22.08.2001
Mugabe clique clings to power
The latest seizures and occupations of white-owned farms in Zimbabwe show just how determined Robert Mugabe and his ruling Zanu-PF party are to hang onto power.
He is playing for high stakes. The economy is rapidly disintegrating. Vital foreign aid is being withdrawn as a consequence of Mugabe?s lawlessness. Rural capitalists have become state victims. The working class and urban poor stand in complete opposition. Old methods of rule no longer work. As a result, the country is spiralling towards a revolutionary situation. Counterrevolution - Zanu PF or Movement for Democratic Change - stands waiting on either wing.
The present phase of crisis in Zimbabwe began with a clash between white farmers and war veterans who, along with other Zanu-PF supporters, were laying siege to an estate in the Chinoyi area. The 21 farmers who sped to its defence are alleged to have attacked the war veterans - at least according to the Zanu PF government.
In a pattern that has become familiar since the ?fast-track resettlement programme? began last February, large-scale commercial farms - the overwhelming majority of which belong to whites who benefited from colonial rule - have been systematically targeted. The clashes in the Chinoyi area have undoubtedly been incited by the Zanu PF elite and Mugabe. The regime is desperately seeking to deflect attention from their failures and to maintain their base of support among the poor and landless peasantry. As we have pointed out before, the land seizures, while focusing in on a real injustice, do not represent a spontaneous rising of the oppressed. And Mugabe has been more than willing to introduce a racial element into his demagogy (the fate of the black labourers is largely ignored, not least in the British press).
More to the point, the headline-grabbing attacks on white-owned farms and white farmers have coincided with a ratcheting up of attacks on the organised opponents of the regime by Zanu-PF supporters. Trade unionists have been beaten, others threatened or arrested. Having banned several foreign journalists, including the BBC, Mugabe then proceeded to detain leading writers for the Daily News - the last effective independent mainstream newspaper. An office of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change was razed to the ground by Zanu-PF supporters in Gokwe, and reports reveal growing political repression throughout the country.
Zanu-PF - which led the struggle against British imperialism and Ian Smith?s Rhodesian government and has been in power since Zimbabwe won independence in 1980 - is facing a strong electoral challenge from the MDC. Founded by prominent members of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions, the MDC is rooted in the urban working class. It has, however, programmatically become the party of the bourgeoisie and white farmers. Nevertheless, while it is a contradictory political formation, it is by far the most coherent opposition force.
The sister organisation of the Socialist Workers Party in Britain, the International Socialist Organisation, has been able to make real gains for independent working class politics by operating within the MDC. In last year?s general election ISO member Munyaradzi Gwisai was elected MP for the Highfield seat in Harare, standing on a revolutionary socialist platform. Now, as the country?s crisis approaches boiling point, the ISO faces the challenge of quickly concretising a programme which goes beyond the limitations of the reforms posed by the MDC and places Zimbabwe?s working class in the vanguard of the struggle against Mugabe.
MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai has already declared his intent to challenge Mugabe in the 2002 presidential election - a contest Mugabe cannot be sure of winning. In the general election, the MDC swept the board in the cities, but Zanu-PF won a clear overall majority, thanks to its mass support in the countryside. As in the 2000 elections, Zanu-PF looks set to step up its intimidation of MDC supporters, whether they be white farmers, middle class blacks, urban capitalists - or trade unionists and working class partisans.
The Financial Gazette, Zimbabwean equivalent of the Financial Times, argued in its editorial of August 16, entitled ?The high price of freedom?, that ?Zimbabweans, once more, will have to stand up to terror to free themselves in the coming presidential ballot and send an unmistakable message that violence and intimidation, for all their worth to the demented, can do so much and no more. If the poll is postponed and they are subjected to worse terror under emergency rule, all must be prepared in whatever legal way possible to simply say no.?
