zimbabwe situation

ZIMBABWE SITUATION


1. HISTORY

The landlocked country of Zimbabwe is characterized by vast stretches of grasslands and high plateau in an area slightly larger than the state of Montana. It is home to Victoria Falls, one of the natural wonders of the world, and its name is derived from the Shona phrase dzimba dzemabwe, which means “houses of stone.”

1. HISTORY
2. ECONOMY
3. THE MEDIA
4. ZIMBABWE: A MODEL FOR AFRICA?
5. ZIMBABWE: A POLITICAL TIMELINE
A. What Went So Horribly Wrong?
B. The Cauldron of the Cold War
C. Terrorist or Freedom Fighter
D. An All-Consuming Power
E. Descent into a One-Party State
F. The Eclipse of that Early Promise
6. ZIMBABWE’S RELATION TO OTHER SORROUNDING COUNTRIES
A. Zambia
B. Botswana
C. South Africa
D. Mozambique
7. ZIMBABWE: AN END TO THE STALEMATE?
A. Executive Summary
B. Recommendations
1. To the Government of Zimbabwe and ZANU-PF:
2. To the Movement for Democratic Change:
3. To Zimbabwean and South African Civil Society Organisations:
4. To SADC and South Africa:
5. To the United States and the European Union:
6. To the United Nations Secretary-General:
7. To the United Nations Security Council:
8. To the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights or in the alternative the Human Rights Council:
9. To the Commonwealth Secretariat:





But for years before it was Zimbabwe, it bore the name of a British colonial businessman, Cecil Rhodes, who obtained a charter for the land in 1889 as part of his grand ambition of building a railroad and an empire from Cape Town, South Africa, to Cairo, Egypt. White settlers moved into Rhodesia, defeating the Ndebele tribe who had settled in the area decades earlier after fleeing Zulu violence and Boer migration in what is present-day South Africa. In 1923, Rhodesia became a self-governing British colony with the whites in power.

Over the next several decades, laws were passed guaranteeing rights to whites while working conditions and wages for blacks declined. In the 1960s, two black political parties emerged, the Zimbabwean African National Union (Zanu) and the Zimbabwe African People's Union (Zapu), but both were officially banned and their leaders imprisoned.

In 1965, Prime Minister Ian Smith unilaterally declared Rhodesia independent under white minority rule. The United Kingdom saw the move as an act of rebellion, and in 1968, the United Nations voted to impose economic sanctions on the country. In 1970, Smith declared Rhodesia a republic, but the international community refused to support the dramatically segregated social structure, which has been compared with South African apartheid.

While Smith governed, guerrilla armies fought back, eventually forcing the white government to allow elections. The 1979 constitution provided for democratic majority rule. In 1980, Zimbabwe became an independent nation governed by a coalition of Robert Mugabe's Zanu Party and Joshua Nkomo's Zapu Party. But fighting flared up between the two groups, and Mugabe, the new prime minister, ordered a crackdown in the southern Ndebele-speaking region of the country, where support was strong for Zapu.

By 1988, peace talks led to a reunification of the two groups and the formation of Zanu PF, a merger between Mugabe's party and Zapu.

Mugabe has won every election since 1980, but most have not been considered “free and fair,” with critics alleging that voters have been intimidated and opposition members harassed. Although some say Mugabe's reign is coming to an end, Zanu PF's most formidable opposition, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), recently suffered a crippling split. In 2005, MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai decided to boycott elections for a newly created senate, causing many members of the party to break off into a separate faction, the MDC UK.


2. ECONOMY

When Zimbabwe became independent in 1980, average annual growth rates were as high as 4.5 percent. During the 1990s, however, the economy hit a plateau, and by the end of the decade, it was on a steady decline.

Agriculture was once the backbone of the Zimbabwean economy, with cotton and tobacco the principal cash crops and corn the chief food source. Owing both to government seizures of white-owned farms and to drought over the past few years, supermarket shelves are empty and maize is hard to come by. Zimbabwe still exports some tobacco, but neighboring Zambia has taken over many of Zimbabwe's former markets.

Hyperinflation is devaluing the Zimbabwe dollar, and unemployment may be as high as 80 percent. Living standards are at their lowest levels in 25 years of independence. A recent article in Prospect magazine said a bowl of pasta now costs half a million Zimbabwean dollars. Out-of-control inflation means that piles and piles of bills are necessary to purchase even the cheapest commodities. Trying to keep up, the government recently printed a bill worth ZW$100,000.

