Zimbabwe
is gripped by an unprecedented economic, social and political crisis that could
even push it towards open civil war. Mugabe’s refusal to accept the results of
the March 29 elections is an indication of his desperation as he attempts to
hold on to power. The country is paralysed as the crisis at the top unravels.
| Southern Africa and Zimbabwe (in red) |
In spite of clearly having lost the elections, Mugabe
continues to deny defeat. The Zimbabwean electoral commission refused to accept
the results in 22 of the 210 parliamentary constituencies. A recount started on
April 19th. The opposition won 109 seats against 97 for ZANU-PF. It would be
sufficient for the electoral commission to falsify the results in 9
constituencies to declare Mugabe the winner. The other option would be to
produce a result which would force a second ballot.
All the pressure is on for Mugabe to release the election
results, but he has a lot at stake, and the clique around him is in the same
position. If he succeeds in forcing a second ballot by declaring that no one
had a clear-cut majority in the first round, that would give him time to
terrorise people into voting for his party and would allow him to prepare
better his electoral fraud machine. We will see when and what results they
declare in the coming days – and
possibly weeks – as Mugabe desperately plays for time.
Most of the governments of the surrounding countries in
Southern Africa are concerned that the situation in Zimbabwe could spiral out of
control. They too have called on Mugabe to release the election results. The
major Western imperialist powers have added their pressure and are calling on
Mugabe to recognise that the MDC won the elections.
Amazingly Thabo Mbeki, South Africa’s president, recently stated that
there is no crisis in Zimbabwe,
and has maintained friendly relations with Mugabe. Other leaders in the ANC
have somewhat of a clearer idea of what is happening in Zimbabwe and
have come out openly disagreeing with Mbeki. Jacob Zuma, who replaced Mbeki as
the leader of the ANC last year has expressed concern at what is developing in Zimbabwe.
Solidarity of South African workers
The workers of South Africa, however, have no doubts as to what
is happening in the neighbouring country, as the refusal of the dockers in Durban to allow a Chinese
ship, the An Yue Jiang, to unload its 77 tonnes of arms for the Zimbabwean
regime, demonstrates.
| The Chinese ship "An Yue Jiang" (Photo by Clinton Wyness) |
While the ANC
government was prepared to allow the weapons to be transported 1000 miles
across South Africa to Zimbabwe,
Randall Howard, general secretary of the South African Transport and Allied
Workers Union (Satawu) warned that, "As far as we are concerned, the
containers will not be offloaded. The ship must return to China. If they,
the Mbeki government, bring replacement labour to do the work, our members will
not stand and look at them and smile." Even South Africa’s police trade union
warned Mbeki against using police as "scab" labour.
This is in the best
traditions of working class international solidarity. The South African workers
know what the weapons would be used for and are prepared to move against their
own government to make sure they are not used against their Zimbabwean brothers
and sisters.
China’s
involvement in the Zimbabwean crisis, however, further confirms the nature of
the present regime in Beijing,
which is solely interested in getting its hands on raw materials to keep its
industrial expansion going. It clearly is interested in the minerals of Zimbabwe,
particularly platinum, but also other minerals and has no real concern for the
suffering of the Zimbabwean masses. This is in line with what China is doing
all over the African continent, making deals with anyone in order to exploit
the resources of the continent. This is yet another example of localised
conflict between China on
the one hand and the USA
and the EU on the other. China
backs Mugabe, while the West backs the MDC; both are merely defending their own
greedy interests.
Historical background
The question we have to ask ourselves is: how did Zimbabwe get
into this situation? By looking at past developments we will see that those who
are now condemning Mugabe had no problems with him when he was applying their
economic policies after he came to power in 1979. In fact the present mess is a
direct consequence of those policies. That is why to understand the present
situation we need to go back in history.
| Robert Mugabe |
The situation in Zimbabwe today stems from its
colonial past, when it was dominated by British imperialism. Prior to 1923
"Southern Rhodesia", as Zimbabwe
was known then, was under the control of the British South Africa Company
(BSAC) that had been established by Cecil Rhodes, receiving a royal charter in
1889. It was modelled on the British East India Company that was the basis for
colonisation of India.
Rhodes, who used it for British colonial expansion in south-central Africa, was a British-born South African capitalist, a
mining magnate, and a politician. He founded the De Beers diamond company and
was also the founder of Rhodesia
(which then included present-day Zambia
and Zimbabwe, later known as
Northern and Southern Rhodesia).
In 1923 the British government took over Southern
Rhodesia from the BSAC. Shortly after that, in the 1930s the
"Land Apportionment Act" was passed. This gave 45% of the country’s
land to white commercial farmers. Thus the roots of the present-day terribly
unequal distribution of land go back to British rule. They simply stole the
land that belonged to the people.
