s life history and action do not at all point to a person who has always detested western values in spite of how he has re-branded himself.

The emergence of the Movement for Democratic Change has led to ZANU PF reviving the liberation war rhetoric and ‘we freed you syndrome’ and led to what Bond (2003) calls exhausted nationalism. By reviving liberation rhetoric, the ZANU PF regime is reminding the people to be grateful that they were freed from colonialism and cannot therefore make demands to the state. However, such a fallacy is a misconstruction of Zimbabwe’s history for the liberation war was never a monopoly of one party. A closer inspection of ZANLA’s strategies will show that even ordinary people played a crucial role in the liberation war, thus realising Mao’s strategy ‘the people are the sea and the freedom fighters are the fish’. Moreover, there were some liberation songs such as ‘Gandanga haridye derere mukoma rinorutsa’ which paint a different picture of the liberation struggle. Loosely translated this chorus means “a freedom fighter does not eat okra or vegetables; he or she will vomit my brother.” Thus the goats, chickens and cows which the ordinary people slaughtered and other food and material support they provided were never paid for.

In the 2000 film ‘Never The Same Again’ Emerson Mnangagwa, when interviewed about the use of the Law and Order Maintenance Act (LOMA), a relic of colonial piece of legislation, retorted, “I do not like the Law and Order Maintenance Act, but sometimes it is handy”. As the Minister of Home Affairs Mnangagwa had invoked state of emergency powers provided under LOMA that saw the army resorting to heavy handedness such as the use of tankers and armoured vehicles on civilians, during the 1998 food riots in Chitungwiza, Harare, Bulawayo and other cities in Zimbabwe. Interestingly Mnangagwa had been detained and incarcerated under the same law by the Colonial Ian Smith regime during the days of the nationalist struggles and war of liberation. Therefore taking Mnangagwa’s assertion it can be safely concluded that ZANU PF’s claims of being inimical to imperialism is a farce.

In spite of Harare’s puffing of anti-colonial rhetoric Anna Kajumulo Tibaijuka commented on the irony of the laws used to implement Murambatsvina, in which:

the Regional, and Town Planning Act, and attendant municipal bylaws emanating from the colonial era meant to keep Africans out of the cities [set] very high housing and development standards beyond the reach of the majority of the people.[3]

Resorting to colonial pieces of legislation that does not account for the people’s historical material conditions raises fundamental questions of the Zimbabwean government’s nationalist and historicist rhetoric. ZANU PF as a ruling party has lacked a coherent ideological underpinning, reducing it to its current condition as a schizophrenic citadel in terms of both members and policies. Towards the preparations for the hosting of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in 1991 in Harare, The Herald reported that the Harare City Council through Town Clerk Edward Kanengoni made submissions to Justice Robinson to the effect that the demolition of squatters’ houses was to avoid embarrassing the queen.[4] Interestingly in his judgment Justice Robinson observed:

In any case, perhaps the applicant (the City of Harare) and other who are so anxious to sweep the respondents (the squatters) under the red carpet to be rolled out for her Majesty’s visit to Mbare need to be reminded that the liberation war in Zimbabwe was fought over the issue of land primarily combined with the goal of justice for all. [5]

This obsession with pleasing the queen unmasks the deception that Mugabe has managed to lull the African continent and the developing world with.

In the early 1980s, in a swoop at the destitute and homeless through ‘Operation Chinyavada’, MOTO observes the government’s use of the infamous Vagrancy Act of 1960, a remnant colonial piece of legislation designed to segregate black people from cities and white areas (December/January, 1984: 5). In carrying out the operations, government evoked nationalism, justifying its actions as being in the interest of the country and at the same trying to rehabilitate economic and political saboteurs. In spite of its jaundiced nationalist rhetoric it has never dawned on the ZANU PF-led government that all along they have failed to define the nature, form, content and genesis of the ‘so-called’ saboteurs. It is poverty, stupid! Therefore the anti-colonial and imperialism lectures that Mugabe has been delivering at the United Nations summit are a red herring. The real issues in Zimbabwe are about a liberation movement that has turned into a vampire regime. Interestingly Mugabe has become popular for lashing out World Bank and IMF policies, as undermining the sovereignty of third world governments — yet its Reserve Bank governor, Gideon Gono’s made strenuous efforts in 2005 not to be kicked out of the IMF and World Bank system. Mugabe’s anti-imperialist outbursts are not informed by any revolution as most people in Africa have been made to believe but rather by anger and the history of having tasted the sweets of imperialism. In reviewing the Economic Structural Adjustment Policy, in 1995, the IMF and World Bank gave Zimbabwe the ‘highly satisfactory’ rating. As Patrick Bond noted in 2000 “Indeed, just five years ago, Zimbabwe was Washington’s newest African ‘success story,’ as Harare adopted economic policies promoted by Bank and IMF lenders, and even conducted joint military exercises with the Pentagon.”[6] All these points raise questions about Mugabe’s commitment to the anti-imperialist cause.

Understanding the Zimbabwe crisis needs a careful revisiting of Zimbabwe’s economic history and juxtaposing of ZANU PF’s rhetoric against its actions and policies in government. Evidence at hand undermines the regime’s claims of fighting imperialism. The Zimbabwe case is a good example of a government that seeks to divert attention from its failure by regurgitating anti-imperialist rhetoric. However, the schizophrenic nature of the ZANU PF regime has neared its endgame as its true colours are laid bare with every second that ticks.

Notes

From ACAS Bulletin 80

1. “Rambai Makashinga” is the name of one of Jonathan Moyo’s propaganda jingles meant to drum up support for Robert Mugabe.

2. This was a movement established by the young radicals in ZANU who sought to establish a Marxist/Socialist state in Zimbabwe and it was led by the likes of Wilfred Mhanda, aka Dzinashe Machingura.

3. Report of the Fact Finding Mission to Zimbabwe, to assess the Scope and the Impact of Operation Murambatsvina by the UN Special Envoy on Human Settlements issues in Zimbabwe: 56, http://www.zimbabwesituation.com/zimbabwe_rpt.pdf, Accessed on 02 September 2006.

4. The Herald September 1991: 1.

5.The Herald September 13 1991:1

6.Patrick Bond, “Zimbabwe’s Crisis Showcases Reasons for Bank/IMF Protest”, http://www.africaaction.org/docs00/zim0005b.htm

References

Bond P, and Manyanya M, Zimbabwe’s Plunge: Exhausted Nationalism, Neoliberalism and the Search for Social Justice University of KwaZulu-Natal Press, Merlin Press, Weaver Press and Africa World Press, 2003, 2002

David Moore, ‘Marxism and Marxist Intellectuals in Schizophrenic Zimbabwe: How Many Rights for Zimbabwe’s Left?’ Historical Materialism, Vol 12, Issue 4, 2004, pp 405-425.

Sam Moyo and Paris Yeros, “Radicalised State: Zimbabwe’s Interrupted Revolution”, Review of African Political Economy – Vol. 34 No. 111, March 2007), pp103-121

Showers Mawowa, “The Told Untold Story” 2007, a book review of Heidi Holland’s Dinner with Mugabe.