The MDC leadership, along with Financial Gazette leader-writers, would certainly prefer constitutional methods, while perhaps using the threat of a mass movement to force Mugabe and his clique to bow out peacefully, but only summoning its working class base to direct action as a last resort. As the class struggle intensifies, the contradictions within the MDC will be exacerbated. The Zimbabwean middle class is clearly being radicalised by events, as it finds its living conditions decimated alongside those of the Zimbabwean masses. Pressure will grow on Tsvangirai to give his backing to those who seek to defend themselves or even to initiate direct action, bringing the MDC into direct confrontation with the regime.
The MDC leadership will clearly try to relegate the working class to a secondary role. But for us the working class must win hegemony over the democratic struggle. The legislative reforms and new constitution proposed by the MDC are aimed at removing the worst excesses of the Mugabe regime. Workers need to go much further, demanding, for example, the recallability of MPs, the paying of only an average worker?s wage, annual parliaments, abolition of the presidency, the right to carry arms ? and radical land redistribution, including its nationalisation.
If the working class does begin to move in an independent revolutionary direction, then bourgeois elements in the MDC leadership might well decide that striking up a deal with sections of Zanu-PF is a better option than the prospect of working class power. When challenged about this proposal - originating from elements of the South African ANC actively seeking such an outcome - Tsvangirai refused to rule out the formation of a national government. He argued: ?If it?s in the interests of the country for both parties to find common ground, that may be the only way out of the crisis? (Daily News August 20).
Another option for Mugabe would be to introduce a state of emergency, thus allowing for the postponement of the elections and further suppression of opposition. Zanu-PF has been playing up this possibility for all it is worth. A recent press release stated: ?The Zimbabwe government may be forced to declare a state of emergency if the United States and the European Union succeed in imposing sanctions against Zimbabwe, political analysts warned this week? (Zanu-PF website). Sanctions would provide Mugabe with the perfect excuse to repress and ban the MDC ?sell-outs?.
Though the government attempts to deny the impact of land seizures on output, claiming that small-scale farms are increasing production, in reality agriculture has been devastated, raising the prospect of serious food shortages. The minister of finance and economic development, Dr Simba Makoni, told a recent press conference that ?the country was in the red in terms of wheat and maize shortfalls? (Daily News August 20). And the infrastructure of the country is rapidly collapsing.
A severe food shortage, which may well occur next year, would not only increase the pitch of Mugabe?s demagogy, but would further hit the already dire living conditions of the Zimbabwean masses, whose average life expectancy is just 39. The World Health Organisation recently classified Zimbabwe?s health service as the worst in Africa. A similar situation in education has led to running student protests. The price of petrol, the highest in the region, was last month the cause of a 48-hour general strike, involving more than half of Zimbabwe?s workforce.
Zanu-PF?s stated position on land reform seems radical: ?The crucial element of the economy is the ownership of the most important and valuable economic asset - the land? (Zanu-PF website). But, far from proposing land nationalisation under the control of those who work it in the interests of the entire people, Mugabe is either handing over working units wholesale to his own cronies or breaking up farms in order to distribute plots to unskilled and impoverished peasants. The only qualification needed appears to be the willingness of the recipients to sing Zanu-PF songs. The outcome will be below-subsistence farming - a hugely retrograde step in objective terms.
The question of land reform and an agrarian programme is a central one for the fate of the revolution in Zimbabwe. A revolution that could spread southwards. No doubt fearing that the latest outbreak of seizures in Zimbabwe could inspire those in his own country - after attempted land invasions in July - South African president Thabo Mbeki insisted: ?This government is not going to allow illegal behaviour with regard to these things? (Financial Gazette August 16). A revolutionary movement in Zimbabwe which positively resolved the land question would have a tidal effect throughout the region.
Breaking the alliance between the peasantry and Zanu-PF is a central strategic task. Only the working class can unite and lead the struggle for the common interests of the exploited masses. The role of revolutionaries will be crucial in developing a programme around which that struggle can be fought.
Robert Grace