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Transcript
of 'Hot Seat' interview with Jenni Williams, Chenjerai Hove &
Stan Mukasa - Part 2
Violet Gonda, SW Radio Africa
June 19, 2007
http://swradioafrica.com/pages/hotseat210607.htm
On the programme
Hot Seat, journalist Violet Gonda talks to human rights campaigner
Jenni Williams, poet and writer Chenjerai Hove and political commentator
Professor Stanford Mukasa
Read
Part 1 of this interview.
Violet:
And we welcome again on the programme are Jenni Williams
from WOZA,
Chenjerai Hove a poet and writer and Professor Stanford Mukasa,
a political commentator. We continue from last week where Jenni
ended by saying there is no common vision and no dialogue amongst
the pro-democracy groups. She said Opposition and some of the civic
groups have not shown commitment to a non violent campaign like
her group. I then asked Jenni to explain this further.
Just how different
are your forms of resistance as the MDC and the NCA have embarked
on similar protests?
Jenni Williams:
It's committed to a sustained non violent campaign and to
not mobilise for an event, a protest, but to mobilise people to
a non violent struggle and there I agree precisely with Professor
Mukasa. It's to mobilise people on a daily basis, develop
forms of resistance that they and their family and friends can be
involved in. To help build that courage in them on a day to day
basis, and, while they are building that courage you then take them
out into high risk demonstrations, they then come back from that,
they evaluate how did they behave, how did they overcome their fear.
Take them back into other forms smaller, flyering, engaging with
police officers, street dramas; many different things that help
people develop their courage level and engage in a daily struggle
rather than just an event. There is the difference.
Violet:
Now, let me go to Mr Hove and the issue of elections. Should
the MDC participate in elections next year because, as Jenni said
earlier, either way elections are going to happen next year and
Mugabe may even push them forward. Now the MDC has said they will
not participate if their demands are not met. But, if the MDC don't
participate in elections, small parties will participate like what
we have seen in Zaka East where there was a low turnout but elections
still took place and these small parties participated in those elections.
So is this a lose / lose situation for the Opposition?
Chenjerai Hove
: Well, what Mugabe actually wants at the moment is to have an election
during which the MDC itself is fragmented into two factions; the
other civic organisations are also on their own on little constituencies
and without any united force. He wants to have the elections in
that sort of situation as quickly as possible. And of course, that
is another strategy; there are so many ways of rigging elections
and that's one of the strategies. He might call an election
tomorrow and fairly and squarely, without all these organisations
coming together, the Opposition will lose. So, we have to realise
that elections can be called but if the Opposition, all the civic
organisations and politicians - this is no longer a political
agenda - it's a social movement which must come to the front
and be able to present an agenda and be able to even include non
political, non politician candidates. So that this regime cannot
be removed by fragmented institutions and organisations. So, and
Mugabe would want them to be as fragmented as possible and this
is one of our problems, we tend to rely too much on our fiefdoms
instead of sitting down among the Opposition and say 'listen,
let's sit down and talk about violence, about these things,
about how do we overcome this problem'. So people are shouting
at each other from different windows and no orchestra happens.
Violet:
And what about on the issue of strategies for civil disobedience?
What about the actions that have been taken by WOZA activists? Do
you think that this is a sign that there will be a kind of a vicious
revolt from the grassroots movement?
Chenjerai Hove:
It could be. You see, WOZA have been very creative in what they
have been doing but my fear is that the whole nation now has lost
patience and I wouldn't rule out the possibility of an uncontrolled
eruption of violence especially from young people who have no jobs,
who have qualifications and who have been to school. So that could
be a very, very dangerous possibility.
Violet:
Because also, you have to ask, and Jenni was talking about
the other groups not committing themselves to, you know, non violent
strategies. But what do you do when you have a violent police force,
violent soldiers who are actually the perpetrators. How do you respond
in a situation like that?