Terence Ranger, “The rise of patriotic journalism in Zimbabwe and its possible implications”, Westminster Papers in Communication and Culture (University of Westminster, London), Special Issue, November 2005: 8-17. ISSN 1744-6708 (Print); 1744-6716 (Online)

Contrary to the gun battles we are accustomed to, we now have cyber-warfares fought from one’s comfort zone, be it bedroom, office, swimming pool, etc but with deadly effects.
—Dr. Olivia Muchena, Zanu (PF) Secretary for Science and Technology

e-Ntroduction

By the time Russia ‘e-nvaded’ Georgia and paralyzed its security with cyber-weaponry in August-September 2008, Zimbabwe was in its fifth year of cyber-guerrilla warfare. Using interception gadgets, the Zanu (PF) government of Robert Mugabe jammed radio signal and web traffic that sympathized with the opposition. Online newspapers and internet radios had been using the internet to attack the Mugabe dictatorship for the past four years. Government and anti-Mugabe hackers had been trading long-range artillery fire for three decades.

This is a story of the way internet has brought together print and audio into a diverse bouquet of weapons, giving birth to the cyber-guerrilla. It is a story that must start with Strive Masiyiwa, the man who brought the internet to Zimbabwe. A former engineer with the state-owned Posts and Telecommunications Corporation (PTC), in 1994 Masiyiwa established Econet Wireless (Pvt) Ltd. amid red-faced resistance from the regime. The state refused to grant him a license, but in 1997 the Supreme Court declared the state’s telecommunications monopoly unconstitutional. Only the intervention of Vice President and Zapu supremo Joshua Nkomo prevented Mugabe from further emasculating Masiyiwa’s project.

In July 1998, Econet opened for business. In just three months, it had eclipsed the PTC’s own cellular network, Net One. The licensing of Econet was a direct threat to Zanu (PF) in three ways. First, it enabled customers to bypass wire tapping by the state. Second, it led to the creation of wireless and dial-up internet connectivity. And third, Strive Masiyiwa would become the publisher of the country’s only daily independent, The Daily News, which pricked Zanu (PF)’s corrupt feet to no end.

Snooping

Inevitably, the government started using presidential powers to crack down on internet, mobile and fixed phone users “circulating subversive e-mail inciting the public to oust President Mugabe from office”. In late 2003, fourteen people were arrested for this ‘offense’.

But in March 2004, the Supreme Court declared the presidential powers unconstitutional. The full bench upheld the Law Society of Zimbabwe’s argument that the presidential powers violated section 20 of the Constitution regarding freedom of expression and rendered it redundant. Mugabe could not be above the constitution.

The Supreme Court ruling did not stop the government from drafting new regulations requiring all Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to censor and report all anti-Mugabe communications. Some ISPs like MWeb agreed to comply. But others refused to accept a requirement the Supreme Court had tossed out as unconstitutional.

The state could yet illegally compel ISPs to open locally registered domains (ending with ‘.zw’) that the national internet registry, the Zimbabwe Internet Service Providers Association (ZISPA), administered under Zimbabwean law. However the state could not snoop into non-local domains like ‘.net’, ‘.com’, ‘co.za’, and ‘.co.uk’ whose e-mail servers were located in foreign cities and owned by giants like yahoo, google, or hotmail.

In October 2004, Mugabe used the Tel One and Zimpost industrial strike as an excuse to deploy army and police spooks at the telecommunication and postal companies respectively. Despite the Supreme Court decision, civic groups were worried the government was snooping anyway. In one instance, Movement of Democratic Change President Morgan Tsvangirai conceded shock when Mugabe repeated “almost word for word a conversation he had had with British Prime Minister Tony Blair”.

At the World Summit on Information Society (WSIS) in Tunis in November 2005, Mugabe tore into the US monopoly of the internet addressing system. He was much more worried about the role of internet in loosening his grip on power. The monopoly he was condemning internationally, Mugabe was consolidating internally. In February 2006, the Interception of Communications Bill, first introduced in 2000 as an amendment to the PTC Act, was modified and re-tabled to legalize the presidential powers the Supreme Court had already overruled.

The Interception Bill would empower government to establish a monitoring center to peep into phones and e-mails on the pretext of “protecting national security”. A cosmetic provision was inserted allowing citizens to challenge the “monitoring warrants” in court.

Meanwhile, people were already complaining that some ISPs like Telconet, Mango, Mweb and Zimbabwe Online were blocking e-mails with political content. The central bank installed a “mail content manager” to block its employees from receiving any e-mails with words like “Morgan Tsvangirai” or “MDC”. The e-mail bounced back to the sender with the message:

MailMarshal has not delivered the following message: From…. To…. Subject: Morgan Tsvangirai….?This is due to automatic rules that have determined that the intended recipient is not authorized to receive messages that have political content.

The central bank routed mail through the internet hub of the state-owned Tel One.

Meanwhile, the state also jammed the medium wave signal of the US-based Voice of America station Studio 7 and the UK-based SW Radio Africa. The jamming signal was quite strong and located within or near Harare. Sources told reporters that the government had acquired equipment and training from China to jam the stations in 2005.

In August 2006, Transport and Communication Minister Christopher Mushowe justified the Interception Bill as legislation to curb cyber crime. The state painted internet as a dangerous conveyor-belt for money laundering, terrorism, extortion, and hacking. The draft designated the Minister as the first and last point of appeal.

The state called in soldiers, intelligence operatives, and police officers to sing hymns in praise of the bill. Army Colonel Livingstone Chineka criticized the licenses of all three mobile phone providers for compromising state security and the Postal and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (POTRAZ) for using the wrong statute to grant the licenses. The permits had been issued under section 34 of the PTC Act that only had provisions for fixed telephones, not section 31 which required mobile service providers to use the state-owned Tel One as a gateway for international calls. Chineka recommended that Telecel and Econet be given just 30 days to switch to Net One’s gateway. The High Court had already dismissed that argument in November as tantamount to subsidizing Tel One.

In June 2007, Zanu (PF) used its parliamentary majority to pass the bill into law, leaving only the small issue of Mugabe’s signature. A year later Colonel Chineka, a serving member of the army, was chosen Zanu (PF)’s parliamentary candidate in Zaka East.

Even before the ink had dried on Mugabe’s signature on the Interception of Communications Act in August 2007, Chinese-trained internet spooks had deployed at Mazoe Earth Satellite station, the country’s gateway to Intelsat, the world’s largest commercial satellite communications services provider. It seemed the best place to set up the envisaged interception center. But experts doubted the ten spies could track “everyone’s” communication short of summoning the entire state security apparatus. The real intention was to rule with fear—to make the technology work through fear, not materiality—and make an example of one or two people.

The Interception Act compelled ISPs to install the equipment themselves at their own expense. Failure to comply would be “an offence and liable to a fine or to imprisonment for a period not exceeding three years or to both”.

By September 2007 ISPs and mobile phone providers had started installing surveillance equipment to comply with the snooping law. SW Radio reported that DHL’s Harare offices were delisting from e-mail listservs that purveyed political content. ISPs like Econet’s Ecoweb, Tel One’s Com One, and Telecontract’s Telconet were reportedly installing surveillance equipment routing via the state’s interception center at Mazoe. So too were the country’s three mobile phone companies Econet, Telecel, and Net One.