In 1961, still under British rule, a new constitution was
adopted that favoured whites in power, in what was an overwhelmingly black
country (to this day the whites are only 1% of the population).
As Britain
prepared to pull out, its strategists could see that to maintain some kind of
stability would require at least a formal concession of political rights to the
majority black population. In 1965 Ian Smith unilaterally declared Rhodesia an
independent state in a desperate attempt to hold on to white supremacy. A long
guerrilla war ensued, finally leading to free elections in 1979 and the setting
up of Zimbabwe
as we know it now in 1980. Robert Mugabe, as leader of ZANU-PF, the main force
during the guerrilla struggle, became the country’s first prime minister, and
has governed the country ever since.
ZANU-PF at that time embodied the aspirations of the
Zimbabwean masses, who longed for social justice and equality. They had been
oppressed for generations, first under British imperial rule and then under the
hated racist regime of Smith. Wealth was concentrated in the hands of a
minority white elite. Land was hugely concentrated in the hands of white
farmers, while the blacks had to eke out an existence on subsistence farming.
In fact 6000 white farmers owned 70% of the productive land. This was the basis
for the sustained guerrilla war that finally ousted the old regime.
Lancaster House Agreement
The independence of Zimbabwe was achieved by the
struggle of the masses, but the leaders of the guerrilla movement entered into
an agreement brokered by the British government, known as the Lancaster House
Agreement. That agreement included a10- year moratorium on the land issue,
which meant that no land was to be expropriated and redistributed for ten
years. The British government agreed to provide funding for the "purchase" of
land from the white farmers to be distributed to poorer black peasants. They
clearly wanted to avoid "expropriation." The same agreement established that
the capitalist state and economy should remain intact.
In the 1970s the land situation was at it had always been
under British colonial rule: the best agricultural lands belonged to 6000
farmers, while 600,000 black subsistence farming communities had to scrape out
a living on poorer quality land. As a result of the Lancaster House Agreement
land distribution proved to be painfully slow. By the year 2000 only 50,000
families had received land through this mechanism. 4500 white farmers continued
to hold on to 11 million hectares of Zimbabwe’s prime agricultural land,
with 1.2 million black agricultural workers working for them. Contrast this to
the fact that about one million blacks owned 16 million hectares, often land
that was much less productive.
Thus one of the main goals of the guerrilla struggle was
betrayed. The masses were prepared to tolerate this on the basis that sooner or
later the issue would be tackled. The problem was that once the ten years had
elapsed the Mugabe government was still doing nothing about land. This was a
situation that was frustrating the rural masses.
Mugabe shifts right
However, it was not merely a question of not acting on the
land question. Once in power Mugabe shifted sharply to the right and adopted
openly "free market" policies. Initially there was some economic improvement.
There was a degree of reconstruction
and there was some re-capitalisation of the local economy as it was
reintegrated into the world economy. Similarly to many former colonial
countries, the state played a big role in economic development using state
assets to invest in infrastructure. There was also a strong degree of
protectionism to defend the weak local economy from the more competitive
products of the developed countries.
Since the late 1970s however, the policy of the imperialist
countries was changing. They were demanding an opening up of the national
economies of the less developed countries. They demanded the lowering or
elimination of tariff barriers, thus opening up these weak economies that were
forced to compete on a "level playing field" with the advanced capitalist
countries, something they were not equipped for. Part of this process also
involved widespread privatisations.
Thus, in October 1990, the government of Zimbabwe was
forced, under pressure from the IMF and World Bank, to implement the five-year Economic
Structural Adjustment Programme (ESAP). This was supposed to be an answer
to the economic crisis that began in the 1980s. The measures that were
introduced were the following: removal of price controls and wage controls;
cuts in government spending; a 40% devaluation of the Zimbabwean dollar; the
lifting of state subsidies on basic consumer goods; liberalisation of the
foreign currency allocation system; the lifting of protection of
"non-productive" import substituting industries and increased profit remittance
abroad; and a radical restructuring of the various state-owned companies.
This was followed by the Framework for Economic Reform between
1991 and 1995, which involved further cuts in state subsidies for publicly
owned companies and privatisation. In 1998, the government launched its second
stage of the Structural Adjustment Programme, known as the Zimbabwe
Programme for Economic and Social Transformation (ZIMPREST): the budget
deficit was to be reduced to under five per cent of GDP.
Devastating impact on
the economy
The effects of all this were dramatic. From 1991 onwards the
Zimbabwean dollar has been devalued massively. The lifting of protectionist
measures opened up the home market to cheaper imports. This resulted in the
closing down of many local industries leading to massive redundancies and
rising unemployment, which reached 60% by 2003 and now it is estimated that it
stands at 80%! Manufacturing productivity fell by 11.9% and in the mining
sector by 4% in 2001. In the ten-year period, 1991-2001 GDP declined, ending up
with a real decline in GDP of 11.5%.