The dire economic conditions are driving thousands of Zimbabweans every week across the borders into neighboring countries to purchase food or to find work as illegal migrants to support their families.


3. THE MEDIA

The government controls almost all of the newspapers and radio and television stations in Zimbabwe. Furthermore, restrictive media laws prohibit publication of “inaccurate” information.

A media law passed in 2002 requires journalists to officially register with the government-controlled Media and Information Commission. If they attempt to publish without a license, they risk imprisonment.

Dozens of reporters and editors - some who have received international accolades for their coverage - are routinely arrested for defaming Mugabe.

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), a U.S.-based organization that promotes freedom of the press, has named Zimbabwe as one of the worst places in the world to be a journalist. In 2004, Zimbabwe placed third on the list, behind Iraq and Cuba.

According to a 2005 report from the CPJ, at least 90 Zimbabwean journalists, including many of the nation's most prominent reporters, now live in exile in South Africa, other African nations, the United Kingdom and the United States, making it one of the largest groups of exiled journalists in the world.

Today Zimbabwe has no independent daily newspapers, no private radio news coverage and just two prominent independent weeklies - the Zimbabwe Independent and The Standard.


4. ZIMBABWE: A MODEL FOR AFRICA?

Zimbabwe was once one of the more stable nations in southern Africa. The country had a reputation for being the breadbasket of the region, and its agricultural exports seemed to ensure enduring economic prosperity. Now the agricultural economy has collapsed, and the country's population suffers from malnutrition.

Zimbabwe's basic infrastructure is also falling apart. For example, the nation used to have one of the best telephone systems in Africa. Now it is almost impossible to get a new phone line connected.

When Robert Mugabe first took office in 1980, he funneled resources into building up education and health care, providing services that had been denied to many Africans under Ian Smith's white-minority regime. But now schools and hospitals are badly neglected. The once-prestigious University of Zimbabwe is finding it almost impossible to continue functioning.

In a country where teachers were relatively well-paid and literacy rates were once above 90 percent, school attendance has plummeted, teachers can barely subsist on their salaries and families are in such bad shape that they send their children out to work instead of to the classroom.

Some reports estimate that at least 10,000 teachers have left Zimbabwe in hopes of finding better employment in South Africa or Britain.

5. ZIMBABWE: A POLITICAL TIMELINE

A look at Zimbabwe's political history, from colonial rule through independence to the present day.

1964 Ian Smith of the Rhodesian Front (RF) becomes prime minister.

1965 Smith declares Rhodesia independent from Britain under white minority rule; the international community imposes economic sanctions.

1970 Rhodesia declares itself a republic; no country recognizes its status. The United States closes its embassy in Salisbury (now Harare).

He was particularly keen on telling me how grateful he was for humanitarian aid from Sweden.

Mugabe spoke confidently, but without arrogance. A formal man, dressed casually in an African print shirt, he conveyed the dignity of a well-educated teacher, his previous profession. When his wife, Sally, who was from Ghana, entered the room, he rose to greet her with obvious warmth.

After all these years, it's still difficult and painful to reconcile my memory of this man with the tyrant he became.

A . What Went So Horribly Wrong?

Today, Mugabe is one of Africa's longest-reigning dictators, routinely denounced by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch for abusing his people. "A disgrace to Africa," says Wole Soyinka, Nigeria's Nobel Prize-winning author. "A caricature of an African dictator," says Desmond Tutu, South Africa's Nobel laureate. And Pius Ncube, the Catholic archbishop of Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, says he prays for "a popular uprising" to topple Mugabe's regime.

Of all the depressing statistics about Mugabe's broken country, the one that gnaws at me the most is that life expectancy has declined in the last two decades from 62 years to a mere 38 years.

1972 Guerrilla war against white rule intensifies, with rival nationalist groups Zanu (Zimbabwe African Peoples Union), led by Robert Mugabe, and Zapu (Zimbabwe African National Union), led by Joshua Nkomo, operating out of Zambia and Mozambique.

It wasn't supposed to be this way. When he came to power in 1980, in a landslide election victory after a negotiated settlement of the war, Mugabe was greeted as a national hero, at least by Zimbabwe's black majority. And at first, Mugabe delivered on promises of peace, reconciliation with the white minority, and social development.