Technological Convergence: internet (and) radio

After being fired for taking phone-calls from an irate public protesting the violent crushing of the 1997 food riots, ZBC freelancer Gerry Jackson set up an independent station named Capital Radio. It was promptly shut down despite securing a broadcasting license. In 2001, Jackson established SW Radio Africa in London with fellow former ZBC journalists. USAID’s Office of Transition Initiatives (OTI) was allegedly funding this ‘peace and democracy’ initiative, but the US embassy in Harare refused to deny or confirm this. The BBC refuted claims by Information Minister Jonathan Moyo that SW Radio was using its studios, transmitters and frequencies.

The US Government could not deny its funding of Studio 7, a VOA radio program broadcasting and streaming to Zimbabweans at home and abroad. The program started airing in 2003, growing rapidly to reach nearly one million radio and internet listeners in 2006. Its staff includes experienced print journalist and novelist Raymond Choto, former popular ZBC Radio 2 disc jockey Brenda Moyo, and Zimbabwe Independent reporter Blessing Zulu. USAID funds Studio 7 under its Zimbabwe Project, while VOA manages and operates the programming.

Because SW Radio and VOA broadcast only for a few hours on shortwave and medium wave, and considering that they can only stream podcasts, some former journalists came up with the idea of internet radio which often combines with news websites. In August 2004, a group of DJs calling themselves Africa Media Association (AMA) started a 24-hour independent internet radio station, streaming from ‘somewhere in London’. Afro-Sounds FM’s mission was to “entertain and inform”, to fill the void the closure of the independent print and electronic media had left in Zimbabwe. The group was composed of former ZBC-TV journalists.

Also in 2004, another internet radio called Zimnetradio began live streaming from ‘studios’ in North America, UK, Egypt and South Africa to audiences in different time zones. Listeners ‘tuned in’ via www.zimdaily.com, clicked the Zimnetradio link, and upon reaching it logged into the chat room and discussion forums to meet ‘cyber-family’. Over time Zimnetradio has become perhaps the most popular live phone-in, music, and news ‘combo’ online.

The internet has enabled exiled musicians critical of Mugabe to become journalists, activists, and disc jockeys. For example, on 18 April 2008 Canadian-based “musical critic” Viomak created Voto (Voices of the Oppressed), a radio station dedicated to protest music, message, and news. The musician says she is following in the footsteps of the Voice of Zimbabwe radio, Zanu (PF)’s popular guerrilla war broadcast courtesy of Radio Maputo, as well as Zapu’s People’s Voice radio from Dar es Salaam, Lusaka, Cairo, and Moscow in the 1970s.

The shortwave and internet radios from the diaspora have put the state on both technological defensive and offensive. As suburbanites turned to satellite television signals to outflank the toxic ZBC-TV propaganda, the state mooted “Operation Dzikisai Madhishi” (Take Down Dishes). Meanwhile the rural folk had turned to shortwave radios to receive SW Radio and Studio 7, whereupon state militias moved in demanding owners of these sets to surrender them or be killed. Neither action achieved its ends.

Realizing the futility of physically stopping signals, the state joined in to send its own. In May 2007, it tried to launch a new shortwave radio to “provide factual information about the reality… in Zimbabwe” as a corrective to the SW Radio and Studio 7 “anti-Zimbabwean propaganda”. The plan failed to take off for financial reasons. Mugabe’s regime also struck a deal with a Dubai-based IT firm JumpTV to stream its ZBC-TV mouthpiece live on the internet beginning 22 June 2007. Initially, the station offered the service free to registered users, but began charging a monthly fee of US$9.95 starting 15 July. ZBC radio stations National FM, Power FM, Radio Zimbabwe, and SFM would be added to the project in due course.

e-Newspaper

Strive Masiyiwa went into publishing at just the time world-acclaimed journalist Geoffrey Nyarota had become fed up with teaching journalism at the Nordic SADC Journalism Center in Maputo. In 1997, Nyarota packed his bags for Harare—at just the time that Econet started transmitting its signal. The result was The Daily News two years later and eclipsed the state-owned Herald. After efforts to force the paper to tone down, the state became more aggressive. On 28 January 2001, a bomb ripped The Daily News press into smithereens, days after Moyo had promised to “silence” it. In 2003, the paper was officially banned as Nyarota was hounded out of Zimbabwe.

From 2004 the concept of ‘online newspapers’ began to inspire a number of vibrant projects. New Zimbabwe.com was Zimbabwe’s first news website and discussion forum. The editorial staff steered the newspaper away from its initial pro-opposition outlook to a rather ambiguous middle ground often bordering on an anti-Tsvangirai and pro-Ndebele tone supportive of the MDC-Mutambara faction.

ZimOnline.co.za began publishing the same year with the objective of filling the vacuum the banning of The Daily News had left. It styled itself as a news agency where articles about Zimbabwe could be channeled to other publications for reproduction in different countries.

Also in 2004, a group of Zimbabweans in the US, UK, and Canadian diaspora formed an independent political website, Zimdaily.com, which published daily. The paper styles itself as “a force that President Robert Mugabe… cannot stop”. Zimdaily is best known for Fair Deal, an online project started in April 2007 to flush out children (and spouses) of Zanu (PF) officials and get them deported from western countries. After all, Zanu (PF) ‘hates the West’ and castigates those who leave land redistribution and go West. The project has been a huge success.

In October 2006, Nyarota established the TheZimbabweTimes.com targeting the diaspora and people at home with internet access. The materiality might have changed, but The Daily News principle of “telling it like it is” has remained a major selling point. In time, the ‘paper’ has attracted serious public intellectuals not necessarily aligned to the MDC, but committed to freedom and a more plural society.

Wilf Mbanga was a founding managing editor of The Daily News. With the constriction of a free press he relocated to the United Kingdom. In 2005 he founded The Zimbabwean—an online weekly critical of Mugabe’s regime that aspired to have a print circulation in the UK, South Africa—and Zimbabwe. Starting with an initial print run of 20,000, Mbanga hoped to raise the bar to 120,000 copies. The paper has thrived despite state harassment.

In all their various shades, online newspapers have distinguished themselves as a virtual reconfiguration of what Jürgen Habermas called “the public sphere”.

Hacktivism

Having failed with cyber-infiltration, the state resorted to blocking access to these websites using the filters it had forced ISPs to install. More ominously it has resorted to hacking, but the fight has been anything but one-sided.

In 2005, hackers had burgled into the government website www.gta.gov.zw. A person claiming to be one of the hackers later contacted New Zimbabwe.com from Leicester, England, to tell them about the breach:

The idea was to hack into the website and replace everything there with slogans like ‘Robert Mugabe is a tyrant’…. We were about to achieve our goal when the whole thing crashed…. We will keep trying—the security is clearly lax.

The hacker found it ironic that the regime had coughed up public funds to install cyber-offensive weaponry, yet its databases were virtually defenseless against counter-attack.

Subsequent targets were not so lucky. On Saturday,10 May 2008, a hacker using the user name r4b00f ‘got into’ the state-owned Zanu (PF) website for three days. Only the next Monday did staffers formally admit the intrusion. The hacker had replaced all headlines with the word ‘Gukurahundi—Mugabe’s bloody campaign which left 20,000 supporters of Joshua Nkomo dead.