The collapse of the real economy was accompanied by rampant
inflation. In 2001 it went over 100 per cent. Since then inflation went up to
585% in 2005 and last November it stood at 26,000%. These are the official
figures; private sector estimates put it at 100,000%!
From a purely capitalist point of view Mugabe exacerbated
all this by trying to buy his way out of the crisis, using state handouts and
by increasing military spending. He was under pressure from the war veterans
who had not risen up in bourgeois society as the ZANU-PF leaders had done. He
spent four billion dollars on the former guerrillas and also launched a
military adventure in the Democratic Republic of Congo (1998-2002) that cost
hundreds of millions of dollars. For him this was a means of "keeping the
soldiers busy".
Thus, we saw a dramatic increase in poverty levels in the
same period. The government’s 1995 Poverty Assessment Study revealed that 62
per cent of the population was living in poverty. Poverty was even higher in
the rural areas, where it stood at 72 per cent of households (compared to 46
per cent in the urban areas).
Cuts in public spending led to the introduction of school
fees and payment for healthcare, denying access especially to the poorer
layers, who were by now the overwhelming majority of the population. Add to all
this the fall in real wages, due to rising inflation, and one can see how
dramatic the situation was becoming.
Responsibility of
imperialism
All this was not the result of Mugabe’s present crazy
policies. It was the direct result of policies imposed on Zimbabwe by the
IMF, World Bank and major imperialist powers. We did not hear any of the
western governments complaining about Mugabe then. They were happy to see him
open up the country and impose such draconian measures on the already
impoverished Zimbabwean masses.
The degree to which Mugabe’s western backers, including the
IMF and the World Bank – these hypocrites who have suddenly discovered the need
for democracy in Zimbabwe
– would go was seen when the army’s 5th Brigade was unleashed on the
Ndebele people in January 1983.
The 3500 men of the 5th Brigade,
composed entirely of Shona, the ethnic group that Mugabe belongs to, were
responsible for the massacre of 20,000 villagers. They also tortured and
assaulted many others. The imperialists conveniently turned a blind eye
as the Ndebele people were massacred.
| Thabo Mbeki, President of South Africa (Photo by Antônio Milena/ABr) |
While the imperialists and local white elite profited from
Mugabe’s policies, for the masses gone were the days of hope that the new
ZANU-PF regime would bring with it social justice, equality and a genuine
improvement in living conditions. Disillusionment with the present regime set
in. This was especially the case in the urban areas, where ZANU-PF started to
lose support significantly.
Up until this period there had been what some describe as a
"honeymoon period" between the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions and the
government. There was a natural historical link between the two, as ZANU-PF was
seen as a progressive, anti-imperialist force. This gave the ZANU-PF leaders
huge authority among the workers and peasants of the country. But as the
government moved further and further to the right, that period came to an end
around 1990, the same period in which the Structural Adjustment Plans were
launched.
Prior to coming to power, the leaders of the guerrilla
movement had lived in modest conditions and were much closer to the masses they
represented. Once in power they had become well-to-do politicians living in
luxury, living on fat salaries. Their outlook thus changed. This was determined
by their real position of wealth, many of them having becoming bourgeois,
owning farms and companies directly.
Thus workers started to comment that the leaders preached
socialism by day but practiced capitalism by night. Having acquired a
privileged position these leaders had become incapable of making a break with
capitalism. Rather than becoming an instrument for the emancipation of the
Zimbabwean workers and peasants, they had been corrupted and transformed into
tools of capitalist interests. With this went rampant corruption and nepotism.
A Revolution Betrayed
An interesting article appeared in The Times of Zimbabwe, under
the title "Bitter taste of a revolution betrayed",
published on April 13 of this year. It
describes how Mugabe is trying to exploit the heroic past of ZANU-PF when it
led the guerrilla struggle in order to muster support today. It explains how ZANU-PF "is
struggling to reclaim its revolutionary credentials in the face of massive
electoral losses to an opposition party [the MDC] – many of whose members are
drawn from the ranks of the former liberation movement."
The article goes back to a historical figure of the
liberation struggle, Josiah Magama Tongogara, Mugabe’s main rival for power in
the exiled liberation movement. Tongogara was the commander of the Zimbabwe
African National Liberation Army, Zanu’s military wing and was a major figure
in Zimbabwe’s
independence movement. Now many are comparing him to how Mugabe has evolved and
they say that he would have been incensed at the state the country is in today.
"He would not have allowed things to degenerate to this,"
said a former soldier at Heroes Acre this week. "He was not a power-hungry
person. He fought for equality and justice, and wanted to see all Zimbabweans
enjoying the same constitutional rights. He was our favourite leader here in Zimbabwe. He
had balls and was not afraid of Mugabe or of speaking truth to power. If you
check our post-independence history, you will see that Mugabe has always tried
to erase his contribution in the liberation struggle. Is it because he was a
threat to him?"
