Why does Mugabe bark and spark with impunity?
Tongkeh Fowale
January 07, 2008
The land crisis in Zimbabwe stands distinct from many other crises in Africa for many reasons. Firstly, the ramifications of this crisis have spilled across national, regional and continental boundaries. It is now a point of disagreement between the great powers – US, Britain, European Union (EU) on the one hand, and Africa and China on the other. Secondly, the level of deterioration, hunger, inflation, disease and migration in Zimbabwe is reaching disaster levels. Thirdly, because of this crisis, all attention and energy is being shifted from the plight of the suffering masses in Zimbabwe to one man – Robert Mugabe. His every step is closely being monitored, his presence or absence in conferences is an issue of international debate and his words pull crowds of admirers like hurricanes and hit on his detractors like thunderbolts.
What the world sees today as Zimbabwe’s land crisis is an old, long, checkered, winding, confusing and (often) misinterpreted story. This story is deeply rooted in history. This history dates back to the coming of whites to Southern Africa. For the purpose of brevity and clarity, I beg to include a synopsis of this history in this discussion.
The first name in the history of land troubles in Zimbabwe is Cecil John Rhodes. This was the man who wrenched African land from King Lobengula with a mere promise of £100 per month in 1888. The ill-fated monarch was chased into exile (where he died a year later) by the arm-twisting, imperialistic and villainous Rhodes.
Considering this a cheap way to acquire territory, alongside many other economic, political and geo-strategic advantages, the British government hastily granted a charter to Rhode’s British South Africa Company (BSA). Rhodes’ booty consisted of a vast expanse of territory “lying North of Bechuanaland and Transvaal, and west of the Portuguese possessions.”
This territory came to be called Rhodesia after its founder. He proceeded to enact legislation backed by force to rout Africans from their land. Between 1889 and 1923, the BSA defined land policy in Rhodesia. From 1923 to 1963, this responsibility was taken over by the British government. The bottom line however, remained the continued white expropriation and domination of African land.
After 1963, the volcano of liberation that was erupting throughout Africa (the “wind of change” as Harold Macmillan mildly put it), was gradually influencing developments in Southern Rhodesia. The war of liberation or the Chimurenga was already gathering steam. Land issues were central in this liberation struggle.
Enter Mugabe.
The story of the liberation struggle in Zimbabwe is the story of one man – Robert Gabriel Mugabe. He led an anti-colonial guerilla force for 15 years that toppled British colonialism. This struggle and the entrenched interests it generated lasted from the mid 1960s to 1979.
The climax of diplomacy in the Rhodesian struggle was the Lancaster House Conference which opened in September 10 1979. The land was the main bone of contention which almost tore the conference apart. The deadlock was broken only when Britain and the US gave assurances about a multinational effort to assist in land reforms. This conference produced the monumental Lancaster Constitution which was supposed to define the guidelines for land reforms in Zimbabwe.
The most important clause of the Lancaster Constitution (which turned out to be a source of headache) was the “willing-seller, willing-buyer” principle. It called for voluntary sale of land by owners and voluntary purchase by government. This clause was to run for ten uninterrupted years. The divergent interpretations, re-interpretations and misinterpretations of this constitution have earned it the label “the root of all evil” in Zimbabwe. It was with this constitution that Mugabe started work as Prime Minister of Zimbabwe on April 18th 1980. He inherited a country where 6000 large-scale farmers controlled 40 percent of the country’s territory. About seven million blacks were crowded into the dry and barren communal areas.
This in brief is a summary of events that shaped the history of Zimbabwe until independence. After independence, Mugabe assumed the responsibility of undoing the colonial injustice of unequal land ownership between blacks and whites. In this process, he has generated shockwaves, ruptured relations and made headlines around the world especially after resorting to fast-track land reforms. In response, Mugabe has become increasingly vitriolic, sparking and barking at whoever comes his way. The question that arises here is, why has Mugabe been very capable of barking and sparking with impunity? Put in other words, what is Mugabe’s power base and source of inspiration?