Five days after the Herald hacking, ‘r4b00f’ attacked the Financial Gazette website using the same tactics, this time posting the words “Mugabe Must Go! Free Zim” and redirecting visitors to the website of the civic action group Sokwanele. IT Business Edge magazine summed up r4b00f’s modus operandi as “just another example of hacktivism”. The Financial Gazette was initially Zimbabwe’s premier independent weekly before it succumbed to what media sources concluded to be a state-intelligence buyout.

Here is the interesting point: the idea of attacking without being seen, to the point where the hacker knew where the government could be found, even as the government could not find the hacker. So the state unleashed its fury on a visible figment of what it perceived as the enemy. On 9 June, malicious software was found on the MDC web site www.mdc.co.zw. A google-search of the words “Movement for Democratic Change” returned a warning that the website was a suspicious site and could harm one’s computer. Search engines usually do this to sites they have analyzed and found to contain viruses installed by third parties to discredit the site. Two Trojans and a scripting exploit had been installed to infect the visitor’s computer and trigger it into running 15 new processes simultaneously, thereby disabling the machine. These viruses and script had only been tagged onto one of the website’s 63 pages and was being hosted on two China-based domains, killpp.cn and nihao112.com. Google certified www.mdc.co.zw as not an intermediary—a site that is used as a warehouse for onward dissemination of viruses online. Therefore, the site had been cyber-hijacked by hackers. It was vulnerable because it was using a local domain name (.co.zw).

TheZimbabweTimes.com was next. On Tuesday 15 July 2008 it came under severe Denial of Service (DOS) attacks. After yet another cyber-attack, the news website took extra measures to fortify its security. The website assured readers it did not think their security or identity had been compromised, and that the hackers’ aim had been merely to disrupt news and information distribution and comments from readers. The paper had taken “the most stringent security measures available… to screen and distinguish between authentic comments and malicious scripts”. Henceforth the editors would deny access to users suspected of malicious intent.

Conclusion: those who live in glass houses

The cyber-guerrilla has proved elusive, communicating via secure e-mail and free platforms like Hushmail, S-Mail.com and KeptPrivate.com. The monitoring equipment has affected public internet cafés that used unsecured e-mail, but the guerrilla has taken cover by clothing the computer with ‘anonymizing software’ to shield his or her identity from snooping. Users have switched to platforms like Yahoo, Hotmail and G-mail since they use remote servers in UK or the US. They have bypassed the filters using proxies capable of hiding their actual IP address. They visit websites that are not blocked, and from there leapfrog into the blocked ones. Or they ‘instant message’ with Skype, MSN or Yahoo Messenger which the state’s filters cannot not read without the user’s password.

With internet, the state now lives in a glass fortress with the tainted side inside, behind a firewall impervious to hackers. The cyber-guerrillas can see the state clearly; the state cannot see them. Those who live in glass fortresses cannot throw stones, not just because they have no armor, but because they cannot find their enemies.

Notes

1. Lance Guma, “Mugabe regime draws up list of blacklisted websites”, SW Radio, 10 August 2007.

2. “Joyce Mujuru Runaida Mugari, AfroAmerica Network Black Woman of the Year 2004”, http://www.afroamerica.net/pages/2/MujuruZimbabwe12242004.html

3. Cris Chinaka, “Now e-mails are banned”, New Zimbabwe.com, 21 November 2003.

4. “Supreme Court bars Mugabe e-mail snooping”, New Zimbabwe, 16 March 2004.

5. “MWeb ‘will obey’ Zim e-mail snooping laws”, Newzimbabwe.com, 2 June 2004

6. Tendai Maphosa, “Some Internet Service Providers Opt Out of Zimbabwe Government Effort to Spy on Citizens”, VOANews, 2 June 2004.

7. Robert Ndlovu, “What Mugabe can and cannot do with your e-mails”, New Zimbabwe.com, 2 June 2004.

8. “Mugabe’s spies monitoring your calls, mail”, New Zimbabwe.com, 13 October 2004.

9. “Mugabe wants US to shed internet control”, New Zimbabwe.com, 16 November 2005.

10. Tererai Karimakwenda, “Government to legalise interception of private communications”, SW Radio, 20 March 2006.

11. Lance Guma, “Government unveils phone and e-mail snooping laws”, SW Radio, 29 May 2006.

12. Lance Guma, “Internet Service Providers block e-mails with political content”, SW Radio, 22 June 2006.

13. Violet Gonda, “Zimbabwe government jams radio stations”, SW Radio, 27 June 2006.

14. Violet Gonda, “Zimbabwe bugging bill heavily criticised at public hearing”, SW Radio,?31 August 2006.

15. Lance Guma, “Army says mobile phone companies compromising state security”, SW Radio, 28 November 2006.

16. Lance Guma, “Army says mobile phone companies compromising state security”, SW Radio, 28 November 2006.

17. Lance Guma, “Opposition poll boycott rattles Zanu PF”, SW Radio, 15 May 2007.

18. Lance Guma, “Too much to monitor for snooping squads”, SW Radio, 7 August 2007.

19. Lance Guma, “Too much to monitor for snooping squads”, SW Radio, 7 August 2007.

20. Lance Guma, “Experts say ‘don’t panic’ as snooping equipment is installed”, SW Radio, 6 September 2007.

21. Chris McGreal, “US Funds Penetrate Zimbabwe Airwaves”, The Guardian, 24 January 2002.

22. http://www.nehandaradio.com/voazimbabwe220807.html

23. http://www.afrosoundsfm.com/test/about_us.htm

24. “Zimbabwe radio station goes live on internet”, New Zimbabwe.Com, 1 October 2004.

25. http://www.zimnetradio.com/

26. Harriet Chigege, “Protest musician launched internet radio on Zimbabwe Independence Day”, www.kubatana.net/html/archive/artcul/080507hc.asp?sector=ARTCUL 7 May 2008.

27. “Is Zimbabwe on the verge of cyber war?” http://www.thezimbabwetimes.com/?p=924, 18 June 2008.

28. “Launch of Zimbabwean radio station “postponed indefinitely”, www.blogs.rnw.nl/medianetwork/?p=8066 Saturday, May 26, 2007

29. Lebo Nkatazo, “ZBC TV goes live on the internet”, New Zimbabwe.com, 17 July 2007.

30. Winston W. Wiley, “A defiant voice: African journalist delivers news from afar”, Telegram & Gazette, Dec 24, 2006; Alvin Powell, “Zimbabwean journalist Nyarota finds sanctuary at Harvard: Years of uncovering corruption brought threats, arrest”, Harvard Gazette, 17 April 2003
http://www.hno.harvard.edu/gazette/2003/04.17/03-nyarota.html

31. http://www.zimonline.co.za/AboutUs.aspx

32. Gift Phiri, “Independent news websites mushroom”, The Zimbabwe Independent, http://www.theindependent.co.zw/news/2004/October/Friday29/911.html, October 29, 2004.

33. “Online highlights – The fair deal campaign”, Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ), Extracted from Weekly Media Update 2007-33: Monday August 20th 2007 – Sunday August 26th 2007. www.kubatana.net

34. “Australia finally deports Zanu-PF officials Children”, http://dniinoi.wordpress.com/2007/09/07/, September 7, 2007; Tamuka Ngwenya, “FAIR DEAL: The Re-Launch”, Zimdaily, 15 July 2008.

