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NEWS & LETTERS, April - May 2008Mugabe's hold on ZimbabweAs of this writing, the Zimbabwe Election Commission (ZEC) has yet to release the vote totals from the March 29 presidential election. The obvious assumption is that President Robert Mugabe lost outright to Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) candidate Morgan Tsvangirai. MugabeÕs ZANU-PF party also lost in legislative voting. Now Mugabe is pushing for a run-off vote amid a crackdown on opposition activists, local and international media, and even members of the ZEC who reported honest vote totals. On April 11 political rallies were banned outright. The MDC is considering boycotting any run-off, as it would be conducted in a climate of repression that would be inconsistent with a free election. Southern African governments will be meeting in Zambia to discuss the situation. Mugabe representatives will take part, and Tsvangirai has said that he will be there. In the midst of this impasse came reports that Mugabe supporters had occupied some of the few remaining white-owned farms. A sad, ironic coda to the memory of the revolution. While Mugabe accuses Tsvangirai and the MDC of being controlled by "Western imperialism," the truth is that he cemented his own position of power by looking out for just those interests. While Zimbabweans had expected that the overthrow of the racist colonial government would result in practical measures like the distribution of land, this didn't happen. Instead Mugabe left the large white-owned farms intact or, later, passed them to his cronies. For decades he put the interests of outside business above those of the people who were left in poverty. As time passed, his rule has taken on more and more the character of what Tsvangirai termed "a war on the people." In the latest farm occupations, as often before, it is Black workers who have been beaten and dispossessed, now, for allegedly supporting the MDC. The tragedy of Zimbabwe's revolution can be seen in the way the radical land reforms promised by ZANU-PF were never implemented. It was not only an economic but a social question. The hope for new social relations was later dismissed by Mugabe as "propaganda," but millions of rural Zimbabweans might have benefitted from such reforms. Women who received land would have received a new measure of freedom along with it. Zimbabweans have clearly had enough. The collapse of the economy (except the stock market for a wealthy few), inflation rates up to 66,000%, 80% unemployment rates, and millions forced into economic or political exile have seen to this. Mugabe dealt with the HIV/AIDS crisis by demonizing gays and with urban poverty by bulldozing the shantytowns of the destitute to drive them from the cities. The opposition MDC began in 1999 as a movement largely based in Zimbabwe's Congress of Trade Unions and opposition civic groups. Tsvangirai himself was a labor activist. Its support has previously come heavily from urban areas. The broad support for the MDC in this election should be seen in terms of a fundamental change in Zimbabwe's politics. Newer organizations like Women of Zimbabwe Arise are bringing long-simmering questions to the forefront of debate, such as access to energy resources, violence against women, and the HIV/AIDS crisis. These organizations would also challenge the MDC to deliver results in any post-Mugabe situation. What they are raising is the unfinished business of the revolution. --Gerry Emmett |
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