Yet even as early as the 1980s, there was an ominous turn of events. Mugabe had formed a coalition "Patriotic Front" government with a rival guerrilla leader, Joshua Nkomo, but it soon fell apart when Mugabe accused Nkomo of plotting a coup against him. Mugabe shocked many of his international supporters by unleashing his North Korean-trained Fifth Brigade against Nkomo's minority Ndebele tribe in southern Zimbabwe. Thousands were killed. FRONTLINE was one of the few media outlets in the United States to sound the alarm, in the 1983 documentary Crisis in Zimbabwe, reported by Charlie Cobb, an African American journalist, who, like me, was dismayed to see Mugabe acting as brutally and repressively as the white-minority rulers he had replaced.

Should I have seen signs of what was coming? Had Mugabe deceived me?

1979 Talks in London lead to a peace agreement between the Patriotic Front (PF), made up of Zapu and Zanu, and the Rhodesian government. The new constitution guarantees minority rights.

B. The Cauldron of the Cold War

In that hotel room back in 1977, Mugabe assured me he was doing everything possible to overcome differences between the two guerrilla factions, Zanu (Zimbabwean African National Union) and Nkomo's Zapu (Zimbabwe African People's Union). Mugabe's group was primarily Shona, Zimbabwe's majority ethnic group. Nkomo's base was among the Ndebele.

"If we make this attempt at unity and it fails, we fail the people of Zimbabwe," Mugabe insisted. He outlined in great detail the steps he was taking to try to integrate the Zanu and Zapu armies.

Mugabe had seen what had just happened in Angola in the mid-1970s, where three rival nationalist movements clashed as soon as Portugal ended its colonial rule. Angola's civil war became a Cold War cauldron, with Washington backing one side, Moscow the other and Beijing the third. Cuba sent troops, South Africa invaded. Thirty years later the country is still devastated.

In Zimbabwe, the Soviet Union backed Nkomo and China supported Mugabe, but Mugabe was pragmatic enough to realize that a repeat of Angola would be a disaster. For the time being, and through independence day on April 18, 1980, Mugabe would maintain his tactical alliance with Nkomo. And once in power, even after crushing Nkomo's opposition, Mugabe allowed Nkomo himself, his burly adversary, to remain part of the government as long as he lived.

1980The Zanu Party wins the majority of seats in a national election. Britain recognizes the country’s independence, and Rhodesia officially becomes Zimbabwe. Mugabe takes office as prime minister.

1982 Mugabe accuses Nkomo of plotting a coup and removes him from his cabinet. The national army and guerrilla forces align with the Zapu Party, and a five-year battle between the former allies ensues.

1983 Mugabe unleashes his North Korean-trained Fifth Brigade, and the Gukurahundi, or Matabeleland genocide, begins. He brutally crushes the rebellion. Thousands of civilians are tortured and killed by government forces.

So the authoritarian impulse was probably there in Mugabe from the beginning, but I chose to see his pragmatism and his political skill.

After that first meeting with Mugabe in 1977, I interviewed him again in 1979 at an Organization of African Unity conference in Liberia (just before Liberia descended into civil war) and filmed him later that summer at his exile headquarters in Maputo, Mozambique. Looking at that old interview just now, I am immediately struck by Mugabe's apparent sincerity, his baritone voice, his reassuring manner.

At the time, the fighting across the border in Rhodesia was fierce. Ian Smith's white-minority regime was aided by a crude assortment of white mercenaries from around the world, and there was always the threat that South Africa's apartheid leaders might intervene to save their ally to the north. But Mugabe seemed cool and calm, even in the midst of his rundown guerrilla compound.

C. Terrorist or Freedom Fighter

The offices of Mugabe's Zanu Party were located in a funky high-rise building. Mozambique had only recently emerged from its own war of independence against Portuguese colonial rule and was a poor, struggling -- if momentarily euphoric -- country. The offices were spartan, the elevator not functioning. We lugged our camera equipment up many flights of stairs to the roof of the building, where we interviewed Mugabe against the city skyline. He joked that having to climb the stairs kept his staff in shape.

"In the West, many consider you a terrorist," I began.

1987Mugabe and Nkomo merge their parties in an effort to achieve ethnic unity, and form Zanu-PF, ending the violence in southern Zimbabwe.