35. Wilf Mbanga, “Newspaper Truck Set on Fire”, The Zimbabwean, 26 May 2008.

36. Jürgen Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a category of Bourgeois Society. Trans. Thomas Burger with Frederick Lawrence (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1991).

37. Lance Guma, “Mugabe regime draws up list of blacklisted websites”, SW Radio, 10 August 2007.

38. “Hackers break into Zimbabwe government website”, New Zimbabwe.Com, 2 February 2005.

39. “Hackers Take Down Zimbabwe’s Herald”, Technology News, 13 May 2008.

40. “Hackers Target the Financial Gazette Website”, The Zimbabwe Guardian (London), 15 May 2008.

41. “Is Zimbabwe on the verge of cyber war?” http://www.thezimbabwetimes.com/?p=924, 18 June 2008.

42. “The Zimbabwe Times under attack”, http://www.thezimbabwetimes.com/?p=1637, 16 July 2008.

43. Lance Guma, “Mugabe snooping law exposes increased repression”, SW Radio, 6 August 2007.

44. Lance Guma, “Experts says ‘don’t panic’ as snooping equipment is installed”, SW Radio, 6 September 2007.

45. Lance Guma, “Mugabe regime draws up list of blacklisted websites”, SW Radio, 10 August 2007.

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Mugabe was re-elected as President in the run-off on June 27 2008 after the MDC’s Morgan Tsvangirai withdrew from the contest because of the high levels of political violence and other conditions that made a free and fair election impossible. Days after Mugabe was sworn in for another five-year term, the African Union (AU) encouraged the formation of an inclusive government and expressed support for the continuation of the Southern African Development Community’s (SADC’s) mediation efforts. On July 21 2008, all three party leaders signed the Memorandum of Unity (MOU) committing them to establish an inclusive government. Taking much longer than the envisaged two weeks in the MOU, they signed a power-sharing agreement that provided for the creation of a new government on September 15. The agreement has yet to be implemented.

All the evidence suggests that President Mugabe remains uncommitted to genuine power-sharing with the two MDC formations led by Morgan Tsvangirai (MDC-T) and Arthur Mutambara (MDC-M) respectively. Mugabe took unilateral actions that violated the MOU and more recently the power-sharing agreement. He can be expected to exploit the substantial powers he enjoys in terms of the agreement and to use other flaws in its design to minimize the compromises he must make with the opposition. That ZANU PF by itself will not be able to solve the mounting humanitarian, political and economic crises in the country seems not to be a major concern for Mugabe or his party.

The MOU required that the parties not take any decisions or measures which had a bearing on the agenda of the negotiations “save by consensus”. Such decisions or measures included, but were not limited to, the convening of parliament or the formation of a new government (Paragraph 9). Other provisions of the MOU required each party to take all necessary measures to terminate political violence and to ensure the security of persons and property, and also to desist from using language that might incite political intolerance (Paragraph 10).

Mugabe violated Paragraph 9 of the MOU by unilaterally appointing provincial governors, who are also ex officio senators, and by convening parliament. On August 25, some three weeks after the MOU had expected a power-sharing agreement to be in place, Mugabe appointed eight of ten provincial governors. He held off appointing two provincial governors, evidently hoping to use these positions to entice the MDC-M House members to vote with ZANU PF to support an MDC-M candidate, Paul Nyathi, as Speaker of the House. The vote for Speaker took place later on August 25, after House and Senate members had been sworn in. When the MDC-T MP, Lovemore Moyo, was elected Speaker with the support of some MDC-M MPs (and some ZANU PF MPs), Mugabe filled the two provincial governorships with ZANU PF appointees. Mugabe opened parliament the next day. The MDC had opposed the convening of Parliament as a violation of the agreement.

Mugabe and ZANU PF also violated Paragraph 10 of the MOU relating to political violence and hate speech. The state media continued to (and still do) denigrate the MDC and Tsvangirai and to acclaim President Mugabe and ZANU PF. The party did not dismantle (and still has not dismantled) its youth or war veterans’ militia who continued to engage in political violence, albeit at much lower levels.

The power-sharing agreement specifies how many of the 31 ministries each party shall be allocated – ZANU PF (15), MDC-T (13), and MDC-M (3) – but leaves open their allocation among the parties. On October 10 President Mugabe unilaterally allocated the ministries among the three parties, thus violating the agreement, which stipulates that the President and the Prime Minister, elsewhere designated as Morgan Tsvangirai, must agree on the allocation of ministries (Article 20.1.2f). Mugabe identified all the key ministries for ZANU PF, including justice, foreign affairs, local government, information, mining, and home affairs. The finance ministry was not allocated. This allocation leaves the MDC parties chiefly with the ministries in control of the provision of services: education, health, water, and so forth. The MDC has rejected Mugabe’s allocation as a violation of the agreement, and Thabo Mbeki is due to try to mediate the dispute. Notwithstanding its threats, the MDC is unlikely to withdraw from the agreement even if it fails to get the ministries it covets. Its top leaders are too eager to enjoy the spoils of power. Lovemore Moyo, the new Speaker, reportedly already has his Mercedes Benz.

ZANU PF and Mugabe also have violated the provision in the agreement in which all three parties agreed to a twelve-month moratorium on by-elections in the event of a vacancy during which time the party holding the seat prior to the vacancy would fill the vacancy (Article 21). ZANU PF National Commissar Elliot Manyika told the state media that his party was preparing to contest elections in two constituencies – those vacated following the election of Speaker of the House (MDC-T) and President of the Senate (ZANU PF). And in one of the constituencies, ZANU PF was reportedly using intimidation to regain the constituency.

The agreement also leaves President Mugabe with substantial and unambiguous powers. Given Mugabe’s unilateral actions in violation of the MOU and power-sharing agreement, Mugabe is likely to use these powers to bolster his own position rather than promote power-sharing. In terms of the agreement President Mugabe chairs the Cabinet; he can declare war and peace; he can proclaim and terminate martial law; he grants pardons and can reduce, suspend, or remit sentences, on the advice of the Cabinet; he appoints the Prime Minister, the two Deputy Prime Ministers (one from MDC-T and one from MDC-M), the Ministers, and Deputy Ministers, and chairs the National Security Council. Subject merely to consultation with the Prime Minister, the President also has the power to dissolve parliament, to make key appointments as required in terms of the Constitution or any Act of Parliament, and to appoint service/executive Commissioners in terms of the Constitution. Likewise, the President has the power to allocate ministerial portfolios merely after consultation with the Vice Presidents, the Prime Minister, and the Deputy Prime Ministers. In contrast, many of the powers of the Prime Minister and the Council of Ministers, which he chairs, are vague (Articles 20.1.3 to 20.1.6).

Another major flaw of the agreement which plays into the hands of President Mugabe’s resistance to power-sharing is its lack of time frames for implementation. The power-sharing structures in the agreement, and in particular the president’s appointment of Prime Minister Tsvangirai, depend on the passage through parliament of a constitutional amendment bill (No. 19) which the parties agreed to support (Article 24). But there is no time frame for the introduction of the constitutional amendment to introduce the power-sharing government apparatus. Mugabe continues to use his old cabinet, even though eight cabinet ministers were not re-elected to parliament or appointed as senators when parliament opened, and should therefore have relinquished their posts according to the constitution (section 31E(2)). There is nothing to stop Mugabe from appointing a cabinet but his Minister of Justice (one of the ministers who was appointed a senator and is thus in compliance with the constitution) said the new government would only come into existence after the passage of the necessary constitutional amendment.