One needs not search too far to realize that Mugabe is consistently barking at a group of detractors with guilty consciences, and who have African blood on their hands. Britain is the first in this category. The entire history of land excision in Zimbabwe was the handwork of Britain. Britain was willing to keep Rhodesia as a colony from 1880 to 1980 and only bowed out when overwhelmed by the pressure of African nationalism in Zimbabwe. She insisted on instituting the ambiguous “willing-seller, willing-buyer” clause of Lancaster. When Mugabe found this clause incompatible with his agenda of returning African land to Africans, Britain cried foul and started beating the drum for the downfall of Mugabe.
Britain’s inability to respect her financial obligations to support land reforms as agreed in Lancaster House, was followed by countless excuses despite the enormous profits that Britain gleaned from this territory under colonial rule. Britain has consistently favored policies that place African interests secondary to those of whites. The entire history of Africa is fraught with such dishonest “willing-seller, willing-buyer clauses. It was the principal focus of the 1979 Lancaster constitution that ended minority rule in Southern Rhodesia. It was present in the 1994 Kemption park agreement that ended apartheid in South Africa. It was the same for the 1960 Lancaster House conference that ended the Mau-Mau resistance in Kenya.
Throughout British Africa, the most fertile lands were demarcated as “Crown Lands.” It was on this land that a white owning class emerged with the help of their home government. This class stood against African nationalism in Kenya, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Ghana, Nigeria and the rest of British Africa. It was the same with other European colonial land owners who stood against the FLN in Algeria, UNITA in ANGOLA, FRELIMO in Mozambique and SWAPO in Namibia. It was on this African land that cash crops were produced at the cost of African lives to feed European industries. This legacy has kept African economies primarily agricultural and at the economic margins of the international system. The scars of European colonialism are so deep and difficult to heal. Zimbabwe represents the most extreme form of European cruelty on Africa.
This is the main reason why Mugabe’s support base continues to widen within Africa, while it thins out in Europe and America. Proof of this support was the united stance taken by African states at the just-ended EU-Africa summit in Lisbon. The entire African continent answered Gordon Brown’s ultimatum of “either Mugabe or me,” with a “no Mugabe, no conference.” And at last Mugabe prevailed.
This was enough source of courage, inspiration and opportunity for the vitriolic Mugabe to pick on what he singled out as “the gang of four.” Said Mugabe, “Does the German Chancellor and the pro-Gordon gang of four… really believe that they have a better knowledge of Zimbabwe? It is this arrogance that we are fighting against.” The “we” in Mugabe’s speech denotes an offended Africa which continues to bit the drum behind the dancing Mugabe. Whether Gordon Brown’s absence from Lisbon was inspired by guilt, superiority or inferiority complex, all boils down to a diplomatic victory for Mugabe who is being coached by his African peers.
The behavior of African giants, South Africa and Nigeria constitutes another clue to understanding how African reaction has helped to enhance Mugabe’s power. President Thabo Mbeki has consistently advocated “caution” towards Mugabe. He prefers a “silent diplomacy” and “constructive engagement” Mbeki rushed to Mugabe’s rescue in 2005 with an aid package of US $500 million to prevent a complete collapse of Mugabe’s government. Without his caution, fraternity and solidarity, Mugabe’s government would evidently have collapsed.
Nigeria, Like South Africa has displayed considerable solidarity towards Mugabe. Refusing to openly criticize Mugabe, president Obasanjo preferred to lend his “good office” to resolve the crisis in Zimbabwe. Like South Africa, Nigeria preferred mediation to force. South Africa and Nigeria alongside other African countries have therefore stood on the West’s way to discrediting Mugabe’s government. This economic and diplomatic support from within Africa has been a major source of inspiration for Mugabe.
Western hypocrisy and double standards against Mugabe have had the reverse effect of enhancing his power. Mugabe’s land policy has been largely mis-represented and mis-interpreted in an attempt to discredit him and his government. When relations between Mugabe and the west went sour, the west encouraged and supported the opposition in Zimbabwe with the Zimbabwe Democracy Bill (ZDB). When Zimbabwe alongside Angola and Namibia intervened in the D.R Congo upon the request of the Southern African Development Council (SADC), Zimbabwe alone was singled out for vilification. The west later leaned on Mugabe’s clean up operation and used it as an example of Mugabe’s brutality against people.