1987 Mugabe amends the constitution and replaces the post of prime minister with executive president. He is sworn in as executive president and has sweeping powers.

"We are fighting an unjust system," he replied. "We are not fighting the whites as whites. ... We are not terrorists. ... We are fighters for democracy."

Political rhetoric, of course. Even in my 20s and sympathetic to his cause, I could recognize that. But it also meshed with my own experience. Back home, I had become friends with a number of Zimbabwean students studying in the States who were members of Mugabe's Zanu. The thing I remember about them most was how nonracist they were. For people engaged in a struggle with Ian Smith's notoriously racist government, they were themselves almost incomprehensibly free of animosity toward whites. Of course, the guerrilla war in Rhodesia was brutal, with atrocities on both sides. But the Zanu people I knew in the United States and those I was meeting in Mozambique defied the Mau Mau image prevalent in much of the West.

The Zimbabwean I knew best, Tirivafi Kangai -- who would later become an ambassador for Mugabe's government -- was a gentle soul, a teddy bear, with an easy laugh. He had a few malapropisms in his otherwise articulate stump speeches that still make me smile whenever I recall them. My favorite: He frequently declared that the people of Zimbabwe would be free, whatever it took, "by hooks or by crooks."

In retrospect, the "crooks" part seems eerily prescient.

Today, Mugabe and his cronies live in luxury behind high walls, having looted their country and impoverished their people. The man I once saw as modest, even ascetic, now acts like the late Mobutu Sese Seko, the dictator in his leopard-skin pillbox hat who plundered Zaire and lived in splendid isolation on a vast compound in his pillaged, ruined nation.

1998 An economic crisis provokes riots. Support grows for the Zimbabwean Congress of Trade Unions, headed by Morgan Tsvangirai.

1999 Zimbabwe’s military involvement in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s civil war becomes increasingly unpopular. Tsvangirai heads a new opposition group, the Movement for Democratic Change ( MDC ).

That's not the vision of Zimbabwe that Mugabe presented to me in 1979. Asked what kind of society he hoped to lead, Mugabe replied, "A truly democratic society devoid of racism ... a society where there is equality, where there are civil liberties. ... And as far as our own program is concerned, we are for a socialist society, you see."

In those days, nearly every African leader or would-be leader professed to be a socialist of some sort -- whether it was Julius Nyerere's "African socialism" in Tanzania or Nelson Mandela's left-wing ANC, which included the South African Communist Party. Raised as a Catholic and educated in part by Jesuits, Mugabe became a Marxist while studying in Ghana during the era of President Kwame Nkrumah, the grand old man of African nationalism. Mugabe's Marxism was an ideology that hardened during his 10-year prison term in Rhodesia and was influenced by his Maoist allies in China.

D. An All-Consuming Power


I should have paid closer attention to Mugabe's definition of socialism as a "socio-economic system ... which is planned and operated by those who are chosen by the people." For Mugabe, the goal became a one-party state, not a European-style social democracy. And his own power -- not the welfare of his people -- became his obsession.

I never had an opportunity to discuss all this with my friend Tirivafi. But if he was disgusted by his president's power grabs and personal aggrandizement, he never said so publicly. Tirivafi spent most of his career abroad, as a diplomat in India, Africa and Europe. He died of natural causes at an early age.

Mugabe's 26 years in power have turned out to be a textbook example of Lord Acton's famous dictum, "Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely."

2000 Mugabe announces at a rally that all white-owned farms can be seized and given to landless blacks.

2000 In parliamentary elections, the opposition MDC Party stuns the country by winning nearly as many seats as Zanu‑PF.

2001 Despite court rulings that land seizures are illegal, the government announces it plans to seize 5,000 white-owned farms. The finance minister announces economic crisis and serious food shortages, yet farmers are banned from cultivating fields. Most Western donors have cut aid because of the land seizure program.

In the first election after independence, Mugabe's Zanu Party won control of 57 out of 80 seats in parliament, easily overwhelming their nominal ally, Zapu. A pattern soon developed: When Mugabe felt firmly in control, he was relatively benign, running Zimbabwe like a ward boss in old Chicago, handing out patronage to his friends. But whenever Mugabe felt that his power was threatened -- by Nkomo, by white farmers, by the Movement for Democratic Change -- he lashed out. Usually his brutal crackdowns were timed to upcoming elections he thought he might lose.

