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Things are going to get much, much tougher
Stephanie Nolen, The Globe and Mail
March 22, 2007

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/freeheadlines/

JOHANNESBURG -- It's going to get much worse before it gets better. That is the analysis of human-rights and democracy campaigners in Zimbabwe, who are reeling from a savage crackdown by security services over the past 10 days but trying to shore up popular support for sustained opposition to the brutal regime of Robert Mugabe.

"Things are going to get much, much tougher before there is some light at the end of the tunnel," Reginald Machaba-Hove, head of the Zimbabwe Election Support Network and one of the country's leading human-rights campaigners, said by telephone from Harare.

"There will be more violence, and not necessarily violence associated with a known arm of state, not just police beating people. We are going to see more of what started this week, with men, not in uniforms but plain in grey suits and unmarked cars, beating people."

Seven years into the crisis in Zimbabwe, with inflation at 1,400 per cent and the country totally isolated by international sanctions, it is easy to think an eruption must be coming. "I know it's hard to believe things could get worse," Dr. Machaba-Hove said grimly. "But this is just the start of a long process."

When police opened fire at an opposition prayer meeting on March 11, killing one young man and injuring 13 other people, and then brutally beat key leaders of the opposition, leading to gory pictures splashed in the international news, many observers began to predict that change in Zimbabwe was imminent. But within the country, few people see it that way.

"Most people here don't see change coming," a senior opposition strategist told The Globe and Mail. "You're not going to see an uprising soon. Thousands of people aren't going to storm parliament; they know they'll get shot and killed if they do."

This is perhaps the most significant among the many factors standing in the way of a mass uprising: Zimbabweans have an entirely reasonable fear of savage repression by the government. Mr. Mugabe's regime has shown it is more than willing to use brutal force; it has withheld food aid from perceived opponents in the midst of a harsh drought and left 750,000 people homeless in 2005 when it demolished whole neighbourhoods that had not voted for him. The memory of Mr. Mugabe's actions in Matebeleland in the 1980s, when he oversaw the murders by security forces of 20,000 Ndebele people whom he saw as opponents, is still fresh in Zimbabwe.

"This is not even close to what they're prepared to do to stay in power. People seem to forget what this government, what this man, is capable of," the opposition strategist said. "And the people around him now are the same people who were around him when he did Matebeleland."

Lack of leadership is another problem. The main opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change, is badly divided. The leader of the larger faction, Morgan Tsvingirai, received a boost in his credibility after having his skull fractured by police last week, but he has not proved able to unite or effectively lead the opposition.

The demonstrations on March 11 were organized by a new Save Zimbabwe Campaign, a joint effort of the political opposition, church groups and civil society organizations. As a body, however, it does not yet have widespread grassroots support.

And at the same time, the great majority of Zimbabweans are preoccupied with survival, not organized politics. A quarter of adults in the country are living with HIV/AIDS, and the national treatment program is in a shambles. With inflation tipped to reach 4,000 per cent by year end, it is nearly impossible to farm, buy basic supplies, operate a business, keep children in school or even eat.

Activists in Zimbabwe say a key factor to watch is whether the coalition and other opposition to the regime can, given all those factors, manage to maintain the recent momentum, and organize more successful demonstrations in the days and weeks to come.

"Next weekend you should see demonstrations starting," said Lovemore Madhuku, chair of the National Constitutional Assembly, who was illegally detained last week and suffered head wounds and a broken arm as a result of beatings in police custody. "The momentum cannot be taken down. The regime hopes that they will silence people, but the causes of discontent are only worsening."

The opposition hopes demonstrations will not only put pressure on the regime but keep the issue squarely in front of the key regional players, particularly South Africa, which is believed to be the only country that can effectively broker an end to the crisis here. South African President Thabo Mbeki has insisted on a policy of "quiet diplomacy" to date, out of respect for Mr. Mugabe as a revolutionary hero (he led the fight that ended white rule in Zimbabwe in 1980, and was a key opponent of apartheid) and because the issue of white ownership of land in South Africa is also sensitive.

This past week, however, there were rare rumblings of discontent from South Africa (urging the Zimbabwean government to "respect human rights"), the African Union expressed concern about the police crackdown and the key regional leaders sent an envoy to meet with Mr. Mugabe. It's painfully little, Dr. Machaba-Hoves said, but still more of a vocal response than African leaders had made to date about the crisis in what was once the continent's most progressive state.

Activists in Zimbabwe believe the best hope for peaceful change is to put so much pressure on Mr. Mugabe, within the country and via third parties, that his own party, Zanu-PF, which is also badly divided, pushes him out, and then sits down with the opposition for real constitutional talks, leading to a coalition government.

The worst-case scenario, however, is that Mr. Mugabe and his remaining allies start to arm their supporters, leading to a violent civil conflict. Already this week, Mr. Mugabe imported 2,500 paramilitary officers from Angola to "help quell dissent."

Zimbabwe's political decline began in 2000, when Mr. Mugabe, now 83, began a politically driven land-redistribution program that seized white-owned commercial farms and handed them over to regime cronies, causing a once-flourishing economy to implode.

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