If the standard for judging African leaders is on such operations, then such scenarios abound everywhere in Africa. In 1990, 300.000 people were rendered homeless in Lagos in such an operation. In 2002, soldiers turned people out of their homes with less than an hour’s notice in Abidjan. In Cameroon, hundreds of families lost their homes in a similar process in Douala. Mugabe’s case stood out distinct because of his land. The BBC’s Elizabeth Blunt brought out this hypocrisy against Mugabe when she observed “…the victims of the Zimbabwe eviction are lucky because of the political campaign being run against president Mugabe, both inside and outside the country. There are well organized and well funded people calling attention to their plight.” There is enough evidence to suggest that if the west did not have an eye on Zimbabwe’s land and minerals, then the masses would not have mattered much like elsewhere in the continent.
In this hypocritical attitude towards Zimbabweans, the west has used humanitarian aid as a weapon against Mugabe than a show of fraternity as they claim. On droughts in Zimbabwe which contributed to famine, the west blamed Mugabe for not properly handling the situation and for letting it degenerate into famine. When similar droughts happened in Niger, no western power questioned the government’s handling of droughts. A victim of western vilification, it was easy fro Mugabe to attract support and sympathy from anti-western governments like China.
China in recent years constitutes another reliable source of Mugabe’s power and inspiration. Shunning the west, Mugabe became the frontline champion of a “look east” policy to spite the west. “Zimbabwe is very much looking east and there is no turning back” declared Mugabe. New economic, diplomatic and military treaties between China and Zimbabwe serve as Mugabe’s safety valve against western pressure. China has consistently restrained the UN from taking any action on Mugabe. China also constitutes the main supplier of Zimbabwe’s military hardware which Mugabe uses to equip his army and security forces to keep the opposition in check. Sheltering under Chinese diplomatic and economic cover, Mugabe’s “new-found” ally serves to enhance his power especially as China proves to be a reliable alternative to the west.
One regional body that has never faltered in its support for Mugabe is SADC. With a common history of land deprivation under colonial rule, the member countries of SADC have always considered the land struggle in Zimbabwe as a colonial hang-over. At the 20th summit of SADC leaders, its chairman Joachim Chisano observed that there was a tendency to put a “blanket” over the history of the freedom struggle. In solidarity with Mugabe, Chisano threw the weight of SADC leadership behind Mugabe and he suggested that the entire region should close ranks. SADC was among the first bodies to draw attention to the effects of the ZDB on Zimbabweans. This body has also made repeated calls for the US to refrain from interfering in the domestic affairs of Zimbabwe.
The list of queries levied against Mugabe by the west is very long. Election rigging, suppression of the opposition and free speech, unequal and partisan land redistribution, poor handling of droughts and Mugabe’s involvement in the Congo his clean up campaign or operation marumbastsvina, lavish spending on war Veterans are among some of them. Suffice it here to indicate that these are normal characteristics of post-colonial Africa as recently proven in Kenya. Secondly, these charges did not emerge when Mugabe was dancing the dance of the Lancaster Constitution, when relations between Mugabe and the west were still good, when western universities were showering Mugabe with honorary doctorates.
What Zimbabwe needs today is not what goes by the name of “targeted sanctions.” Zimbabweans do not need hypocrisy or propaganda or double standards. Zimbabweans need urgent and real attention from the international community. The entire world and all stakeholders in Zimbabwe need to re-examine their consciences (if at all they have any left). The UN, EU, Britain, US, SADC, AU, China and Mugabe himself have to address the problem in Zimbabwe in an equitable manner and rescue this country from slipping into further chaos. The upcoming 2008 presidential elections is a rare opportunity for these stakeholders in Zimbabwe to prove their worth and sense of responsibility towards these suffering masses.