Mugabe's confiscation of white-owned farms in the last six years has been highly political. Zimbabwe inherited an inequitable agricultural system from colonial Rhodesia. A quarter of a million whites owned most of the fertile, productive farm land in a nation of what was then 7 million blacks. The farms were efficient and bountiful, producing tobacco as a cash crop and more than enough corn to feed the country and to export. African demand for land reform was strong, but Mugabe did not want to jeopardize the economy, and despite some militant talk, he did almost nothing to redistribute land until he was challenged in the polls.

Suddenly Mugabe played the race card. He urged "war veterans" -- unemployed, demobilized guerrilla soldiers -- to occupy white farms. Ownership of many farms was simply transferred to Mugabe's cronies, who have proved to be either incapable of farming or totally disinterested in it. Most whites have left the country, sometimes invited to start over in neighboring Zambia or Mozambique. Thousands of black farmworkers lost their jobs, and agriculture has collapsed. Malnutrition is now widespread. Eighty percent of Zimbabweans are unemployed.

The whole country, now some 12 million people, has closed in upon itself, cut off from the rest of the world, trapped in its own private torment.

2002Parliament passes a law requiring all journalists to be licensed by a state-appointed commission.

2002 Tsvangirai, who is challenging Mugabe in the upcoming election, is charged with high treason for allegedly plotting to assassinate Mugabe. Mugabe wins a third term in this highly controversial election.

2002 A state of disaster is declared in Zimbabwe due to food shortages. The government blames drought, but international groups point to farm closures.

E. Descent into a One-Party State


Mugabe, now 82, has virtually achieved his one-party state. Zanu controls most of the seats in parliament. When Mugabe needs to, as in 2002, he rigs elections. His party, which only needs a 75 percent majority (which it has) to change the constitution, does so on a whim. He has silenced what used to be a robust and free press, jailing and torturing reporters. And he has become increasingly mercurial and brutal. Last year he launched his own version of slum clearance, called Operation Murambatsvina ("Clean the Filth"), evicting some 700,000 people from their homes in Harare and other cities -- mostly desperately poor people who, he feared, might support the opposition or stage food riots.

When condemned by the international community, Mugabe hisses back, claiming he is the target of a Western conspiracy. Paranoia has replaced the openness with which, 30 years ago, he solicited international support for his rebel cause.

All of this has caused me, and others, to wonder what exactly transformed Mugabe from a promising national hero to a tyrant. Is it simply that he has remained in power far too long? Or was there some other trigger?

2003 Government brutality against its own citizens escalates. MDC leader Tsvangirai is arrested twice, again charged with treason. He is eventually cleared of both charges.

Ian Smith, Mugabe's now-elderly enemy, has said he thinks Mugabe is simply "deranged." Mugabe's outbursts against homosexuals seem particularly bizarre, though perhaps this is political theater, aimed at tradition-bound, deeply conservative voters. Some speculate that Mugabe became unhinged after his wife, Sally, died in 1992. He subsequently married his secretary, who is some 40 years younger than he.

Others trying to fathom Mugabe's psyche look back further, to the horrors of the Rhodesian war and the emotional scars such a conflict can leave. There was one moment in particular during Mugabe's years in jail: His only son died and he was not allowed to attend the funeral. An extraordinary man like Nelson Mandela was able to rise above such torment and personal loss and went on to free his people and reconcile his nation. But few countries are fortunate enough to have a Mandela.

F. The Eclipse of that Early Promise


Long ago, Mugabe seemed to hold something of Mandela's promise. When I last spoke with him, on that rooftop in Maputo, he had come to a crossroads. His guerrilla army had taken the offensive, and he might, conceivably, have shot his way to power, but the toll in lives would have been high and it might have provoked a larger conflict, involving South Africa and perhaps even Britain and the United States. There was an apocalyptic mood back then, with South African apartheid leader P.W. Botha telling the BBC that World War III had already started in southern Africa between the West and the Soviet Union. At that moment, Mugabe had the good sense to accept a British offer to go to London and negotiate an end to the bitter conflict.

2005 The United States calls Zimbabwe one of the world’s six “outposts of tyranny.” Zimbabwe rejects the statement.

2005 Mugabe launches Operation Murambatsvina, a “cleanup” program that destroys tens of thousands of shanty dwellings and leaves about 700,000 people homeless.

