NOVEMBER 2004 NEWS: there has been a change in UK Zimbabwe Policy

 

 

 

COMMENTARY ON THE HOME OFFICE IND

ZIMBABWE ASSESSMENT APRIL 2001

with some comments on the US Department of State Zimbabwe report.  

(The Home Office Zimbabwe Assessment is attached at the end of this Commentary)

Both reports are essentially compilations of press cuttings with very little analysis. The only explanatory principle invoked is that the Zimbabwe Government is prepared to do whatever needs to be done to stay in power. But there is no analysis of why particular groups are seen as threats or what the consequences of action against them is for the Zimbabwean system as a whole. I found it disconcerting to be offered a 'bibliography' which included no books or articles.

Both reports reveal clearly that Zimbabwe is a dangerous place for many people. But this is not enough to be helpful in any particular asylum case because it is necessary to define which groups and classes of people are at particular risk. This the reports fail to do.

There is a close relationship between the two reports. There are many examples of identical wording. For example on page 3 of the Human Rights section of the Home Office report and on page 21 of the US report the same formula is applied to events in Matabeleland in the 1980s: 'The Shona-dominated Government suppressed a brief Ndebele insurgency … with a 5 year pacification campaign'.

I have chosen this particular sentence, which appears in both reports, to highlight their weaknesses of commission. (I come to their weaknesses of omission later).

This sentence reveals  the emphasis of both reports on 'ethnic' identity, and in particular on 'Shona' and 'Ndebele'. In the Home Office report it occurs in a section on the 'Ndebele' in a discussion of 'Ethnic Groups'. The material on the so-called ethnic groups is extremely misleading. Nothing further is said about the 'Shona' than that they constitute 82% of the population. There is no discussion of the so-called Shona dialect groups - the 'Korekore', the 'Manyika', the 'Zezuru', the 'Karanga' and so on. These identities have come to have considerable contemporary political significance. Nor does it make sense to say that the 'Ndebele' constitute 15% of the population and if you add the 'Kalanga' to 17%. The term 'Ndebele' has come to be an inclusive term for people who speak the language, most of whom are 'Kalanga' by descent. In short these terms are not ethnic but linguistic and cultural and are extremely fluid in their application. The way they are treated in the reports gives a spurious exactitude to so-called 'tribal' groupings. (Somehow the whites also become an ethnic group).

The point I am making is not a mere academic one. It is impossible to understand Zimbabwean politics today - or in the 1980s - in terms of 'the Ndebele' and 'the Shona'.  Thus it is quite untrue to say that there was 'a brief Ndebele insurgency' in the 1980s. (And massively inappropriate to say that it was 'pacified'). Most Ndebele-speakers refused to support the so-called 'dissidents' and were systematically abused by them. The confrontation was a political one - a deadly rivalry between ZANU/PF and ZAPU with ZANU/PF using the existence of a few hundred 'dissidents' to break ZAPU structures in Matabeleland.

It is even more true that an ethnic explanation does not make sense today. In 1987 ZANU/PF and ZAPU came together in the Unity Agreement. This meant that local government in Matabeleland was thereafter run by old ZAPU politicians, Ndebele-speakers to a man. The victories of the MDC in Bulawayo and in Matabeleland in July 2000 were certainly a challenge to the central state but they were more immediately a challenge to the dominance of old ZAPU, who were swept away in parliamentary constituencies and in elections for local councils.

The violence that is happening in Matabeleland today, therefore, is in no sense a 'Shona' attack on the 'Ndebele'. Its main instruments are Ndebele-speaking ex-guerrillas of Joshua Nkomo's army, ZIPRA, and even ex-dissidents from the 1980s. When they attack MDC supporters in Bulawayo they attack very many 'Shona': and in the rural areas they drive out Shona-speaking teachers, nurses and so on. They also attack and threaten thousands of Ndebele-speakers.

Some asylum applicants claim that because they are 'Ndebele' they are by definition at risk from the 'Shona'. This is not a claim that should be made or supported.

Similarly it is not true that the elections of last year displayed 'regionalism', as the report says on page 4 of its History section. Mugabe alleged this but Harare voted as overwhelmingly for the MDC as did Bulawayo.The MDC did as well in much of Manicaland in the east of the country as it did in rural Matabeleland in the west.

Another section of the Home Office report which is very misleading is its account of the land issue on page 11 of the Human Rights section. The first two paras give an objective view of the past. But the third para is a very incomplete account. No mention is made of the undertaking at Lancaster House to set up an international fund to enable the purchase of land. Nor is it true that the land resettlements of the early 1980s mainly benefited ministers and officials rather than peasant farmers. I have myself documented abuse of power by chefs in southern Matabeleland. But academic research, particularly that of Bill Kinsey, has shown that early resettlement exercises were largely successful in improving the economic position of the peasant settlers. These issues are not directly related to asylum (which is true of a number of other passages in the report) but they are inadequate.

The passage on the Referendum on page 2 of the History section, also not directly relevant to asylum claims, is nevertheless misleading. The Referendum was not mainly about land, as the paragraph suggests. It is true that Mugabe publicly attacked his Constitutional Commission for its stupidity in leaving out a land clause and thereupon added one himself. But the NO campaign against the proposed Constitution focussed much more on its departures from the well publicised desires of the public - which had been consulted all over the country - on questions related to the presidency, parliament, etc. Like its obsession with ethnicity, this report is too focussed on land.