Chenjerai Hove
: So for me, it is very difficult for any organisation in Zimbabwe
at the moment to guarantee that there will not be any violence.
If a police man pops in at my house and beats me in my house, I
cannot just sit down and say 'OK, you know, I'm non
violent, I sit down' so, it's a violent situation which
breeds more violence from people who respond. So it's a very
difficult, it's a very volatile situation and . . . (interrupted)
Jenni Williams
: But that is why we are in this mess because people keep saying
things that. It is not going to work. You cannot answer Mugabe with
violence. You can expose and make it clear . . . (interrupted)
Chenjerai Hove:
No, no, no, I'm saying . . . (interrupted)
Jenni Williams:
. . . and you can ask that police officer to examine how he is
living his day to day life. Do his children go to school? Does he
have food in his house? And that is the most powerful lobbying tool
that WOZA has and it works! We are alive today because it works
and other people need to genuinely try it. I am not saying it's
the only solution, I'm saying people need to collectively
and committed, genuinely try it! I don't believe that I have
still managed to get as unscathed as I am and it is a surprise to
me when I made bail on Saturday because I keep on thinking that
this might be the time I will come out of custody through a hospital
in a critical condition. But works is the constant telling the truth
and asking people to say 'examine your personal life, examine
how you are being used and what future you have. And, that is what
works; tell people the truth and get them to speak about it. And
I think people need to keep doing that and do it more genuinely,
rather than saying 'ah, if you come into my house with your
baton sticks I will beat you back'. Violence only begets violence
and it's a cycle of destruction. We've tried that and
Zimbabwe was born out of violence, let's try a Zimbabwe born
out of non violence and love and maybe that will bring us a future.
Violet:
Mr Hove?
Chenjerai Hove:
Yes, I am saying that a situation which is volatile like that is
very unpredictable. That the way people respond to a violent situation,
a violent police assault is unpredictable because people have been
subjected to so much violence over the years. Look at what happened
in South Africa . In the end there was just lawlessness in the streets;
people began to say 'I don't have to respect any law'
because of the violence which was inflicted on people. So, what
I'm saying is that even those organisations like WOZA , OK
non-violence, but where is the dialogue with the other organisations?
Let's sit down seriously and share spaces; political spaces;
and say 'OK, we have our vision, this is our vision, what
shall we do?' If MDC people are arrested and WOZA people stay
at home and they don't demonstrate. WOZA arrested, MDC people
or NCA people stay at home, there is no common vision and there
is no common strategy. So there should be a lot of dialogue among
the organisations themselves. I think we are lacking a lot of dialogue
and negotiation, even among people who agree on basic principles.
Dialogue is a must.
Violet:
And Professor Mukasa, what are the implications, for example of
the WOZA strategy of non violence if it is maintained?
Professor Stanford
Mukasa: Ya, non-violence can work if it is sustained over a period
of time and if it is planned. I like the idea of Martin Luther King
one time once said 'look, let us fill those jails'.
Can you imagine a situation where thousands of people will go to
be jailed and will then say 'OK, arrest me', you will
overwhelm the police. There is a myth in the sense that the police
are all too powerful because they carry weapons. Power really lies
in the people. One thing I can tell you right now is even the police
themselves are afraid of people. Can you imagine a situation where
lets say 500 police are confronted by 10 000 masses you know. So
power is relative to the kind of strength you bring to the table
as I keep saying. So I subscribe to the idea of non violence as
long as it is sustained and it is systematic and it is part of the
culture in other words. There are many strategies that you can do
non violently that can overwhelm the enemy, the police force. And,
of course, removal of the fear factor is a very important strategy.
If we go in large numbers, if we sustain our approach, at some point,
at some point, even the police themselves are going to start questioning
themselves, I mean, you know, their strategies.
So, you can
actually disarm, you can weaken this military strength, this military
power base that Mugabe has by just overwhelming them and this is
what Martin Luther meant by saying 'let's fill those
jails, let's overwhelm them with our non violence'.