The same article quotes Bina Dube, vice-president of the
Zimbabwe National Students Union, who said that if the likes of Tongorara and
Chitepo were alive today, they would see that what they had fought for had been
abandoned and added that:
"They believed in the idea that one day Zimbabwe would
be free. That’s what they fought for. The ideas that they fought for are now
being suppressed. If they were here today, maybe they would even go into
another war. We really have the Animal Farm situation, where all animals are
meant to be equal but in reality some animals are more equal than others. What
was promised to the people has not been delivered."
Lucia Matibenga, first vice-president of the ZCTU and a
former ZANU-PF activist is also quoted. Her husband, Saviour, had been a
ZANU-PF member of parliament in the early 1980s. She is now an MP for the MDC.
She recalls the discussions she had with her husband when he was in Parliament:
"He would say to me: ‘My friend, I see the party changing.
People are busy here with estates, with farms, with huge places at Borrowdale.
People are taking the party to the right’."
How these leaders would have evolved were they still around
today no one can say. But the fact that many people look back to them is an
indication of how they see the whole process. They respect the old tradition of
ZANU-PF and feel that its present leaders have betrayed the original ideals and
this explains also the falling support for Mugabe.
Why did ZANU-PF move
right?
In the post-war period the balance of power on a world scale
was shared between two mighty superpowers, the Soviet Union and the
USA. The Soviet Union had developed in a few decades from being a
relatively backward economy to an advanced industrial power, with a
generalised
increase in living standards. This began to slow done in the 1960s and
came to
a halt in the 1970s. In 1949 the Chinese Revolution freed millions of
people
from the yoke of capitalism and landlordism. The Cuban revolution in
1959 had
similar effects for the people living on the island.
Thus we saw how many of the guerrilla movements in the
colonial countries were attracted to the Russian or Chinese models. They saw in
these countries how the planned economy, albeit of a deformed character, had
managed to develop the productive forces where capitalism had failed. Thus we
saw the guerrilla movements in Angola
and Mozambique
take on a "socialist" outlook, i.e. they based themselves on the idea of state
ownership of the means of production and centralised planning. Developments in Ethiopia and Somalia were similarly influenced.
ZANU-PF was influenced by all this, as was the ANC in South Africa. In the eyes of the masses these were "socialist"
organisations. But its leaders were never real genuine Marxists. They reacted
empirically to events. The weakening of the Soviet Union,
its eventual collapse, and the shift towards capitalism on the part of the
Chinese bureaucracy, all had an effect on their thinking. They concluded that
"socialism" was no longer possible. This affected the direction that the
leaders of the ANC were to take. It also affected Angola
and Mozambique,
and of course the ZANU-PF leadership as well.
The clearest example of all was the evolution of the
Sandinistas in Nicaragua.
They took power, expropriated the Somoza clique, ending up with 60% of the
economy in state hands, but advised by the Soviet bureaucracy they pulled back
from completing the process, and since then have swung over to the right and
undone all the past gains.
Thus, once in power the ZANU-PF leaders had no socialist
perspective and no understanding of the role of the working class in the
revolution. Their only alternative was therefore to try and manage capitalism
in Zimbabwe. Once they had taken this path, all the subsequent Structural
Adjustment Plans, cuts in welfare and a general attack on all the gains of the
Zimbabwean masses, became perfectly logical.
Across the border, in neighbouring South Africa, the
leadership of the ANC followed a similar path. They too adopted economic
policies in line with the interests of capitalism. Imperialism and the white
South African bourgeoisie understood that they could not keep the Apartheid
regime on its feet any longer. The pressure from the overwhelmingly black
working class and peasantry was too great for this to continue. So they turned
to the leaders of the ANC who they consciously groomed and corrupted. Thus the
aspirations of the South African masses were also betrayed.
South Africa is by far the dominant power in Southern
Africa, and the most developed industrial power on the continent. The South
African working class therefore has a decisive role in the whole region. Once
the class struggle had receded in this key country this would inevitably influence
developments in the surrounding countries, not least in Zimbabwe.
It is within this historical and regional context that one
has to understand the direction the ZANU-PF leadership took. They had never
been Marxists, and were therefore pushed in one direction and then another,
depending on the dominant forces worldwide. This is what led them to eventually
betray the Zimbabwean masses.
Emergence of the MDC
All this process led to the setting up of the MDC, Movement
for Democratic Change. The main force behind the MDC was the ZCTU, the
Zimbabwean Congress of Trade Unions. Here was a clear-cut example of a workers’
party being formed out of the unions, attempting to give expression to the
Zimbabwean workers. The formation of the party raised the hopes of many.