Frustrated by countless attempts to topple Mugabe’s government, the west is adopting a “wait-and-see” attitude, or perhaps hoping for Mugabe’s death. Mugabe will leave power sooner or later. Everyone ends up leaving power voluntarily or involuntarily. But what is important is the legacy we leave for posterity. It might not be for our generation to judge, but someone, someday has to prove the truth of these words of Mr. Mugabe. “If there may be trouble with the Zimbabwe land redistribution policy, let it be my day so that future generations of Zimbabwe may live in peace.”
What the world sees today as Zimbabwe’s land crisis is an old, long, checkered, winding, confusing and (often) misinterpreted story. This story is deeply rooted in history. This history dates back to the coming of whites to Southern Africa. For the purpose of brevity and clarity, I beg to include a synopsis of this history in this discussion.
The first name in the history of land troubles in Zimbabwe is Cecil John Rhodes. This was the man who wrenched African land from King Lobengula with a mere promise of £100 per month in 1888. The ill-fated monarch was chased into exile (where he died a year later) by the arm-twisting, imperialistic and villainous Rhodes.
Considering this a cheap way to acquire territory, alongside many other economic, political and geo-strategic advantages, the British government hastily granted a charter to Rhode’s British South Africa Company (BSA). Rhodes’ booty consisted of a vast expanse of territory “lying North of Bechuanaland and Transvaal, and west of the Portuguese possessions.”
This territory came to be called Rhodesia after its founder. He proceeded to enact legislation backed by force to rout Africans from their land. Between 1889 and 1923, the BSA defined land policy in Rhodesia. From 1923 to 1963, this responsibility was taken over by the British government. The bottom line however, remained the continued white expropriation and domination of African land.
After 1963, the volcano of liberation that was erupting throughout Africa (the “wind of change” as Harold Macmillan mildly put it), was gradually influencing developments in Southern Rhodesia. The war of liberation or the Chimurenga was already gathering steam. Land issues were central in this liberation struggle.
Enter Mugabe.
The story of the liberation struggle in Zimbabwe is the story of one man – Robert Gabriel Mugabe. He led an anti-colonial guerilla force for 15 years that toppled British colonialism. This struggle and the entrenched interests it generated lasted from the mid 1960s to 1979.
The climax of diplomacy in the Rhodesian struggle was the Lancaster House Conference which opened in September 10 1979. The land was the main bone of contention which almost tore the conference apart. The deadlock was broken only when Britain and the US gave assurances about a multinational effort to assist in land reforms. This conference produced the monumental Lancaster Constitution which was supposed to define the guidelines for land reforms in Zimbabwe.
The most important clause of the Lancaster Constitution (which turned out to be a source of headache) was the “willing-seller, willing-buyer” principle. It called for voluntary sale of land by owners and voluntary purchase by government. This clause was to run for ten uninterrupted years. The divergent interpretations, re-interpretations and misinterpretations of this constitution have earned it the label “the root of all evil” in Zimbabwe. It was with this constitution that Mugabe started work as Prime Minister of Zimbabwe on April 18th 1980. He inherited a country where 6000 large-scale farmers controlled 40 percent of the country’s territory. About seven million blacks were crowded into the dry and barren communal areas.
This in brief is a summary of events that shaped the history of Zimbabwe until independence. After independence, Mugabe assumed the responsibility of undoing the colonial injustice of unequal land ownership between blacks and whites. In this process, he has generated shockwaves, ruptured relations and made headlines around the world especially after resorting to fast-track land reforms. In response, Mugabe has become increasingly vitriolic, sparking and barking at whoever comes his way. The question that arises here is, why has Mugabe been very capable of barking and sparking with impunity? Put in other words, what is Mugabe’s power base and source of inspiration?
One needs not search too far to realize that Mugabe is consistently barking at a group of detractors with guilty consciences, and who have African blood on their hands. Britain is the first in this category. The entire history of land excision in Zimbabwe was the handwork of Britain. Britain was willing to keep Rhodesia as a colony from 1880 to 1980 and only bowed out when overwhelmed by the pressure of African nationalism in Zimbabwe. She insisted on instituting the ambiguous “willing-seller, willing-buyer” clause of Lancaster. When Mugabe found this clause incompatible with his agenda of returning African land to Africans, Britain cried foul and started beating the drum for the downfall of Mugabe.
