Back to Index

This article participates on the following special index pages:

Hope for a new Zimbabwe
Guardian
October 09, 2008

http://www.guardianweekly.co.uk/?page=editorial&id=757&catID=1

Talks between Robert Mugabe and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai are stalling as they clash over key posts in a power-sharing government. But the fact that the two parties are talking at all points to a long-awaited shift in the country's political crisis. Optimism is in the air, and two people who feel this particularly keenly are Briliant Dube and Clever Bere, leaders of the national students' union Zinasu, and outspoken opponents of Zanu-PF. They talk about how life in Zimbabwe is changing

Briliant Dube is vice-president of Zinasu, Zimbabwe's national students' union

Things for me as an individual in Zimbabwe have been really difficult. Getting food on the table, for instance. As part of the leadership of the students' union, I have received threats and seen the deaths of others with whom I was working closely. It has instilled a permanent fear in me.

It's in the nature of student activism in Zimbabwe at the moment that I really have to be active and in the forefront. I have to be part and parcel of any processes that are to do with our ideologies - in this case the ideologies of the MDC [opposition party Movement for Democratic Change]. As a union we are not meant to be partisan, but as an individual of course I am partisan: I support the MDC.

Before Robert Mugabe agreed to power-sharing talks with MDC's Morgan Tsvangirai, many of us in the students' union would be arrested and abducted. We became a target for Zanu-PF agents because of our sympathies with the opposition. There wasn't much we could do in the face of this. We couldn't complain to the police because the justice system was partisan and sympathetic to the Zanu-PF regime. When the threats escalated the only thing I could do was go into hiding for a while and hope that the Lord would protect me. Then, as soon as the political situation looked better, I would resurface. I always came back because I wanted to be useful to the cause of democracy.

At times the only way to carry on with our activism was to be brave and defy the laws made by Zanu-PF. They had ruled, for instance, that students were prohibited from gathering in groups to discuss things - we weren't even allowed to discuss general, non-political issues. As a student leader I would have to force myself to go out and see the other students, to address them and reassure them that we were still active.

Zanu-PF intelligence members have managed to infiltrate all the educational institutions in Zimbabwe. So when I went out to meet other students I could very quickly be arrested. On the rare occasions that we managed to mobilise students to demonstrate, we wouldn't be on the streets for more than 30 minutes before Zanu-PF agents came and pounced on us, armed with batons and guns.

I know that these demonstrations were dangerous and chaotic, but we had to do them. In the absence of any proper dialogue with the government it was all we had. Every time in the past that we have tried to bring up issues that affect us, the government has deflected the issue by calling us MDC puppets. For instance, some of us have thrown stones during demonstrations - it's hard not to when the police are coming at us, beating us and throwing teargas. But then, when we talk to the government, they don't want to talk about the issues we raise; they want to talk about the stones.

Now that Mugabe and Tsvangirai are talking to each other, we have hope that things will change. We hope there will be an opening to a democratic space where we can air our grievances without our human rights being violated. But we don't know whether the power-sharing deal is going to work out or not.

Clever Bere is the Zinasu president

With the power-sharing deal between Zanu-PF and the MDC I realise that a window of opportunity has opened. We are now moving away from the day-to-day politicking that took up so much of the time of the political players. It's not just a hopeful feeling of my own - the majority of Zimbabweans are optimistic too.

There might be a new spirit of change, but we also have to be vigilant. This is the time when we need to consolidate our gains. It's no longer about the two leaders, or about MDC and Zanu-PF: it's about the people of Zimbabwe. It is the desperate humanitarian crisis - no food, an HIV pandemic and lack of access to medicine - that requires the immediate attention of Mugabe and Tsvangirai.

Over recent years we at the students' union had become a target for the senior leadership of Zanu-PF and the state security agents. At the time I found it hard to imagine that the next day I'd still be alive. I was regularly tipped off by a reliable source that my name was on the hit list, which was disturbing. On a leadership level, however, this was something I expected to live with. My colleagues and I were aware of the possibility that we might not see the Zimbabwe we were fighting for. People were being killed around us all the time.

As the leader of the student groups there was a delicate balance that I had to adapt to. I had to represent the people's struggles, but at the same time I had to stay alive, so I couldn't expose myself too much.

The desperate situation that we went through between the first election on March 29 and the second on June 27 has changed - people can now move more freely. But there is still some violence going on and no one feels totally free. Some people are still harassed, some still killed, but the violence is not so brutal and pervasive as it was before.

Zimbabwe is an unpredictable society and things are changing quickly. Before, my role was to try to get the students' union to influence political decisions, to play the role of a thinktank and give the MDC moral support. Now our role has changed. We have to respond to current developments and focus on development policies. We have to work out how to assist the new administration in adopting people-driven, people-friendly policies on heath, education and the economy.

But over and above this role, we have to hold the government accountable for every cent it gets from taxpayers and international aid. We'll be keeping a close eye on them, and making sure that they follow what they agree in the power-sharing processes.

*Briliant Dube and Clever Bere were speaking to Anna Bruce-Lockhart. For more articles on Zimbabwe, visit our dedicated section on guardianweekly.co.uk

Please credit www.kubatana.net if you make use of material from this website. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License unless stated otherwise.

TOP