Unfortunately, its leaders declared themselves to be social
democrats and aimed to work within the confines of capitalism. Instead of
adopting genuine socialist policies, they looked to Tony Blair as a model! Here
we see a major contradiction between how the masses saw the party and
what its leaders actually stood for. For instance, while growing support
for the MDC was due to mass opposition to the IMF imposed Structural Adjustment
Programmes, the leaders of the MDC declared these same policies as "necessary
but insufficient", i.e. they wanted to go further!
| Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the MDC |
The MDC was also lacking in its agrarian policy. It refused
to back the expropriation of the big white farmers, thus placing itself on the
side of imperialism on this question. That explains why it gained a lot of
support in the cities but struggled to make gains in the rural areas, something
which Mugabe has been able to exploit to his advantage.
In spite of all this, the emergence of the MDC demonstrated
that it is possible to create a mass workers’ party out of the trade unions,
and that such a party can be successful. The party was born out of the real
struggles of the Zimbabwean working class. The general strike of December 1997
against tax increases was a major turning point. This was followed by the mass
protests in 1998 against rising inflation and the government’s IMF-imposed
austerity measures.
At its founding rally held in Harare on September 11, 1999
20,000 workers and youth took part. The speeches promised much, a "continuation
of the ages-old struggle of the working people." The party promised free
primary and secondary education, free healthcare and a massive house-building
programme.
Very quickly, however the leadership moved to the right.
That is not surprising, seeing that its model was Tony Blair. They discovered
the advantages of a "social market economy", which would involve cuts
in government spending, a programme of privatisation of all state-owned
companies and the elimination of all price subsidies. These are precisely the
policies the MDC was built to fight against!
As we pointed out in a previous article, (Building
a workers’ party? Lessons of the MDC experience for Nigeria):
"How could such a sharp change in direction have taken
place? Patrick Bond (an expert on Zimbabwe and author of the book, Uneven
Zimbabwe: A Study of Finance, Development and Underdevelopment) recently
wrote the following revealing comment: ‘…is it not the case, as of February,
that the MDC began to receive generous funding by (white) domestic and foreign
capitalists, including white farmers? At that stage, didn’t Zimbabwe’s skewed
land relations and abominable property rights simply drop off the MDC’s
campaign agenda? Wasn’t a representative of big business put in charge of its
economics desk, and wasn’t his first major speech a firm endorsement of the
International Monetary Fund and wholesale privatisation for post-election
Zimbabwe?’ In fact, the Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries strategist Eddie
Cross was appointed as the party’s economics policy secretary!"Thus a party, which was created by the workers of Zimbabwe
through the trade unions, is now seen by the capitalist class as a possible
instrument for carrying out the same discredited policies of Mugabe’s
government! The capitalists in Zimbabwe do not have their own party so they
corrupt the workers’ party and try to use it to their advantage. About a third
of the MDC’s national executive is made up of trade union leaders and activists
and only nine of the MDC’s elected MPs come from a trade-union background. The
rest are middle-class academics, lawyers, some business people and one or two
farmers. And this non-working class layer is playing an increasingly dominant
role in deciding the policies of the party."
So long as Mugabe was applying policies that allowed the
white elite to continue to enrich itself they tolerated him. When their
interests and those of the clique around Mugabe came into conflict, the white
bourgeois elite began to look for a political alternative. The problem the
minority of white capitalists and landowners faced was that of building a
social base upon which to build a political expression of their own interests.
Alone, they could not do this. They are seen as the heirs of the old British
colonial exploitative system, and thus can have no appeal for the mass of
Zimbabwean workers, peasants and urban poor. It is ironic that they have
partially solved this problem by basing themselves on the tops of the Trade
Unions and the MDC!
As we explained above, by not taking up seriously the
question of land redistribution, the MDC leaders limited the appeal they could
have among the rural population. Here we had some of the poorest layers of
Zimbabwean society. Landless peasants began to demonstrate their rage and
started to occupy some farms – well before Mugabe adopted the policy. Among
them were war veterans who were growing impatient after nearly 15 years of
waiting. Having lost support in the cities, with the trade unions against him
and with growing support for the MDC, Mugabe was starting to feel the pressure.
Many were asking themselves where the gains of independence
had gone. Fighters who had given everything in the guerrilla struggle found
themselves victims of the Structural Adjustment policies. In 1995 the lowest
10% of the population consumed only 2% of the wealth, while the top 10%
consumed a staggering figure of 40.4%. At the same time they could see that the
wealthy white farmers were able to continue making big money, and on top of
that were able to keep much more foreign currency than they had ever been
allowed to do in the past.
Mugabe comes into conflict with imperialism
As political tensions rose and the country reached a political
impasse, Mugabe could see that by simply applying IMF imposed economic policies
he was not going to hold on to his social base. The MDC was growing in the
urban areas and at the same time there were also cracks appearing within
ZANU-PF itself, as some layers within its leadership could see that they could
no longer hold the rural masses back.