It is also too focussed on whites. On page 4 of the Human Rights section the legislation on dual citizenship is discussed. The comment is that the legislation is aimed at whites. In fact it has become clear that those affected by the legislation will overwhelmingly be 'Malawian' and 'Mozambican' farm-workers. In the next paragraph it is remarked that war-veterans have invaded 'white-owned' businesses. There is no mention of the fact that Asian-owned and black-owned businesses have also been invaded. This omission can affect asylum applications, such as a recent submission by a black Zimbabwean civil servant whose business was attacked by veterans demanding a large down payment. An adjucator commented that this only happened to whites.

There are other statements in the report which do directly affect asylum applications. One of the most important of these is on page 2. It is stated that in July  1999 Mugabe expressed his regret for the actions of the Fifth Brigade and promised compensation. This is accurate. Mugabe did say these things. But one adjudicator used this information to discredit the story of an asylum seeker who said he had been part of a group formed in Matabeleland to ensure publicity for the actions of the Fifth Brigade, to publicise the 'Breaking The Silence' report and to lobby for compensation. The adjudicator said that he did not believe that the CIO had broken up the group and seized its leader because, after all, Mugabe had already admitted the outrages and offered recompense.

It is important to note, however, that since Mugabe's promises in October 1999 the official committee set up to collect names of those who should be compensated has been suspended. Its chairman resigned in protest, saying that the committee had received no funds or support. No lists have been published and no compensation has been paid.

Despite those earlier statements by Mugabe, the issue of the Fifth Brigade and of the 'Breaking the Silence' report, have become acutely dangerous and sensitive.

Earlier this year there was a storm over the supposed intention of the Daily News to serialise 'Breaking the Silence'. This was attacked by the state and by those

people in Matabeleland  it could mobilise as treasonable; David Coltart, who was mainly responsible for 'Breaking the Silence' and is now an MDC mp, is regularly attacked as a trouble-making agent of colonialism.

[Incidentally the Home Report rather oddly says that 'the mainly Shona Fifth Brigade was accused of committing atrocities', as though the accusations had not been abundantly proven]. 

There are various other statements which were either untrue or incomplete in April 2001 or have become so since. The section on religion on page 8 of the Human Rights section is an example. The Anglican Bishop of Harare certainly does not head the Zimbabwe Council of Churches and did not do so in April of this year when the diocese was without a bishop. The new Bishop of Harare, Kunonga, is a vastly controversial figure; a strong supporter of the government; and embroiled in vicious faction fighting with his opponents in the diocese.

It is not beyond the realms of possibility that there may be future asylum applications by Zimbabwean Anglicans fleeing the regime of the Bishop! Mugabe's attitude to 'indigenous' churches is not accurately described.

Indeed he praised the patriotism of the Masowe Apostles so highly during the burial of Border Gezi at Heroes Acre that prophets invited him to join their church!

However, it is time to turn to sins of omission which are more important than these inaccuracies. In my view, there are particularly three of these:

(10) One is that there is no discussion of the relationship between the government and the various Christian organisations, nor with other organs of Civil Society. There is much reference to the MDC but hardly any to the National Constitutional Assembly or the Zimbabwe Crisis Network.

Another is that there is little discussion of the politics of the towns. These are the electoral strongholds of the MDC and in recent months the government has been given defeat after defeat in Mayoral elections.

Mugabe has been trying despeately to avoid a Mayoral election in Harare but the Supreme Court has recently pronounced that one must be held.

These elections are the occasion of much violence - recently a march of war veterans, led by an ex-Minister of Home Affairs, marched on the City Hall in Bulawayo and ransacked the office of the elected MDC mayor.

Much of what is included in the report is to be understood as part of the government's attempt to win back support in the towns. That is the real motive behind the invasions of businesses by war veterans, who have been trying to undercut the Trade Union Congress - at the last May Day Rally the leader of the invasions, Chinotimba, made a speech simultaneously with that of the ZTUC President! Government has established commuter trains to the high-density suburbs. Troops have been deployed in the townships. This struggle for the towns is likely to give rise to many asylum applications: places like the squatter settlement at Epworth, outside Harare, are now among the most violent places in the country. Moreover, this urban violence means that people fleeing rural violence cannot safely seek refuge in the cities.

The third omission in the report refers to local rural government. What is going on in the rural areas of Zimbabwe has been announced by Mugabe himself as 'the third Chimurenga'. The war veterans and their collaborators have been let loose on the structures of the state in the rural areas in a kind of 'cultural revolution'.

During the 1970s guerrillas chased away District Commissioners; closed down schools and clinics; attacked rural Councils. In those days, of course, the institutions under attack were those of the Rhodesian state. Now, however, the same institutions are being assaulted despite the fact that they belong to the Zimbabwean state. A very important article about this process as it has operated in northern Matabeleland has been written by Dr JoAnn McGregor ( 'The Politics of Disruption: War veterans and the local state in Zimbabwe') and will appear in African Affairs.

Everywhere District and Provincial Administrators have been chased away; Council offices have been closed; local civil servants and teachers have been attacked. In sort, there is a general assault on the 'educated'. The Police stand by. Many individual asylum applications are arising from what must be seen as a general and intentional process. In this, as in many other ways, what is going on in Zimbabwe is more far-reaching than a mere party-political struggle. Mugabe is partly using violence in order to win the presidential election and partly using it to change the very character of the state he wishes to continue to lead.

Conclusion:

If these omissions were remedied and the focus on ethnicity, land and whites corrected, a new Home Office report could begin to reflect the actual processes which are going on in Zimbabwe. It would become increasingly clear that whites are not central to these processes. Whites no longer play a key role in church associations; their low-density suburbs in the cities are still unaffected by urban political violence; the 'Cultural Revolution' in the countryside is concerned with the black professional and educated classes. These processes are going to generate many more Zimbabwean asylum applicants.  

Terence Ranger

Emeritus Professor

St Antony's College

Oxford

December 2001