Actually, non violence can actually be very overwhelming because
one power that Zimbabweans have is power in numbers. You are looking
at a population of about 12 million people. That's power in
itself even though none of them has got a gun or has got a weapon
or so. That can be very overwhelming and I think that has not been
fully exploited, the way I see it right now. If you demonstrate
in drips and drabs, you know you have got a few people who do hit
and run demonstrations, of course they are going to be overwhelmed
by the military power. But, if you can; and I think Mugabe recognises
this; that Zimbabweans are so angry at this point that they are
capable of mounting a major non violent campaign and overwhelming
him. Because, the police are also human beings, when they are holding
those guns and they are hitting people, they are banking on people
not responding in terms of overwhelming them in their non violent
campaigns.
And, I was just
reading with interest the WOZA women who stormed the Bulawayo Central.
Now can you imagine storming a military base, because that's
what Bulawayo Central is now: a military base! Can you imagine that
happening? The fact that they stormed and they were in such large
numbers, I don't know if it was 200 or 1000 but as more and
more people become part of this non violent campaign, they are going
to wield so much, you see there's power in non violence. They
are going to wield so much power that they are going to overwhelm,
you know, the other party.
I want to comment
briefly on your question that you asked, that the MDC - should the
Opposition participate in the elections next year. My question is
the environment for peaceful, for free and fair elections does not
exist. At this point, instead of planning for participating in elections,
they should be planning on developing their power structures, their
campaigns, their non violent plans, that's what they should
focus on right now, organising themselves, dialoguing among themselves.
And, I agree that there is not enough dialogue among the Opposition
membership. They don't necessarily have to unite into one
party as such. But, at least they can form a broad alliance; a coalition;
that can co-ordinate all these other activities so that any time
there's a demonstration, anytime anybody is imprisoned the
whole nation must be involved.
I sometimes
feel concerned that maybe a member of WOZA is imprisoned, or maybe
a member of MDC imprisoned and, you know, there are no statements
made by other parties; they just keep quiet. It's almost like
a 'they and us' attitude that exists. I think it should
be 'one for all and all for one'. That kind of coming
together as one huge critical mass; that can actually overwhelm
Mugabe and I think Mugabe is afraid of that. But he is banking on
the fear factor. As long as he rules on basis of - you see, the
fear is actually his strength, that is not the weapons that we give
him, it's the fear that Zimbabweans have and I keep going
back to the same old strategy that let's have the kind of
leadership that will unite all the people. Not organically as such,
but unite them in purpose and in terms of moving forward towards
a sustained campaign against Mugabe. That is what will ultimately
wear Mugabe down. But certainly, the environment for elections does
not exist now and the Opposition movement should spend more of their
resources strengthening themselves, strengthening the powerbase
of the civil society, because, Mugabe has not yet got the message.
You know, he is a spoilt kid and he does not take these talks seriously.
Merely coming to the table will not resolve anything at all because
Mugabe has got his own agenda of those talks and so just because
he ultimately agreed to come to the table will not solve anything
at all.
Violet:
And Jenni your group, as Professor Mukasa has just said,
you have started handing yourselves in, in solidarity with arrested
colleagues in the police stations. 150 women handed themselves in
at Filabusi police station and then another 80 handed themselves
in in Bulawayo . Is this now become part of your multi faceted resistance
plan?
Jenni Williams
: It isn't something that just started now. I remember last
year I was given 24 hours to hand myself in or face criminalisation
in the press and I went and handed myself in. This time I'm
on a hit list and I go and hand myself in. This is not something
we have started now, in fact the strategy and the tactics and the
responding tactics have progressed further. If you look at our 2005
you will see that we had large amounts of people willing to be arrested
because we had removed the fear of arrest from our membership. And
then, on the other hand, we were being taken to court and faced
a lot of trials. We won all those trials. So, the police, looking
at the embarrassment of huge amounts of women in custody and the
fact that they were losing trials, have now come up with a tactic.