2005 Zanu‑PF wins an overwhelming majority of seats in the newly created senate. The MDC splits over Tsvangirai’s decision to boycott the election.

The Lancaster House Agreement, which paved the way for majority rule in Zimbabwe, was signed just before Christmas in 1979. There would be no repeat of Angola, no spark for a third world war.

As a result, Mugabe entered office with a reputation for international statesmanship -- a reputation enhanced by his support, at some risk to his own country, for an end to apartheid in neighboring South Africa. The reluctance these days of African leaders to denounce Mugabe's human rights abuses is self-serving -- they don't want to call attention to their own shortcomings -- but it is also partly a legacy of respect for a man who was once a freedom fighter.

I have pondered the enigma of Robert Mugabe countless times -- and questioned my own naïveté in taking him at face value. It's unnerving when you misjudge someone so profoundly.

At the risk of sounding ridiculous, there is one thing that everyone notices but rarely mentions about Mugabe: his mustache. That small, distinctive streak of dark hair just under his nose is Hitleresque. Not a perfect match -- Hitler's was more of a square, Mugabe's is narrower -- but one can't help making the comparison, however unfair and stupid that might be. In fact, many political cartoonists who dislike Mugabe draw on the Hitler comparison. I never asked, but I can't help thinking: Is Mugabe being deliberately provocative? Or does his style of facial hair have no political symbolism whatsoever?

2006Inflation is higher than 1,000 percent. The national budget is depleted, government services have crumbled and there are shortages of nearly every basic commodity.

I can still remember my excitement at meeting Mugabe and filing my first radio story about him. This was history -- a man leading one of the last anticolonial struggles in Africa. He seemed to measure up -- a tough, university-educated African leader with British flourishes. When I asked him how he would describe U.S. policy toward Zimbabwe, he deadpanned, "A mixed grill."

What happened to the Mugabe I knew in the late 1970s still bewilders and disturbs me. Even if he lacked Mandela's transcendent humanity and compassion, Mugabe could have been an esteemed statesman and a popular president. Instead he has run his country into the ground, one more tyrant on a long-suffering continent, his people waiting for him to die.


6. ZIMBABWE’S RELATION TO OTHER SORROUNDING COUNTRIES

A. Zambia
Population: 11,502,010Average life expectancy: 40.03 years Average annual income (in US$): $450

Whereas Zimbabwean tourist destinations such as Victoria Falls are almost empty, Zambia is experiencing a boom in tourism. After years in Zimbabwe's shadow, Zambia's currency, the kwacha, is gaining steadily - making the country one of the few beneficiaries of Zimbabwe's woes.


B. Botswana
Population: 1,639,833Average life expectancy: 33.74 years Average annual income (in US$): $4,340

Some sources say that illegal Zimbabweans now make up one tenth of Botswana's population. There is a general perception in Botswana that Zimbabweans are increasing prostitution and fraud, and Zimbabwean media have accused the Botswana government of xenophobia. An electric fence recently erected by the Botswana government to control livestock has been attacked as an attempt to 'electrocute Zimbabweans.'


C. South Africa
Population: 44,187,637 Average life expectancy: 42.73 years Average annual income (in Us): 3,630

An estimated 3 million Zimbabwean refugees are now living in South Africa. Currently, about 45,000 are deported in a year. Deportees are held at the Lindela Detention Center before being sent back to Zimbabwe by train. Most deportees are back in South Africa within a few days of deportation.


D. Mozambique
Population: 19,686,505Average life expectancy: 39.82 yearsAverage annual income (in US$): $250

Each day, 2,000 to 3,000 Zimbabweans travel to Mozambique to work. Many earn money selling bed sheets, clothing and other products they bring with them by bus. Some estimates say there are about half a million Zimbabweans now based in Mozambique. Although some have found their English skills to be an asset in getting jobs, most have found the language barrier to be a major difficulty - Mozambicans speak Portuguese.