Further reason for concern about the agreement being hijacked by President Mugabe and ZANU PF is that it only provides for explicit internal monitoring mechanisms that depend on the three parties themselves (Articles 22 and 23). The agreement says that its implementation shall be guaranteed and underwritten by the Facilitator (now former President Mbeki), the AU, and SADC, but there is no explicit monitoring or enforcement role for the AU and SADC (Article 22.6). And though the new President of South Africa, and the AU and SADC have confirmed their support for the continuing role of Thabo Mbeki as the mediator, one can assume that Mugabe will exploit to his advantage Mbeki’s loss of formal power.

The future seems to offer, at best, more of the status quo: continued ZANU PF rule, increasing humanitarian aid from the West, more investment in the mining sector, and heavy reliance on foreign remittances from Zimbabweans in the diaspora. None of this is surprising, and the only surprise the future could hold is real power-sharing.
____

The author is an Honorary Research Fellow, School of Economic History and Development Studies, University of KwaZulu/Natal Durban, South Africa.

1. African Union Summit Resolution on Zimbabwe. Adopted at the 11th Ordinary Session of the African Union Assembly, July 1 2008, Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt.

2. Memorandum of Understanding between the Zimbabwe African National Union (Patriotic Front) and the two Movement for Democratic Change Formations. July 21 2008.

3. Agreement between the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) and the two Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) Formations, on Resolving the Challenges Facing Zimbabwe. September 15 2008.

4. ZESN, Post-Election Update. July to September 2008. The power-sharing agreement essentially sets aside the provision in the Electoral Act that requires the official announcement of a by-election polling date within 14 days of notification of a senate or house vacancy by the House Speaker or Senate President.

5. Veritas, Bill Watch 34/2008, August 30 2008; Bill Watch 35/2008, September 6 2008.

6. Veritas, Bill Watch 37/2008, September 22 2008.

The words of Samuel Beckett’s Worstward Ho fit Zimbabwe. If the process of ‘democratisation’, liberalisation, and all those other aspects of capitalist modernity is ‘westward,’ then Zimbabwe under a challenged Mugabe has been heading there in almost the worst conceivable way. But for the democrats struggling to enlarge their space the words of the ultimate tragic optimist are appropriate too. More than three decades (including the liberation war after the mid-seventies) under Mugabe have meant those attempting to widen space for their democratic desires being doomed to repeat Beckett’s injunction: “ever tried? Ever failed? No matter, try again, fail again, Fail better”.(1) It’s hard not to “throw up for good” in such a struggle, but they haven’t yet. The problem, though, is finding a way to combine parliamentary and extra-parliamentary roads to that end.(2)

The Deal Signed: Arthur Mutambara (MDC-M), Robert Mugabe, Morgan Tsvangirai (MDC-T) & Thabo Mbeki

As these words were written Zimbabwe was on the edge of another of its many historical precipices. Mid September’s high hopes for a transitional government based on the Agreement between the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) and the Two Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) Formations, on Resolving the Challenges Facing Zimbabwe had seemed to come to naught. Yet there had been hope. Zimbabwe’s two main parties (and the third, a small splinter of the Movement for Democratic Change — MDC-M, led by once radical university student Arthur Mutambara) signed the settlement on September 11. A huge SADC procession four days later poured praise on SADC’s facilitator Thabo Mbeki for pulling the hare out of the hat, and appeared to add enough pomp and circumstance to satisfy Mugabe’s royal pretensions. Many thought it would mark the beginning of his end, even if it fell far short of registering the full extent of changes in Zimbabwe’s democratic contours since the MDC had been struggling for its due share of power in 1999. To be sure, warnings ensued from the National Constitutional Assembly’s Lovemore Maduku that the accord was ‘more of capitulation by the MDC than by ZANU-PF’ that only gave ‘cosmetic executive authority’ for Tsvangirai(3), and the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions thought it wasn’t worth its paper. A hard front in the MDC led reportedly by Secretary-General Tendai Biti (also a former student radical) took its cue from civil society, opposing the parliamentarians who’d very much have liked to get down to work — and continue to get paid: by the end of October their salaries in a non-functioning parliament were only worth US$10 a month. Harare sources claimed that Mutambara had joined his old university chum to call for abandoning the deal, although his partners Welshman Ncube and Priscilla Misihairabwi-sMushonga, who led the 2005 split away from Tsvangirai and later invited Mutambara back from his American pursuits of robotic science and historically devoted to parliament at any cost, would presumably be against that strategy. It could be that the volatile Mutambara, badly bruised by appearing to be a Mugabe acolyte during the pre-settlement conjuncture, was recouping his student-civil society credentials.(4)

The MPs were sitting on the cusp of a significant victory: Mugabe had unilaterally called parliament — now structured by the March 29 MDC victory that even the ZANU-PF biased Zimbabwe Electoral Commission could not fix, after five weeks of trying (5) ) — to sit in late August, hoping an MDC-M candidate for speaker would cause some friction on its August 23’s election. But some MDC-M members voted against their candidate, as did a few from ZANU-PF. The MDC-T’s National Chairman Lovemore Moyo won the speaker’s prize with 110 votes of the assembly’s 210. Some of these votes weren’t quite private, given that many MPs waved their marked ballots to all and sundry (thus inciting Independent MP Jonathan Moyo, ZANU-PF’s former propaganda chief, to file an application to the High Court against it), and it has been said that a few were paid for by Freedom House’s Orange revolutionaries: nevertheless they constituted something of parliamentary coup. Democracy seemed to be on a roll.

Of course there was no doubt that the September 11 settlement signified dual power, not shared power. Sharing would be too warm and fuzzy a concept to describe the feelings between the MDC and ZANU-PF after an eight and a half year campaign in which the latter used every dirty trick in the book, and invented new ones when those ran out. But in spite of awkward notions such as giving Morgan Tsvangirai prime ministerial ‘executive power’ over a cabinet ‘council’ which was actually the same as the cabinet over which Mugabe would preside, and creating two deputy prime ministers from the MDCs to match Mugabe’s two vice-presidents, there was a decent core to the 18 or more month transitional scheme. The drafting of the accord was almost half and half MDC liberal humanism (“DETERMINED to act in a manner that demonstrates respect for the democratic values of justice, fairness, openness, tolerance, equality, respect of all persons and human rights” and “to build a society free of violence, fear, intimidation, hatred, patronage, corruption and founded on justice, fairness, openness, transparency, dignity and equality”) side by side with ZANU-PFist nationalism (“RECOGNISING and accepting that the Land Question has been at the core of the contestation in Zimbabwe”, noting “the present economic and political isolation of Zimbabwe by the United Kingdom, European Union, United States of America and other sections of the International Community” and that “the primary obligation of compensating former land owners for land acquired rests on the former colonial power” (6)), but a momentum borne by that intangible concept of political ‘will’ might have carried it on beyond the hackneyed past. If the MDC-T and MDC-M could have co-operated they’d have held a fragile one-seat majority in cabinet and parliament (and it was expected the ‘appointments’ to Senate and governorships would be even-handed). There would have been economic and military councils, and a widely consultative process to create a new constitution on which the National Constitutional Assembly, which started the whole process of constitutional democratisation back in 1998, started work immediately on that score. As well, a Periodic Review Mechanism, consisting of two members from each party, signified equal weighting (although one can argue that the Mutambara faction may not ‘really’ deserve equality at such a level, having only gained 10 seats and 4.83% of the March 29 vote,) on final say.