Britain’s inability to respect her financial obligations to support land reforms as agreed in Lancaster House, was followed by countless excuses despite the enormous profits that Britain gleaned from this territory under colonial rule. Britain has consistently favored policies that place African interests secondary to those of whites. The entire history of Africa is fraught with such dishonest “willing-seller, willing-buyer clauses. It was the principal focus of the 1979 Lancaster constitution that ended minority rule in Southern Rhodesia. It was present in the 1994 Kemption park agreement that ended apartheid in South Africa. It was the same for the 1960 Lancaster House conference that ended the Mau-Mau resistance in Kenya.
Throughout British Africa, the most fertile lands were demarcated as “Crown Lands.” It was on this land that a white owning class emerged with the help of their home government. This class stood against African nationalism in Kenya, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Ghana, Nigeria and the rest of British Africa. It was the same with other European colonial land owners who stood against the FLN in Algeria, UNITA in ANGOLA, FRELIMO in Mozambique and SWAPO in Namibia. It was on this African land that cash crops were produced at the cost of African lives to feed European industries. This legacy has kept African economies primarily agricultural and at the economic margins of the international system. The scars of European colonialism are so deep and difficult to heal. Zimbabwe represents the most extreme form of European cruelty on Africa.
This is the main reason why Mugabe’s support base continues to widen within Africa, while it thins out in Europe and America. Proof of this support was the united stance taken by African states at the just-ended EU-Africa summit in Lisbon. The entire African continent answered Gordon Brown’s ultimatum of “either Mugabe or me,” with a “no Mugabe, no conference.” And at last Mugabe prevailed.
This was enough source of courage, inspiration and opportunity for the vitriolic Mugabe to pick on what he singled out as “the gang of four.” Said Mugabe, “Does the German Chancellor and the pro-Gordon gang of four… really believe that they have a better knowledge of Zimbabwe? It is this arrogance that we are fighting against.” The “we” in Mugabe’s speech denotes an offended Africa which continues to bit the drum behind the dancing Mugabe. Whether Gordon Brown’s absence from Lisbon was inspired by guilt, superiority or inferiority complex, all boils down to a diplomatic victory for Mugabe who is being coached by his African peers.
The behavior of African giants, South Africa and Nigeria constitutes another clue to understanding how African reaction has helped to enhance Mugabe’s power. President Thabo Mbeki has consistently advocated “caution” towards Mugabe. He prefers a “silent diplomacy” and “constructive engagement” Mbeki rushed to Mugabe’s rescue in 2005 with an aid package of US $500 million to prevent a complete collapse of Mugabe’s government. Without his caution, fraternity and solidarity, Mugabe’s government would evidently have collapsed.
Nigeria, Like South Africa has displayed considerable solidarity towards Mugabe. Refusing to openly criticize Mugabe, president Obasanjo preferred to lend his “good office” to resolve the crisis in Zimbabwe. Like South Africa, Nigeria preferred mediation to force. South Africa and Nigeria alongside other African countries have therefore stood on the West’s way to discrediting Mugabe’s government. This economic and diplomatic support from within Africa has been a major source of inspiration for Mugabe.
Western hypocrisy and double standards against Mugabe have had the reverse effect of enhancing his power. Mugabe’s land policy has been largely mis-represented and mis-interpreted in an attempt to discredit him and his government. When relations between Mugabe and the west went sour, the west encouraged and supported the opposition in Zimbabwe with the Zimbabwe Democracy Bill (ZDB). When Zimbabwe alongside Angola and Namibia intervened in the D.R Congo upon the request of the Southern African Development Council (SADC), Zimbabwe alone was singled out for vilification. The west later leaned on Mugabe’s clean up operation and used it as an example of Mugabe’s brutality against people.