7. ZIMBABWE: AN END TO THE STALEMATE?

A. Executive Summary

After years of political deadlock and continued economic and humanitarian decline, a realistic chance has at last begun to appear in the past few months to resolve the Zimbabwe crisis, by retirement of President Robert Mugabe, a power-sharing transitional government, a new constitution and elections. Both factions of the divided Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) opposition and powerful elements of the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) party support the concept in outline. Although many of his party’s leaders are pressing him to retire in twelve months, when his term expires, Mugabe seeks to extend his tenure to 2010 by a constitutional amendment to harmonise presidential and legislative elections in that year. Increased pressure and intervention including from the regional organisation, the Southern African Development Community (SADC), and the West, in the run-up to the mid-year parliamentary session, could lead to a new political order, but concessions to ZANU-PF should only be made in exchange for true restoration of democracy.

The economic meltdown, as well as the bite of European Union (EU) and U.S. targeted sanctions, is pushing ZANU-PF towards change, since business interests of key officials are suffering. The party is split over the succession issue but Mugabe’s long successful divide-and-rule tactics have started to backfire as the two main factions are coming together to try to prevent him from staying beyond the expiration of his present term in March 2008. They showed their strength by blocking his proposed constitutional amendment at the party’s annual conference in December 2006 and will seek to do so again at the central committee in March so they can explore a deal resulting in his retirement to make way for moderate leaders who could negotiate with the MDC and civil society on transitional mechanisms, seek SADC endorsement and reengage with the West and foreign investors.

A deal that merely removed Mugabe while in effect maintaining the political status quo by keeping ZANU-PF in power would be no change at all. The situation is reminiscent of the last stages of Mobutu’s reign in the Congo. The IMF predicts that inflation – already the world’s highest – could pass 4,000 per cent by year’s end, while foreign exchange is being wasted or stolen and smuggled abroad. Peaceful protests are repressed, and a new round of home and business demolitions similar to Operation Murambatsvina that displaced 700,000 in 2005 is being planned. Salaries of the security services and civil servants alike are mostly below the poverty line. Economic issues, discontent among underpaid police and troops and the increasing willingness of opposition parties and civil society to protest in the streets all increase the risk of sudden major violence.

The desire to remove Mugabe within the year provides a rare rallying point that cuts across partisan affiliations, and ethnic and regional identities. Opposition party leaders are keeping lines of communication open with the ZANU-PF dissidents while preparing for a non-violent campaign to demand immediate constitutional reform. The MDC’s credibility and effectiveness, however, will be severely compromised unless efforts underway to reconcile its competing factions led by Morgan Tsvangirai and Arthur Mutambara succeed.

SADC (including South Africa) and the wider international community can make a vital contribution to resolving the crisis. SADC governments, who for long have been extremely reluctant to press Mugabe, now privately acknowledge they want him out to pave the way for a moderate ZANU-PF government. Without applying public pressure, the SADC troika is quietly beginning to explore ways to negotiate a retirement package for the president while persuading the West to relax its pressures. Mugabe’s exit, however, should be only the starting point. Zimbabwe needs a more radical change to get back on its feet.

The West should both maintain pressure at this crucial point and increase support for democratic forces but also be more precise about the conditions for lifting sanctions and ending isolation. SADC, the EU and the U.S. should adopt a joint strategy with a clear sequence of benchmarks leading to a genuinely democratic process for which removal of sanctions and resumption of international aid to government institutions could be used at the appropriate time as incentives. Consultations are needed now to get such a strategy in place by July when the parliament will be expected to take crucial decisions either on Mugabe’s harmonisation scheme or on plans for transition.


B. Recomendations

1. To the Government of Zimbabwe and ZANU-PF:

1. Abandon plans to extend President Mugabe’s term beyond its expiration in March 2008 and support SADC-led negotiations to implement an exit strategy for him no later than that date.

2. Negotiate with the MDC on a constitutional framework, power-sharing agreement, detailed agenda and benchmarks for a two-year political transition, beginning in March 2008, including:

(a) adoption of a constitutional amendment in the July 2007 parliamentary session providing for nomination in March 2008, by two-thirds majority, of a non-executive president, an executive prime minister and de-linking of government and ZANU-PF party positions;

(b) a power-sharing agreement leading in early 2008 to a transitional government, including ZANU-PF and the MDC, tasked with producing a new draft constitution, repealing repressive laws, drawing up a new voters roll and demilitarising and depoliticising state institutions in accordance with agreed timelines and benchmarks, and leading to internationally supervised elections in 2010; and

(c) implementation of an emergency economic recovery plan to curb inflation, restore donor and foreign investor confidence and boost mining and agricultural production, including establishment of a Land Commission with a strong technocratic base and wide representation of Zimbabwean stakeholders to recommend policies aimed at ending the land crisis.