Even the naysayers seemed to think there’d be a fair sharing of important cabinet posts. The MDC, it was agreed — but never signed — had secured the departments of Home Affairs, Justice, Finance and Information Ministries while ZANU-PF retained Defence, Agriculture, Mines and Prisons. An MDC MP with a long tradition in the labour unions, eager to take up his new legislative seat, opined ‘we are not at war: Mugabe can keep the army;’ when queried on rumours that Anglo-American and the like had pushed hard for the deal — any deal! — in fear of heightened British sanctions, he joked ‘I hope they sponsor my football team.’ Even the caustic RW Johnson was buoyed by the prospect of imperial intervention: he declared that the trusty Brits would ride in to rectify the military.(7) The crazed Gideon Gono would be no longer chair of the Reserve Bank, so the donors’ “Fishmongers” plan (named after the Harare restaurant in which the usual suspects met to draft tough IMF-style shock therapy with lots of humanitarian band-aids) would cool an inflation rate that as of mid-October was 231,000,000%. With the help of a billion and a half dollars of aid, Zimbabwe would soon reach its (mythical) historical status of ‘breadbasket’ state. As if immaculately conceived, a 240 page ‘discussion document’ authored by a UNDP team ranging from University of Zimbabwe Management Studies professor Tony Hawkins on the right to former Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) economist Godfrey Kanyenze on the left was unveiled, promising economic nirvana (if heaven was last seen in 1991) in 12 years if growth could average five per cent annually. The ‘manufactured in Zimbabwe’ Comprehensive Economic Recovery in Zimbabwe(8) struck radical political economist Patrick Bond as ‘neo-liberal’, perhaps because it said that Zimbabwe is not ready for a ‘developmental state’, while John Robertson, an economist of more orthodox bent, said it would only serve to breed bureaucrats. On signing, Tsvangirai said to the sceptical Sunday Independent reporter that he had to give the ‘benefit of the doubt’ to the man who had so often labelled him as Blair’s tea-boy and an ignorant ‘chematama’ (fat-face).(9)

Yet by November it looked as if none of this would come to pass. For some reason Tsvangirai had buckled to the SADC negotiator’s ‘don’t worry: crisis what crisis?’ attitude to the construction of the cabinet (along with just about everything else in Zimbabwe) and failed to gain guarantees on the distribution of posts. Thabo Mbeki, known to harbour a pungent dislike for Tsvangirai (“he could never lead Zimbabwe to liberation”, he’s reported to have said) must have foreseen his unceremonious sacking back home at the hands of the ANC’s Zuma gang, so pushed Tsvangirai to accept empty promises about that cabinet. Mugabe, who as ex-guerrilla leader (thrown into jail from 1977 to 1980 by Mugabe and Samora Machel for seeming to be a threat to the former) and now co-leader of the oppositional Zimbabwe Liberation Veterans’ Forum Wilfred Mhanda says will take the 1% of a deal that looks 99% against him and win, was soon to deny the MDC’s place at the table. Beholden to the prospects of losing control of the ZANU-PF congress in December, and tied to a rejectionist camp led by Emmerson Mnangagwa (infamous for his role as head of security in the Gukurahundi that claimed thousands of lives as ZANU-PF forced Joshua Nkomo’s Zimbabwe African People’s Union to enter into a unity pact that no one wants to see repeated now: ZAPU was swallowed whole) he could not summon the strength to deprive any of his ministers of a place around the trough. Cutting a cabinet of thirty in half is not an easy task: nor is giving up the military or finance. The former keeps opposition in check and precludes justice for sins of the past; the latter keeps the official rate of exchange alive and thus the main channel of corruption (it takes about four billion Zimbabwean dollars to buy one American one on the parallel market, but only ten thousand if one has access to the official rate!). A Harare story that Mnangagwa pushed the unelected Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa (who in 2002 had, with the active encouragement of perhaps the only foreign policy-maker in South Africa, Thabo Mbeki, entered into heavy negotiations with then MDC Secretary-General Welshman Ncube, thus nicely the sewing lines of division in the MDC that contributed to its split in 2005), and was severely beaten by Mugabe’s bodyguards, indicates the strains in the ruling party that is governing less and less every day. The popular exaggeration of the rumour, that had Mnangagwa pushing Mugabe, was squelched by one man who knows Mugabe well: if that had happened, he said, Mnangagwa would now be dead. Mugabe himself has admitted publicly that he fears rebellion from within.(10) Mugabe remembers the mid-1970s divisions in ZANU very well, and probably après moi, la deluge, not quite realising the storms have been pelting for nearly a decade.

Thus on October 12, a day after the three main protagonists in the prolonged haggling over dividing the cabinet positions agreed to call in Private Citizen Mbeki, in need of consultancy fees during his forced retirement, ZANU-PF announced the cabinet: Defence, Home Affairs, Justice, Media and Higher Education (those pesky students have to be watched) would be all for the ruling party, while the two MDCs were thrown the crumbs with economic reconstruction and social welfare functions — not good candidates for winning an election in a few years sans the donors pitching in for a government that is not even plus ça change. Finance was unresolved: perhaps that was left to the itinerant negotiator to assign. Tsvangirai addressed an October 12 rally saying that unless Home Affairs would be in his hands, the deal would be off. He was facing a split in his party: some said that only a demand for a new national election would save the MDC-T face. In the meantime, concerned activists were consulting the SADC (Southern African Development Community) and AU (African Union) diplomats persuading them to call an emergency summit. The Zimbabwe Liberation Veterans’ Forum, made up of war veterans opposed to their peers who allied with Mugabe in the hopes they’d get some free land, appealed to the AU and SADC to let go of the lame-duck mediator and get a new process rolling. The ZLVF wondered “what informs the position of SADC leaders by conferring legitimacy to a rogue president whose hands drip with the blood of his own people and not of his imagined enemies from the West.” (11)

As expected, the October 13-15 meetings mediated by South Africa’s past president resolved only that the MDC could take Finance for its troubles. Somewhere along the line it was proposed that Home Affairs be split: the MDC could take immigration functions while the guys with guns would be in the violent party’s hands. No deal: and Tsvangirai seemed to be gaining ground. Denied a passport for months (Home Affairs says there is no paper, but swimming star Kirsten Coventry got one in days and civil servants say the document is sitting in a desk) he refused to take emergency travel documents enabling him to attend the October 20 meeting of the SADC security troika+1 (Chair, South Africa; members, Angola, Mozambique and Swaziland) in Mbabane. And so, as the summer begins in southern Africa, millions of Zimbabweans are dying faster than ever before and the MDC ups the ante to SADC as a whole (to meet in South Africa in the first week of November), then the AU, and then elections to be monitored by the UN.