If the standard for judging African leaders is on such operations, then such scenarios abound everywhere in Africa. In 1990, 300.000 people were rendered homeless in Lagos in such an operation. In 2002, soldiers turned people out of their homes with less than an hour’s notice in Abidjan. In Cameroon, hundreds of families lost their homes in a similar process in Douala. Mugabe’s case stood out distinct because of his land. The BBC’s Elizabeth Blunt brought out this hypocrisy against Mugabe when she observed “…the victims of the Zimbabwe eviction are lucky because of the political campaign being run against president Mugabe, both inside and outside the country. There are well organized and well funded people calling attention to their plight.” There is enough evidence to suggest that if the west did not have an eye on Zimbabwe’s land and minerals, then the masses would not have mattered much like elsewhere in the continent.
In this hypocritical attitude towards Zimbabweans, the west has used humanitarian aid as a weapon against Mugabe than a show of fraternity as they claim. On droughts in Zimbabwe which contributed to famine, the west blamed Mugabe for not properly handling the situation and for letting it degenerate into famine. When similar droughts happened in Niger, no western power questioned the government’s handling of droughts. A victim of western vilification, it was easy fro Mugabe to attract support and sympathy from anti-western governments like China.
China in recent years constitutes another reliable source of Mugabe’s power and inspiration. Shunning the west, Mugabe became the frontline champion of a “look east” policy to spite the west. “Zimbabwe is very much looking east and there is no turning back” declared Mugabe. New economic, diplomatic and military treaties between China and Zimbabwe serve as Mugabe’s safety valve against western pressure. China has consistently restrained the UN from taking any action on Mugabe. China also constitutes the main supplier of Zimbabwe’s military hardware which Mugabe uses to equip his army and security forces to keep the opposition in check. Sheltering under Chinese diplomatic and economic cover, Mugabe’s “new-found” ally serves to enhance his power especially as China proves to be a reliable alternative to the west.
One regional body that has never faltered in its support for Mugabe is SADC. With a common history of land deprivation under colonial rule, the member countries of SADC have always considered the land struggle in Zimbabwe as a colonial hang-over. At the 20th summit of SADC leaders, its chairman Joachim Chisano observed that there was a tendency to put a “blanket” over the history of the freedom struggle. In solidarity with Mugabe, Chisano threw the weight of SADC leadership behind Mugabe and he suggested that the entire region should close ranks. SADC was among the first bodies to draw attention to the effects of the ZDB on Zimbabweans. This body has also made repeated calls for the US to refrain from interfering in the domestic affairs of Zimbabwe.
The list of queries levied against Mugabe by the west is very long. Election rigging, suppression of the opposition and free speech, unequal and partisan land redistribution, poor handling of droughts and Mugabe’s involvement in the Congo his clean up campaign or operation marumbastsvina, lavish spending on war Veterans are among some of them. Suffice it here to indicate that these are normal characteristics of post-colonial Africa as recently proven in Kenya. Secondly, these charges did not emerge when Mugabe was dancing the dance of the Lancaster Constitution, when relations between Mugabe and the west were still good, when western universities were showering Mugabe with honorary doctorates.
What Zimbabwe needs today is not what goes by the name of “targeted sanctions.” Zimbabweans do not need hypocrisy or propaganda or double standards. Zimbabweans need urgent and real attention from the international community. The entire world and all stakeholders in Zimbabwe need to re-examine their consciences (if at all they have any left). The UN, EU, Britain, US, SADC, AU, China and Mugabe himself have to address the problem in Zimbabwe in an equitable manner and rescue this country from slipping into further chaos. The upcoming 2008 presidential elections is a rare opportunity for these stakeholders in Zimbabwe to prove their worth and sense of responsibility towards these suffering masses.
Frustrated by countless attempts to topple Mugabe’s government, the west is adopting a “wait-and-see” attitude, or perhaps hoping for Mugabe’s death. Mugabe will leave power sooner or later. Everyone ends up leaving power voluntarily or involuntarily. But what is important is the legacy we leave for posterity. It might not be for our generation to judge, but someone, someday has to prove the truth of these words of Mr. Mugabe. “If there may be trouble with the Zimbabwe land redistribution policy, let it be my day so that future generations of Zimbabwe may live in peace.”
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