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Mugabe: Out of touch, but in control
*Patrick Laurence
May 30, 2004

This article was originally published on page 9 of The Sunday Independent on May 30, 2004

Scrutiny of the full text of this week's Sky News interview with Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe compels the reader to the conclusion that the veteran politician is describing a society that exists in his mind, not the actual polity over which he has presided for nearly half a century.

The question arises whether the 80-year-old Mugabe:

• Refuses to publicly acknowledge the almost ubiquitous signs of oppression and distress in Zimbabwe as a political stratagem calculated to mislead television viewers and disrupt the interviewer; or
• Really believes that what he says accurately portrays the state of the postcolonial nation, of which he emerged in 1980 as the founding father after a long struggle against the white settler government.

The contrasting interpretations of Mugabe as a deliberate propagandist and as an ageing politician who has taken refugee in denial are not necessarily exclusive, however. The best propagandists are those who believe their own denials.

Mugabe's opening statement is illuminating. It addresses the question of whether the time has arrived for substantive negotiations between the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (Zanu-PF) and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).

"Well, if there is business to negotiate about we will welcome negotiations," he replies blandly. "But if there is no business, I don't see why we should talk about negotiations."

These two sentences set the scene for his depiction of Zimbabwe as an established democracy, in which Zanu-PF fulfils its function of governing the country while the MDC discharges its opposition role by monitoring and criticising government policy "in the normal way".

Mugabe offers no comment - until prodded by further questioning - on the fierce contestation over his re-election in the presidential poll of March 2002, despite grave doubts in many world capitals about whether the election was free and fair.

Mugabe utters not a word on the indictment of MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai on charges of treason; nor, significantly, on the dismissal of charges for lack of evidence against two of Tsvangirai's co-accused, MDC general secretary Welshman Ncube and MDC parliamentarian Renson Gasela, in August last year.

It should be noted in parenthesis that the rejection of the case against Ncube and Gasela gives credence to the MDC belief that the arraignment of Tsvangirai is a political manoeuvre to discredit him and promote Mugabe as a potential victim of assassins, and thereby neutralise his image in some international quarters as a sponsor of state violence.

The fiercely contested election result - which was condemned by at least two African observer missions, those of Ghana and the Southern African Development Community parliamentary forum - sustains neither Mugabe's depiction of democratic normalcy in Zimbabwe nor his description of the dissenting voices on the 2002 election as "the voice of Europe", of British Prime Minister Tony Blair and United States President George Bush.

The treason trial of Tsvangirai and the MDC's court application for the 2002 presidential election to be declared null and void juxtapose uncomfortably with Mugabe's image of Zimbabwe as a "normal" democracy.

"We are very faithful to our democratic system," Mugabe insists in the Sky News interview. His explanation for the early closing of the polls in Harare - an MDC stronghold - on the third day of voting in the 2002 election is unconvincing.

He presents it as a measure to thwart MDC voters "trying to vote again in large numbers". It fails to explain how the supposed aspirant fraudulent voters planned to circumvent the preventive measures against double voting and why several observer missions reported that the polling booths were closed while many people were waiting to cast their votes for the first time.

The recurring reports of violent attacks on MDC members by Zanu-PF zealots, including the "war veterans" and the youth militia, is raised in the interview, only to be denied by Mugabe, euphemised as minor scuffles and justified as retaliation against MDC assailants.

In an apparent attempt to deflect blame on to the MDC, Mugabe charges that MDC loyalists went to a recent by-election in Lupane armed with axes and spears, even though police armed with firearms protected the polling station.

In the next breath, presumably to give substance to his presentation of the MDC as the aggressor, Mugabe cites the recent episode in Zimbabwe's parliament when white MDC stalwart Roy Bennett knocked Zanu-PF's Patrick Chinamasa to the ground, as if pushing and shoving and even punching can be compared to murderous attacks by Zanu-PF documented in the 2004 Amnesty International report.

