Zimbabwe Information Center in North America
A project of the North American Coalition for a Free Zimbabwe (NACFREEZ)
MDC
By Stanford G. Mukasa
Letter from America
December 10, 2007
Mugabe is scared stiff of free and fair elections in Zimbabwe
The tightening of the targeted sanctions against the Robert Mugabe regime by the United States, and the decision by the British Prime Minister Gordon Brown to boycott this year’s meeting of the European Union and the African Caribbean and Pacific region in Portugal as a result of the invitation extended to Robert Mugabe clearly marked the escalation of the confrontation with the Zimbabwean tyrant.
Five other countries, Lithuania, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia and Cyprus also boycotted the ACP-EU summit.
But Mugabe’s attendance at the summit in Portugal was not, as his sycophantic mass media called it, a triumph.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who earlier supported Mugabe’s participation at the summit, minced no words in attacking Mugabe by name. She said the current situation in Zimbabwe damages the image of the new Africa.
“I stand with the people of Zimbabwe,” Chancellor Markel said as Mugabe sat grim faced in the audience. Also criticizing Mugabe at the summit were the Portuguese PM Jose Socrates and EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso.
If Mugabe thought that by getting the visa to travel to Portugal for summit he had won over his opponents he was in for a rude awakening. Human rights activists descended on Portugal to protest Mugabe’s presence.
This may have been the first time Mugabe has received such a blatant, humiliating and public dressing down at an international forum. Of all the heads of state assembled at the summit Mugabe was exposed like a criminal for his worst human rights record.
The message to Mugabe is now loud and clear. If he dares fly out of Africa the world is now mobilizing against him. There is an awakening around the world and a new consensus and a resolve are emerging to confront Mugabe wherever he goes.
Mugabe may be used to dealing decisively with protestors inside Zimbabwe because of his control of the army, police, and CIO and militia thugs. But once he leaves the country he is fair game and can expect an escalation of protests against him.
The protests against Mugabe in Portugal represented new strategies in confronting the aging dictator. Zimbabweans around the world must now form non partisan pro democracy groups which will ensure that if Mugabe should come to their neighborhoods they will organize protests against him.
The formation of the Zimbabwe Global Diaspora organization last weekend is a clarion call for Zimbabweans in Diaspora to mobilize behind the dictum “We are our own liberators”.
The Zimbabweans in Diaspora are now the biggest economic force in Zimbabwe. Last year they remitted over $300 million. While this money is aimed at supporting the embattled Zimbabweans, it also represents a significant inflow of foreign currency that helps the Mugabe regime.
Against this background of a rising tide against him Mugabe may see his attendance at international conferences as a victory against anyone who opposes him. But he cannot avoid the humiliation of being a controversial character every time he plans a trip outside Africa.
His reputation, if he had any, now lies in the sewer. He knows that he is the most hated person in Zimbabwe. Zimbabweans are circling above him like vultures because they know that even Mugabe does not have the strength to maintain the status quo indefinitely. Behind the façade of all those smiles and laughs and the seemingly tough- guy image Mugabe is mentally, spiritually and possibly physically rotting from inside.
His political life is hanging by the thread. He has mortgaged his soul to the army. The mass media and analysts still think that Mugabe is effectively in power. Real and effective power has now transferred to the army with whom Mugabe has made a deal with the Devil in form of the top army brass.
These securocrats, as they are called, are ruling Zimbabwe today. This reality was spelt out by Jocelyn Chiwengwa during one of her deranged outbursts on the interview with Violet Gonda at SWRA a few weeks ago. Jocelyn Chiwengwa, the wife of the army commander, categorically stated : Iyi nyika yave kutongwa nemauto, or This country is now being ruled by the army.
Mugabe himself stated this fact in an off- the- cuff remark when he said “Where would we be if it was not for the army?” It was the clearest indication of Mugabe’s tacit admission that he owes his continued stay in office to the army rather than elections.
In this environment of a securocratic rule in Zimbabwe what is the motive and purpose of the talks between ZANUPF and the MDC? Why is Mugabe ostensibly seeking a political solution by negotiation with the opposition movement when he feels well protected by the army?
The answer is simply that the country is, as musician Thomas Mapfumo once sang, in tatters. Mugabe now recognizes that no amount of violence, no amount of intimidation and certainly no amount of military force or coercion can control the economy. Neither Mugabe, the army nor ZANUPF have a viable plan to rescue Zimbabwe from the economic collapse. Yet it’s the same Mugabe, the same army and the same ZANU top officials who are trying to seize businesses the way they seized commercial farms which now lie in an appalling state as nearly half the nation has to rely on humanitarian assistance form the international community.
Neither Mugabe, the army nor the ZANUPF top brass have any skills, know-how or vision to create wealth, let alone to save the economy. But they know very well how to spend money they did not earn. They also know very well how to operate the printer that prints all those Zim Dollars. But they do not know that the more they print the more they devalue that money, triggering an ever spiraling inflation. Not only is Zimbabwe’s inflation, at over 40,000 percent, the highest in the world but the second highest inflation is far less than 100 percent! In Somalia, a country without effective government for over 15 years, inflation is 50 percent.