Thus, by 1999 Mugabe was coming into conflict with his
imperialist masters. He slowed down the pace of so-called "reform", i.e. the
pro-capitalist policies he had been following up till then, and imposed price
controls, in a desperate attempt to get inflation under control. He ignored the
fact that in a "market economy" – where the state has no direct control over
the productive process – price controls merely lead to a black market without
any real alleviation of the burden on the masses.
That is why he demagogically rediscovered the land question.
Official figures showed that in 1996 66% of the labour force still worked on
the land, whereas only 10% worked in industry and 24% in services. The rural
population is still a very big constituency in Zimbabwe.
In order not to lose support he was forced to lean on the
war veterans and landless peasants. That is where the land expropriations took
off in a big way. Today there is a lot of talk about the white farmers
"producing the food" but it is a fact that a section of these were not
utilising all the land, and many of them were absentee farmers. This is typical
of many big landowners in the former colonial countries. Some of the white
farms were utilised for game ranching, not exactly a productive activity as far
as the impoverished masses were concerned. It is true that tobacco, the major
export, was produced by the large white-owned farms, but the small farmers were
actually producing 70 per cent of the food of the country. This situation
allowed Mugabe to point the finger at the big white farmers. The fact that many
of them had supported the old racist Smith regime and some had actively fought
the guerrillas made them a very easy target.
Now the western media is full of propaganda about
"land-grabbing" and they have turned against Mugabe. We are presented with a
picture of Mugabe using the mob to consolidate his own base of political power.
All this ignores the fact that the land question had remained unresolved under
Mugabe for years. The same people who today are protesting about
"expropriation" were very happy to make deals with Mugabe when this suited
their interests.
Mugabe had in reality betrayed the poor black masses on the
backs of whom he had come to power and had moved closer to the wealthy white
elite. In the process a minority of blacks were integrated into the wealthy
elite and a black bourgeoisie was created side by side with its white
counterpart. In fact many of the elite around Mugabe went to live in the same
wealthy neighbourhoods as the rich white and started to have the same class
outlook.
Frankenstein’s
monster
Now Mugabe is like Frankenstein’s monster. He is a creature
of the bourgeoisie, but now the imperialists and white elite in Zimbabwe no
longer have any control over him; he holds the levers of state power firmly in
his hands. He has his own agenda, which is that of holding on to power at all
costs. In the process he is devastating the economy even further.
An important fact that we have to take into consideration is
that the expropriation of the land has often been to the advantage of Mugabe’s
cronies rather than poor peasant families. Even according to official figures
provided by the Zimbabwean government itself, of the over one million black
farm workers only about 10% became landowners, the rest falling into desperate
poverty.
This grossly unequal redistribution of land is part of
Mugabe’s attempt to create a privileged elite loyal to him personally. Many top
people in the military and state bureaucracy have benefited form this process.
But many of these new "farmers" have little knowledge of farming and have often
allowed the land to go fallow.
The country has suffered from drought in recent years but
the way agricultural reform has been handled has not helped. Irrigation systems
have been allowed to go into disrepair, resulting over the past two years in a
drop of two-thirds in the production of cereals. The amount of land planted with
maize, soya and tobacco has also fallen significantly and it is estimated that
as a result half of Zimbabwe’s 12 million population needs food aid to survive.
Marxists support the expropriation of the big farms, but
expropriation in and of itself is not enough. The big farms were productive
because they were mechanised. Large-scale mechanised farming is far more
productive than small-scale subsistence farming. One example is that of a farm
south of Harare, where a commercial farm has been broken up into 35 smaller
plots. Now the land is farmed by poor peasants, who without investment,
machinery, irrigation and fertilisers, or finance to buy seed, only manage to
eke out a meagre subsistence level of farming. The commercial farm used to
employ 100 farm workers.
Socialist
expropriation
On the basis of genuine socialist expropriation such a
commercial farm would not have been broken up. It would have been
collectivised, maintaining the high level of mechanisation, under the
control of the farm workers themselves. In this way the land would be far
more productive and would be to the benefit of those who till it and of the
wider population who desperately needs the food it can produce.
Thus we can see how Mugabe has carried out the policy of
land expropriation in a demagogic manner, without actually offering a genuine
improvement to the lives of the farm workers and the population in general.
This is because he does not have in mind a socialist transformation of society,
far from it. He has married capitalist values completely, and is only applying
this policy in a desperate attempt to hold onto power.
This, combined with all the other elements we have outlined,
means that Zimbabwe’s economy is now on the brink of total collapse. The IMF
"Structural Adjustment" devastated the economy. This was followed by Mugabe’s
zig-zag policy, including the chaotic manner in which the land was taken over.