Their tactic is beat us in the streets and this started in November
last year, if you look at the 29 th of November. That's their
tactic to respond to our strategy of arrest us and let us make the
injustices visible. We now recognise that even in our - it worked
in Insiza; it did not work in Bulawayo ; over 80 of us actually
were outside Bulawayo Central Police Station and forcing our way
in. I knocked at the door, a huge door, myself and said 'here
we are, we've come to hand ourselves in', and they said
'no ways are you doing that', and their responding tactic
was to pull me out of the queue. They told us to make three lines
which we politely did; we are quite law abiding and polite you know,
and they pilled me out of the queue - Magodonga (Mahlangu) happened
to be in front of me so she came. That was their tactic to just
arrest who they wanted and beat the rest so they went away. We now
have to, in these next few days, come up with another tactic to
respond, because it isn't now a matter of filling the jails.
We've done that, we've been that trip, they are beating
us now to stop us filling the jails. We now need to re-strategise
and that's the challenge that is before us as the leadership
right now.
Violet:
I understand that in Filabusi, Insiza police got tired of writing
down the names of the 150 women, that they ended up saying 'they
are tired' and then released the women because there were
too many women that handed themselves in?
Jenni Williams:
Ya, and we've seen that scenario playing out in Bulawayo .
In Insiza the programmes are running much slower than they are running
in Bulawayo and the response of the police is also much slower.
So, what we saw in Insiza, we had already been seeing playing out
in our demonstrations here in Bulawayo since 2005 and in Harare
since 2005. There, people just; the police just got tired of recording
peoples' names. So it's just an interesting development
and we have to just continue to evolve and find ways to with responding
tactics to their tactics. I think maybe what I also would like to
really mention, civil disobedience and resistance to Mugabe - non
violent resistance to Mugabe - is not only about what you do, it's
also about what you refuse to do.
And, yes, there
will be an election called. We need to consult, we need to go all
around the country. We need to talk to Zimbabweans and say: "Right
now, if nothing changes and there is Amendment 18 in place and MDC
is still sitting in Jo'burg trying to be involved in talks,
is there any reason for you to walk into the ballot box? Is there
something that you will get from an election that can help you to
put food in your child's mouth?" And, we need to be
able to ask those questions, we need to come up with an answer.
We had a boycott of the Senate elections, a very successful campaign
that we ran as WOZA, no one else ran a campaign like that except
us. And so, those sorts of things also have to be looked at. There
are 198 methods of resistance and you have to explore and utilise
all of them simultaneously.
Violet:
Professor Mukasa, what are your thoughts on this, and also,
as a follow up to what Jenni said about boycotting elections. Will
it really make any difference to ZANU PF if the MDC boycotted the
elections? As I said before, we saw what happened in Zaka East;
ZANU PF still went ahead with the by election and even small parties
participated.
Professor Stanford
Mukasa: As I was listening to you saying that, my question was 'so
what?' So what if there are thousands of other small parties
that participated after a national boycott of elections? So what?
What will it change? I have heard this, that 'well, if we
don't participate other small parties will participate and
therefore the international community is likely to recognise the
elections as legitimate.' You know, that's a load of
bull, pardon my language here, you know, it's not going to
change anything at all. Mugabe himself knows that an election where
MDC does not participate will lead to nothing; nothing at all where
the Opposition Movement does not participate will not bring him
the kind of result that he needs. We had the same thing with Ian
Smith when he tried to organise, you know through the Internal Settlement
that excluded ZAPU and ZANU PF. After those elections the situation
never changed at all and Mugabe knows that. He knows that without
the MDC participation his election will be a sham.
If MDC goes
ahead and participates in the elections without those absolute iron
clad guarantees that the elections will be free and fair, that there
will be a return to the Rule of Law; without all this and if MDC
participates then they will be playing into the hands of Mugabe.
Because, that is what Mugabe needs; to tell the whole world that
everybody participated in these elections and that is my answer.