More than anything else, it’s the economy that is bringing Mugabe and his cronies to the conference table. But they are not negotiating in good faith. They want to have their cake and eat it at the same time.
There is a saying that, the more things change the more they stay the same. And this is what Mugabe probably had in mind when he agreed to talk to the MDC.
It is increasingly becoming evident that the talks between ZANUPF and Mugabe were never intended to pave the roadmap to free and fair elections.
Mugabe is scared to death of free and fair elections.
We have it on good authority that all his top intelligence chiefs, without exception, have told him that if elections are free and fair he stands to lose big time.
Mugabe’s intelligence chiefs have also told him to forget about pinning any hopes of winning elections as a result of so called leadership split in the MDC. Notwithstanding the rhetoric about the bickering within the MDC Zimbabweans will not split their vote.
Even Mugabe’s strongest ally South African President Mbeki knows that Mugabe will break the losing record in any free and fair elections. When Zimbabweans go to vote they will have Mugabe’s face as the target on the electoral dart board. Free and fair elections will unleash the collective and pent up anger within Zimbabweans. And Mugabe will be the sole target of that anger.
Mugabe’s game plan, which has the surreptitious support of Mbeki, is to control and manipulate the terms of any agreement with the MDC. And they are doing this by agreeing on paper to a whole range of reforms when they do not intend to carry out those reforms. Mugabe did it in 2001 when he signed the so called Abuja Agreement and promised to compensate farmers whose properties his thugs had seized. Mugabe never implemented the agreement. Less than a month after signing the agreement Mugabe ordered a fresh invasion of farms.
The latest information is that the ZANUPF delegation has proposed to Mbeki and SADC that any agreement with the MDC not be implemented until after the elections in March next year. In other words, ZANUPF intends to proceed rigging the elections and assaulting opposition supporters. Only after they have declared themselves winners will they decide to implement the agreement.
The National Council of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) led by Morgan Tsvangirai may have noticed this when it resolved at its meeting last week that it wanted to see some tangible evidence that whatever had been agreed upon so far from the ZANUPF-MDC talks must translate into real action on the ground.
It was ironic that, while ZANUPF and MDC delegates were holding talks and leaking information about agreements reached so far, Mugabe’s thugs were inflicting violence on the opposition supporters. Police were descending on opposition marchers to disperse them. In the process many members of the opposition were arrested, some beaten savagely. In contrast the same police were leading and protecting the pro Mugabe rallies.
As violence was escalating Mugabe’s delegates to the talks were assuring MDC that violence must and would stop.
ZANUF delegates had apparently also agreed with their MDC counterparts on the independence of the electoral supervisory committee, that no military would be involved in the electoral process and that the voter registration should be subject to a thorough review if not overhauled altogether.
Yet it was full speed ahead for ZANUPF. A member of the military was recently appointed election director for Manicaland. The delimitation of constituencies and voter registration have all proceeded with hardly any consultation with the MDC. Zimbabweans are therefore tempted to ask: So where is the change? It appears the repression of the opposition supporters is, in fact, escalating.
But what does Mugabe ultimately hope to gain when he knows fully well that the status quo will not bring about the international support for any financial aid to stabilize the economy?
It looks like Mugabe and Mbeki have been collaborating on the government of national unity plan in which ZANUPF would emerge as the senior partner by swallowing MDC, the way ZAPU met its demise in 1987.
However both Mbeki and Mugabe were aware that a united MDC would be too powerful to be maintained as a junior partner in a coalition. Whether by design or otherwise the leadership split in the MDC in October 2005 was a godsend for both Mbeki and Mugabe. This was an opportunity to weaken the opposition movement.
Some may argue that Mbeki has been trying to unite the MDC and could not possibly be supportive of a divided MDC. On the surface it would seem so because Mbeki needed to project the image of someone who was trying to help the opposition movement to get a chance at free and fair elections.
But at each subsequent election, and presented with evidence that elections had not been free or fair, Mbeki neither demonstrated any plan to ensure future elections would be free and fair. On the contrary, Mbeki has historically promoted the election results as free and fair when he knew very well the ruthless violence that ZANUPF had unleashed on the opposition had led to the rigging of the elections.
Mbeki was also aware that many voters in urban areas had been denied the right to vote. One glaring example of this blatant denial of people’s rights was during the last presidential elections when polling stations were closed, leaving thousands of people, some of whom had queued for hours, without a chance to cast their votes.
The international community saw pictures of Mugabe’s police beating and dispersing the stranded voters. Yet Mbeki turned a blind eye.
Now, as the year 2007 comes to an end Mugabe may pat himself on the back that he has survived all kinds of challenges. But he has now created an increasingly impatient world that is determined to stop him.
But even more significantly Mugabe has pushed Zimbabweans to the edge. The year 2008 may well be the year Zimbabweans said to Mugabe Enough is enough.
Zimbabweans must never give up on the option for mass action and demonstrations.