Commercial farming, the traditional source of exports and foreign exchange and
the provider of 400,000 jobs, has been severely damaged, turning Zimbabwe into
a net importer of food products. Now there are widespread shortages of basic
commodities.
GDP fell by an estimated 6% in 2007. The population living
below the poverty line now stands at close to 70%. Zimbabwe has become one of
the most unequal societies in the world, with a Gini index, the distribution of
family income, standing at 50.1 in 2006. It is generally accepted by bourgeois
analysts that when the Gini coefficient in any given country rises above 40
then the situation cab become extremely unstable. Life expectancy has plummeted
to an average of 39.73 years, whereas it used to be 60 in 1990. The health service is in a state of collapse,
while AIDS has hit nearly a fifth of the population. The public debt has
skyrocketed to 189.9% of GDP and the external debt has reached $4.876 billion
(2007 estimated figures).
In May 2005, the Zimbabwean government added to the terrible
suffering of the masses with its infamous "Operation Murambatsvina" (Restore
Order). It initially targeted high-density shanty towns involving forced
evictions and demolitions resulting in the internal displacement of an
estimated 570,000 people, many of whom are now living in rudimentary camps.
These people are urban poor who have been supporting the MDC. It seems Mugabe
has given up on the urban working class and poor and is prepared to ride
rough-shod over them.
So bad is the situation that the International Organisation
of Migration (IOM) has estimated that around 3.4million Zimbabweans have left the
country, most of them emigrating to South Africa. The South African government
has placed military personnel on the border in an attempt to stop this sea of
impoverished humanity.
Faced with such a devastating economic situation Zimbabwe
could be dragged into the pits of hell, into utter barbarism. Unless an
alternative is found civil war could be its future. Also, the national question
could be whipped up again. 98% of the population is Black African, but this is
divided mainly between the 82% Shona and the 14% Ndebele.
In fact to this day in Matabeleland,
ever since the 1983-85 massacres, there is bitter resentment among the local
Ndebele towards Mugabe and ZANU PF. The people in the region have reached the
limit of what they can take. If Mugabe holds on to power for much longer, the
area could erupt into violent conflict. The barbaric scenes that we have seen
in other African countries could come to haunt Zimbabwe once again, as they did
in 1983.
Imperialism is terrified by such a prospect as it would
destabilise the whole region, and would have an important impact on
neighbouring South Africa. In this situation Mugabe could continue for a further period but losing more and more
support as time goes on. His regime is at risk of being overthrown at some
point. The fact that divisions have opened up within ZANU-PF are an indication
that even his own cronies are now looking for a way out of the impasse.
Splits at the top
The fact that
Mugabe’s former Finance Minister, Simba Makoni, broke from ZANU-PF and stood in
the recent elections basing himself on a splinter group from the MDC is an
indication of what may happen later: an important section of the clique around
Mugabe may turn on its master. A complete collapse of the economy would also
seriously affect them and they would want to act before it is too late.
In the past we have
seen in other African countries examples of despots being removed when they no
longer represented the interests of the ruling elite. The example of Nigeria
comes to mind, when the military tops moved against Abacha and started a
process towards civilian rule and the coming to power of a regime more in line
with the interests of imperialism. Abacha also was in conflict with
imperialism, having his own personal agenda. Having clearly outlived his
usefulness, he was removed… with the help of a poisoned apple!
A recent article
that appeared in The Economist (Feb
28th 2008) pointed out that:
"Mr Makoni
claims that most of ZANU-PF’s leadership supports him. None of the ruling
party’s heavyweights publicly admits to backing him; they will almost certainly
hedge their bets until the election. But few have criticised him or tried to
block his candidacy (…)"The army, police and much-feared Central Intelligence
Organisation (CIO) may no longer be united behind the 84-year-old president.
His party has fractured, thanks to the intervention six weeks ago, as a
challenger from within, of Simba Makoni, a former finance minister whom many of
Zimbabwe’s black and shrinking white professional middle class see as the
decent and competent face of ZANU-PF (…)"But it is pretty clear that the president’s popularity,
such as it is, has been waning, even among his old guard. Even if he somehow
hangs on, and lots of seasoned watchers think he will, the mantra in Harare is
that ‘something big has changed’, thanks to Mr Makoni’s challenge. Many of the
ruling party’s vultures clearly sense it is time to eye fresh pickings."
No doubt the imperialists would be prepared to collaborate
with these "vultures" if they considered them useful tools in pushing forward
their agenda in Zimbabwe. As they cooperated with Mugabe in the past, so would
they work with these gangsters.
To what degree these divisions at the top have reached the
point where an open split becomes imminent we cannot say. But it does seem to
indicate that there are important divisions within the leading group of
ZANU-PF, and that at some stage these could lead to moves against Mugabe.