The time for such an intervention whilst thousands were beginning to starve as never before, would be, however, far too long. Kwashiorkor, Pellagra (an adult form of malnutrition leading to madness and death) and Marasmus stalked the land: estimates were that five million would be in danger of starvation by January 2009. The senior doctors are bought off: as Jan Raath wrote, in September the Reserve Bank bought imported cars for the hundred or so of them. The cost? US$5 million.(12) The state had no funds to run examinations for its schools; and towards the end of October it recalled all government vehicles from their temporary users.

A new election could bring hope or more despair. There are indications that this is what the Mnangagwa faction wants. They will take complete power in the December ZANU-PF congress and resort again to the Gukurahundi tactics that raised their head in the weeks before the June 27 non-election to such an extent that Tsvangirai withdrew. This line of thought predicts that the MDC will be destroyed so they had better sign a deal now.

On the other hand, if the UN could rise out of its bureaucratic lethargy and run a real election — something that, if it had taken place more than half a decade ago, might have solved the problem in the making — the humanitarian aid would flow in. Millions of lives could be saved, and more than a modicum of democracy could creep in. However, the UN is not well-known for doing much of anything in Africa — is the Democratic Republic of the Congo a success story? — although, ironically, one of its more successful elections was managed by Zimbabwean professor of law Reg Austin, in Cambodia in 1992. If one writes off the UN, only the settlement is left. The MDC would like two years to let the Economic Council bring a material base back in, and the constitution could be debated vigorously.

Joshua Bakacheza, an MDC activist, was abducted by men in a truck on 25 June 2008 in Msasa, Harare and shot in the head a few hours later, according to his colleague who survived a bullet to the head and the lungs in the same incident. Bakacheza’s body was discovered lying in the open on 5 July, after a search of ten days. This pattern of abduction and subsequent murder account for 45 known deaths during April-June 2008.(13)

Could a wounded Mbeki magically wave his wand to solve all this? Could SADC? The AU? Resorting to fantasy in something approaching an ‘academic’ article illustrates the surreal nature of Zimbabwe now. The fact that senior doctors drive around in hypocritical abuse of their Hippocratic Oath while grown men and women place their faith in an Aids-denialist brings us back to Beckett and his tradition. Such tragedies take us back to the world of literature, a salvation in Africa’s perpetual crisis. This time, a leading MDC politician still under treason charges invokes African writers to state his position. Tendai Biti, writing of the crisis in education, brings Ngugi wa Thiongo’s brilliant The Wizard of the Crow to his side: for him Ngugi’s ‘Abhurian State’ “brilliantly describes” what happens to ruling classes and their empty ideology of nationalism.

Faced with the frustration of failing to transform the colonial state during the national democratic stage of the struggle, nationalism degenerates and decomposes into neo-patrimony, clientelism, the imperial presidency and patronage. In short, it converts the state into a rogue state where violence, corruption and personal accumulation become vehicles for the continued reproduction of the state.

The Abhurian State … had been fore-written by Chinua Achebe in A Man of the People, Sembene Ousmane in The Last of the Empire and Ayi Kwei Armah in The Beautyful Ones are Not Yet Born. At that stage, the highest level of decomposition, nationalism needs to be saved from itself or it will take the nation with it.

That is exactly where Zimbabwe is at the present moment. ZANU-PF needs to be saved from itself or it will annihilate the construct that Zimbabwe is.(14)

There is no doubt that the energies consumed in ridding Zimbabwe of Mugabe could be better spent elsewhere. If that one task could be achieved, it may not be chimerical to advance the proposition that the edifice he has built around himself would fall like a house of cards. One can only hope, with Beckett, that Zimbabwe’s next failure will be better than usual: the doctors’ cars remind us, though, that failure for some is success for others. Zimbabwe’s political economy needs drastic overhauling, so those making new constitutions in this interregnum — a space in which the wisdom of those running the financial markets of the world is seen to be equivalent to Robert Mugabe’s — must constitute a new economy too.

_________
David Moore
Anthropology and Development Studies
University of Johannesburg

1 . Samuel Beckett, Worstward Ho, London: John Calder, 1983. The ‘tragic optimist’ school of African studies is epitomised by Christopher Cramer’s exceptional Civil War is Not a Stupid Thing: Accounting for Violence in Developing Countries, London: Hurst & Co, 2006 (its Indiana University Press version is more boringly called Violence in Developing Countries: War, Memory, Progress).

2. David Moore and Tapera Kapuya ‘Zimbabwe’s Opposition Now: The Parliamentary Road or Mass Action on the Streets?’ Global Dialogue, 10, 2 (August 2005), pp. 4-9.

3. Basildon Peta, ‘Tsvangirai confident that deal will work’, Sunday Independent (Johannesburg), September 14, 2008, Edn. 3.

4. By the end of October it was reported that the MDC was proposing to remove the rival faction from the agreement. This was after Mutambara had spoken in support of Morgan Tsvangirai’s decision not to attend a Southern African Development Community meeting in Mbabane called in the last week of October to settle the deal (about which more later). Zimbabwean politics is nothing if not volatile. Jason Moyo, ‘MDC sets its sights on the UN’, Mail & Guardian (Johannesburg) October 31-November 6, 2008, p. 14.

5. Susan Booyson, ‘The Presidential and Parliamentary Elections in Zimbabwe, March and June 2008’, Electoral Studies, 24, 4 (forthcoming December 2008). See also Booysen’s authored Electoral Institute of Southern Africa, The Zimbabwe Harmonised Elections of 29 March 2008, Presidential, Parliamentary and Local Government Elections with Postscript on the Presidential Run-off of 27 June 2008 and the Multi-Party Agreement of 15 September 2008, Electoral Institute of Southern Africa Observer Mission Report No. 28, Johannesburg, 2008.

6. The best juxtaposition was this: the accord promised to “reject any unlawful, violent, undemocratic and unconstitutional means of changing governments” and also warned that “no outsiders have a right to call or campaign for regime change in Zimbabwe”.

7. RW Johnson, ‘Security is first test of Zimbabwe deal’, Sunday Times (London), September 14, 2008.

8. United Nations Development Programme, Comprehensive Economic Recovery in Zimbabwe: A Discussion Document, Harare, 2008.

9. Peta, ‘Tsvangirai confident ….

10. Jason Moyo, ‘Mugabe Fears Zanu-PF Rebellion’, Mail & Guardian, October 31-November 6, 2008, pp. 13-4.

11. The Zimbabwe Liberation Veterans’ Forum, ‘An Appeal for the African Union to Intervene to Resolve the Zimbabwean Political Impasse’, Harare: August 26 2008.

12. Jan Raath, ‘Aid agencies: 5m face starvation in Zimbabwe: Silently, in rundown wards, starving children lie dying – malnutrition diseases are overwhelming hospitals,’ Times Online, October 14, 2008.

13. Solidarity Peace Trust, Desperately Seeking Sanity: What Prospects for a New Beginning in Zimbabwe? (Solidarity Peace Trust, July 2008).

14. Tendai Biti, ‘MDC: Collapse of education system an indictment of ZANU PF,’ MDC Press Statement, October 13, 2008. On SW Radio Africa, www.swradioafrica.com/pages/mdconeduc131008.htm.