Mugabe indulges in a similar exercise when, again in response to a question about attacks by Zanu-PF militants on political opponents, he refers to the punching of a protester by British Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott during Britain's 2001 general election campaign.

"The deputy prime minister beats a person, boxes a person and that person falls down," Mugabe exclaims, raising his clinched fist in the air as he demands to know whether "that is more acceptable than the violence of a small group [of Zanu-PF activists] that must just be mistaken in its own belief that violence will work".

Mugabe's bid to shift the blame for violence in Zimbabwe on to the MDC and to trivialise it when Zanu-PF is at fault should be set against a few extracts from the latest Amnesty International report.

"There was an escalation in state-sponsored attacks on critics of the government, particularly supporters of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change," the report states.

"The perpetrators of human rights violations continued to enjoy impunity and allegations against state agents remained without investigation. The majority of the abuses were committed by ruling party supporters and police, security and army officers against opposition supporters."

On the question of freedom of association and assembly, the report adds: "Police arrested hundreds of activists, including trade union leaders and civil society leaders, following a number of peaceful protests."

The interview includes an exchange on an issue of crucial importance to Zimbabwe: the government's insistence that the country is poised to harvest a record 2,3 million tons of maize and its concomitant rejection of food aid from the United Nations-linked World Food Programme (WFP).

In direct contradiction of the government's optimism, the WFP notes that Zimbabwe's poor harvests in 2002 and 2003 left "millions of people in need of food assistance".

"While the number of people in need of assistance has dropped from a peak of over 7 million in the early months of 2003, hundreds of thousands of the most vulnerable Zimbabweans still require food assistance in May and June of 2004."

Mugabe, however, dismisses the WFP's sombre appraisal. He insists that Zimbabwe will harvest more than enough to feed all its citizens.

His declaration sets to naught concerns over the disruption to agricultural production caused by the seizure of white-owned farms and the occupation of these farms by an assortment of peasants, war veterans and Zanu-PF notables with little or no experience of large-scale commercial farming.

"We are not hungry," Mugabe exclaims. "It [the WFP] should go to hungrier people, hungrier countries than ourselves. They need food. We urge [the WFP] to go and do good work there."

There are growing suspicions that the predicted bumper harvest is a product of the Zanu-PF propaganda machine, the more so as it has suddenly become headline news.

A supplementary suspicion is that it is part of a stratagem to ensure that Zanu-PF has complete control of maize supplies to increase its patronage and thereby its leverage over the electorate for the forthcoming parliamentary elections.

One of the problems for Zanu-PF of accepting UN food aid is the condition that it should be distributed by non-governmental organisations appointed by the UN.

As Africa Confidential (May 14) explains: "The government's order to a UN crop assessment team to leave the country last weekend is part of its strategy to maintain tight control over food supply and score a resounding win in the coming parliamentary elections.

"The order effectively blocks UN and European preparations to provide food aid to more than 5 million people this year."

From another perspective, it can be concluded that the Zanu-PF government has put its political survival ahead of the welfare of the people, even if it means hunger, if not starvation, for citizens suspected of supporting the MDC.

Zanu-PF baron Abednigo Ncube foreshadowed the strategy in an earlier statement to villagers in Matabeleland: "You have to vote for Zanu-PF candidates before the government starts rethinking your entitlement to food aid."

There is an element of irascible malice in Mugabe's comments on emeritus Anglican archbishop of Cape Town Desmond Tutu ("an angry, evil and embittered little bishop") and the Catholic archbishop of Bulawayo Pius Ncube ("He thinks he is holy but he tells lies all day, every day").

But it would be a mistake to dismiss Mugabe as an embittered old man in denial about his culpability for the parlous state of Zimbabwe.

He is too calculating to be typified as a politician reduced to mere petty vindictiveness in his dotage.

* Patrick Laurence is the editor of Focus, the journal of the Helen Suzman Foundation

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