Either this or Mugabe will hold on desperately for some while longer, merely
making matters worse.
At some point Mugabe
will be pushed out and the MDC will be brought on board. A section of ZANU-PF
could even break away and offer to form a coalition government with the MDC.
After all, as we have seen, apart from the question of land expropriation, on
all other questions they have very similar policies. It would suit the
interests of imperialism to see such a government come into office. They fear
destabilisation and would prefer a "smooth" handing over of power. A coalition
would seem the best option.
The idea of some
form of coalition has also been raised in recent days in the Zimbabwean press,
notoriously controlled by the regime. But there is a difference: they are
calling for a coalition with Mugabe still at the head of government. That seems
practically impossible in the present scenario, but some form of coalition that
would allow Mugabe to withdraw without any of his privileges being touched,
without him facing any consequences, is a concrete possibility.
The policies of such
a government would be dictated by the IMF, the World Bank, and the major
imperialist powers. In the present context of a slowdown in the advanced
capitalist countries, the weaker economies will be affected. What the masses
desire – land, jobs, decent wages – will not be forthcoming. If the imperialist
powers manage to bring to power a government more in tune with its present
interests we will see a continuation of the same old austerity measures. They
will demand severe cuts in public spending and an even greater opening up of
the economy.
They would have to
tackle the land question, which is a burning one. But they would not grant the
millions of landless peasants their wishes. The MDC has raised the idea of
compensation for the white farmers (where would the government get the money?)
while others have raised the idea of an audit. In order to maintain some kind
of stability they may have to accept some of the expropriations but they would
attempt to unravel much of what has been done.
Thus, while the MDC
says it will cut public spending it will seek money for the white farmers. We
can be sure that the cuts would be in healthcare, education and other public
services. Some of the more urgent problems may be tackled in the short run,
such as food distribution. To help stabilise the situation and consolidate
imperialism’s grip over the country, food aid would be forthcoming and could
lead to a temporary alleviation of the suffering of the masses.
This would be done
in an attempt to stabilise the situation, only to allow for capitalist economic
policies to be imposed. No fundamental problem would be solved. Thus if and
when the MDC comes to power, it would enjoy a brief honeymoon period. Many
hopes would be raised, but eventually it would be exposed for what it has
become, another bourgeois party.
Need for a socialist
alternative
Neither ZANU-PF nor the MDC, or any splits from both, are
capable of offering a real solution to the Zimbabwean workers and peasants. So
long as capitalism dominates there is no way out for the masses. Especially
under the present world conditions, the economic prospects are dire.
What is required is a socialist programme, based on
socialist expropriation of the land and industry. Many former activists of
ZANU-PF and also many of those who initially looked to the MDC must be asking
themselves what went wrong. The Marxists are the only ones who can explain how
all this happened and what is the way out.
Marxists in Zimbabwe also need to base themselves on an
internationalist perspective. On its own Zimbabwe cannot build socialism.
However, a socialist Zimbabwe would have a huge impact on the South African
working class. In the same way that Lenin saw the Russian revolution as the
spark that could ignite the European revolution, the Zimbabwean revolution
could set in motion the South African proletariat and that of the whole region.
Socialism in one country is not possible, as the experience of all the former
Stalinist regimes amply demonstrates.
A key role will be played by the mighty South African
working class. The refusal of the Durban dockworkers to unload the Chinese
shipment of arms destined for Zimbabwe graphically highlights how the fate of
the Zimbabwean workers and peasants is tightly linked to the movement of their
South African brothers. As any serious move of the Zimbabwean workers would
immediately impact on the South African workers, would the movement of the
South African working class have a decisive impact on developments in Zimbabwe.
The South African workers have been to the ANC School of
reformism. Last year we saw a massive strike against the ANC government and we
will see more of this. The class struggle is rising everywhere, including
Africa. The recent upheavals in Egypt and last year’s powerful general strike
in Nigeria are an indication of what is to come.
The task of Marxists in Zimbabwe is to "patiently explain"
all this to the advanced layers among the workers and youth, working inside the
trade unions and youth organisations. An internationalist perspective, combined
with the patient build up of the forces of Marxism is the only long term
solution to the plight of the Zimbabwean masses today.
See also:
- Review:
Zimbabwe’s Plunge – Exhausted Nationalism, Neoliberalism and the Search for
Social Justice by Jordi Martorell (April 17, 2002) - Zimbabwe: The
failure of 20 years of capitalism by Jordi Martorell (March 14, 2002) - Zimbabwe
Perspectives 1986 by In Defence of Marxism (republished April 27, 2000) - Mugabe’s
desperate throw – The land question and the Zimbabwean revolution by Jean Duval (April 20, 2000) - Building
a workers’ party? Lessons of the MDC experience for Nigeria by Felix Harnon (October 11, 2000)