3. Abandon plans for a new urban displacement program and act to redress the damage done by Operation Murambatsvina by:

(a) providing shelter to its homeless victims; and

(b) implementing the recommendations of the Tibaijuka Report, including compensation for those whose property was destroyed, unhindered access for humanitarian workers and aid and creation of an environment for effective reconstruction and resettlement.


2. To the Movement for Democratic Change:

4. Proceed with internal efforts to establish minimum unity within the party and a common front for dealing with the government and ZANU-PF and contesting presidential and parliamentary elections, while retaining reunification as the ultimate goal.

5. Hold internal consultations between faction leaders to adopt a joint strategy aiming at:

(a) finalising negotiations with ZANU-PF over constitutional reforms, a power-sharing agreement and formation of a transitional government in March 2008; and

(b) preparing for a March 2008 presidential election if negotiations with ZANU-PF fail, and President Mugabe retains power.


3. To Zimbabwean and South African Civil Society Organisations:

6. Initiate legal proceedings in South African courts to attach any assets stolen from the Zimbabwean government and transferred to or invested in South Africa and to obtain the arrest and prosecution of egregious Zimbabwean human rights abusers visiting South Africa.


4. To SADC and South Africa:

7. Engage with the U.S. and the EU to adopt a joint strategy for resolving the crisis that includes:

(a) mediation by SADC of negotiations for an exit deal on expiration of President Mugabe’s term in 2008 and of an agreement between ZANU-PF and the MDC on a power-sharing transitional government to oversee development of a new constitution, repeal repressive laws and hold internationally supervised presidential and parliamentary elections in 2010; and

(b) understandings on the use by the U.S. and EU of incentives and disincentives to support the strategy in regard to targeted sanctions, political relations with the transitional government and resumption of assistance.

8. Engage with the Zimbabwe government to facilitate talks between ZANU-PF and the MDC leading to the above steps.

9. Convene an urgent meeting of the SADC Organ on Politics, Defence and Security Co-operation to consider the regional consequences of the economic meltdown in Zimbabwe and recommend action by the Heads of State summit to deal with the situation.


5. To the United States and the European Union:

10. Engage with SADC countries to adopt the above-mentioned joint strategy, including understandings on timelines and benchmarks to be met by the Zimbabwean authorities in restoring and implementing a democratic process.

11. Increase pressure on President Mugabe and other ZANU-PF leaders if they do not cooperate with efforts to begin a transition and restore democracy, including by taking the following measures to close loopholes in targeted personal sanctions:

(a) apply the sanctions also to family members and business associates of those on the lists;

(b) cancel visas and residence permits of those on the lists and their family members; and

(c) add Reserve Bank Governor Gideon Gono to the EU list.

12. Portugal, holding the EU Presidency in the second half of 2007, should not invite President Mugabe and other members of the Zimbabwe government or ZANU-PF on the EU targeted sanctions list to the EU-AU summit unless significant reforms have already been undertaken.

13. Increase funding for training and other capacity-building assistance to democratic forces in Zimbabwe.


6. To the United Nations Secretary-General:

14. Assign a senior official – a new Special Envoy to Zimbabwe, the Special Adviser to the Secretary General on Africa or a high-level member of the Department of Political Affairs – responsibility for the Zimbabwe portfolio including to support the SADC-led initiative, and monitor the situation for the Secretary General.


7. To the United Nations Security Council:

15. Begin discussions aimed at placing the situation in Zimbabwe on the agenda as a threat to international peace and security.


8. To the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights or in the alternative the Human Rights Council:

16. Initiate a follow-up investigation on the Tibaijuka Report, including plans for a new urban displacement campaign, arrests of informal miners and political repression, and recommend actions to the member states, the Security Council and the Secretariat.


9. To the Commonwealth Secretariat:

17. Encourage Commonwealth member countries in Southern Africa to help mediate a political settlement for a post-Mugabe Zimbabwe, setting benchmarks for a return of the country to the organisation.

18. Establish a group of Eminent Persons to engage with Zimbabwe, using the good offices of its regional members to facilitate access.

19. Work through Commonwealth civil society organisations to build up civil society capacity in Zimbabwe.