So I wouldn't lose sleep that there are thousands of other
small parties that participated. Nobody is going to recognise that
because the Opposition now has gained international recognition
and, they know; just like in the case of ZAPU and ZANU, that without
their participation in those elections, those elections are going
to be a very big sham. Right now, if MDC were to say we are not
going to participate in those elections unless they are free and
fair; unless certain guarantees are assured, unless there's
international supervision; if they say that today, you can be very
sure that Mugabe is going to be worried about those elections.
JenniWilliams:
Violet, I also just want to make a clarification there.
Violet:
OK
Jenni Williams:
You cannot call what happened in Zaka East a boycott. Because a
boycott without mobilisation is not a boycott. There has to be mobilisation
and advocacy around certain issues and that is a campaign. Just
not going into something is not necessarily a non-violent campaign
and not a form of civil resistance and disobedience. You have to
mobilise and advocate. We have only heard that ZANU are very busy
already on their campaigning, not only in rural areas but also in
urban areas. We have already confirmed in Pumula, just here in Bulawayo,
they were going door to door and insisting on people taking cards;
those that didn't take cards were told 'you won't
get food, you won't get housing'. So, we know that campaign
is already rolling out but we also know one other thing; they have
already created a rigging system and an unfree playing field by
extending the constituencies. Now, not only does Insiza have to
contend with an Andrew Langa running for ZANU PF, but they are going
to give space to Sithembiso Nyoni and Malaike Nkomo who is in Insiza.
That is the sort of unfair playing field that ZANU has already in
place. So, if suddenly, there are assurances without a change in
the delimitation process, in the voters roll process, it's
still not going to be something that MDC should consider running
for because they will still not be playing a fair game.
Violet:
And finally, Mr Hove, what are your thoughts on what we've
been discussing? People say that things don't work if you
follow the same strategies and that the two MDC's can participate
in the Mbeki led negotiations but that they should have their own
cut off point. Now, what are your final thoughts on this and is
there now a need for a dramatic shift in the politics of confrontation?
Chenjerai Hove:
Yes, there is a need for the utilisation of a multiplicity of strategies
and the negotiations are fine and good but it depends on what the
MDC groupings take to the negotiations. They can't go there
empty handed. They have to go there with a multiplicity of strategies
and say 'we are prepared to negotiate if these negotiations
are based on this and this and that, and this is not being met,
we are prepared to be with our partners, be able to do A,B,C, D.'
So it's really a matter of re-thinking the strategies and
also re-working and re-imagining and re-shaping certain things that
have happened before.
Violet:
And since Mugabe is carrying on as if there are no negotiations
or talks, when should the MDC say enough is enough, they are throwing
in the towel and they are not going to go ahead with this charade?
Chenjerai Hove:
They should just go in there and say to President Mbeki 'listen,
this man is pretending that these negotiations are not happening
and continuing to torture people, continuing to imprison people,
and, while this is continuing, we cannot continue to negotiate with
this man and his colleagues'. I mean look at Chinamasa? What
is Chinamasa's baggage when he goes to negotiate? Chinamasa
was the Attorney General and at that time the State never won any
big cases which were taken against the State. He is a poor lawyer,
he is a poor negotiator, he is a man who the President appoints
to negotiate when he knows that he is a weak man. Listen, Mugabe's
strategy is that he appoints you to do things when you are in the
weakest position. I mean, what decision can Chinamasa make in the
negotiations which Mugabe will take? Chinamasa is not a big guy
in ZANU PF in terms of the power politics of the country. You don't
put weak people there if you are serious. This is a farce; it's
a tragic farce actually, or a tragic comedy.
Violet
Gonda: Ok and I'm afraid I have to end here. Thank
you very much Jenni Williams, Chenjerai Hove and Professor Stanford
Mukasa.
Audio interview
can be heard on SW Radio Africa 's Hot Seat programme (19
June 07). Comments and feedback can be emailed to violet@swradioafrica.com
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