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Lessons learned from the stay away in Zimbabwe, June 9 & 10 2005
Amanda Atwood
June 16, 2005

"They Stayed Away from the Stay Away"

Zimbabweans are currently experiencing a massive government programme, Operation Murambatsvina, designed to clean out the urban areas and send hundreds of thousands of Zimbabweans back to their rural areas. The Operation is massive and inhumane, and is carried out against a backdrop of state repression and rapid economic decline. But even in the face of this horror, a recent opposition call for a Stay Away was poorly heeded, and many Zimbabweans are disappointed with the weak response to any of the pro-democracy groupings within the country. This paper examines the preparations that went into the Stay Away, and argues that, no matter how persuasive an action might appear, good planning and careful implementation are essential preconditions to the success of any mass action.

Background
On 18 May 2005, the Government of Zimbabwe launched Operation Murambatsvina. The state euphemistically translates this as Operation "Restore Order," but it is more accurately translated as "Operation Sweep Out Rubbish." The most accurate translation I have heard, in terms of the actual effect of the initiative, is "Operation Destroy Everything."

Ostensibly, this is a "clean up campaign," designed to "curb illegal traders, rationalise the informal business sector and legalise vending, market and housing infrastructure in both urban and rural areas." In reality, it has been a ruthless, reckless display of brute force on the part of a regime that is increasingly unpopular—and increasingly determined to stay in power by any means necessary.

Despite Zimbabwe’s closed media environment, there is local and international documentation of this exercise—visit for example: Kubatana [www.kubatana.net], Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights [http://www.zlhr.org.zw] and the BBC [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4101228.stm and affiliated stories]

The operation is ongoing, and human rights organisations are still assessing the damage. In the first phase of the initiative, hundreds of thousands of vendors from across the country had their stalls destroyed, their goods seized by members of the Zimbabwe Republic Police, and over 32,400 vendors were arrested. Formal sector unemployment in Zimbabwe is estimated at 70-80%. The vast majority of Zimbabwe’s estimated 12 million citizens do not have formal sector employment, and nor does any one else in their household. They depend on informal trading—independent selling of anything and everything from vegetables to crafts to electronic equipment in flea markets, "people’s markets" and roadside stalls—and on foreign currency sent to them by relatives working in the Diaspora. (The number of Zimbabweans in the Diaspora is estimated at 2-3 million.) There may have been some legitimacy in the argument that some of the vendors were indeed engaged in illegal dealings, and in some cases were operating inhygienically. But the enormity of the state’s "clean up" operation is disproportionate to the few instances of criminal behaviour that might have been found among the vendors. In cities and towns across the country, the vendors have been "swept up," despite the fact that the vast majority of these were honest people trying to make an honest living under extremely difficult circumstances. The most were vendors who had been licensed by the municipal authorities in the town where they operated, and were trading in designated vending sites. Across Zimbabwe there are areas of land which have signs over them: "This area has been designated as a People’s Market by order of the City of Harare, Bualawayo or Mutare," for example. Even traders in these areas were targeted and these "People’s Markets" have been closed down.

Having successfully swept up the vendors, the state turned to the "illegal dwellings" that many urban Zimbabweans call home. Over 21,000 such structures have already been destroyed, and the destruction is continuing. Police are currently in the midst of destroying shacks, wooden homes, brick houses—entire neighbourhoods, communities are being torn down, bulldozed and burnt. The police are moving systematically, one high-density area after the other, leaving rubble, fear and despair in their wake. There is no discussion, and no rationale. Even in cases where occupants have the papers from the municipal government legalising their structures, they are being destroyed. Even housing co-operatives that have been officially "opened" by municipal leaders or Ministers are being decimated.

The devastation is impossible to describe. It is a humanitarian crisis of massive proportions. As Zimbabwe enters its coldest months, entire communities are now living in the open, stranded, homeless and destitute as a result of their own government’s destruction. The implications on health, schooling, quality of life, safety, and even human survival are enormous. The entire process has been likened to a Pol Pot style cleansing of urban areas in an effort to send masses of people back to their rural homes to live peasant lives. At no point does the government explanation of what it is doing, or why, match the reality of what it is creating.

Confronting Operation Murambatsvina
In some instances, in individual high-density areas, vendors and residents have tried to resist the onslaught of Operation Murambatsvina. However, these efforts have seen poorly organised and poorly resourced individuals facing off with the well-armed, well-organised machinery of state repression. After several weeks of discussion both within their own organisations and collectively, the members of the "Broad Alliance"—Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU), Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition, Zimbabwe National Students Union (ZINASU) and the National Constitutional Assembly (NCA)—began to accept that there was a need for some sort of coordinated response to Operation Murambatsvina and the government’s continued abuse of power. After lengthy discussions and a series of changed plans, the Broad Alliance finally agreed to call for a Stay Away on Thursday and Friday 9 and 10 June.

In a statement issued in advance of the Stay Away, the Broad Alliance described itself as "a coalition of democratic forces who have decided to work together for the common goal of establishing a just, prosperous and democratic Zimbabwe." It announced that it was calling for the Stay Away in order for Zimbabweans to:

"…protest against the senselessness and insensitivity of this government in that:

1. It has destroyed peoples' homes.
2. It has destroyed the livelihood of millions of innocent people in the informal sector.
3. It continues to inflict misery on the people through economic mismanagement, which has led to the shortage of food, shortage of fuel, unemployment, transport problems, shortage of water and housing problems.
4. It refuses to accede to the demand for a democratic, people-driven constitution and instead seeks to amend the constitution and impose a senate on the people through a ZANU PF dominated parliament."

Despite the horrors of Operation Murambatsvina and the broader governance and economic crises Zimbabwe is currently experiencing, the Stay Away was poorly supported. Generous estimates put participation in Harare at 20%, and participation nation wide was probably significantly lower. The conditions appeared ideal for a successful mass action—a blatant, visible and immediate show of state brutality against a backdrop of repression and economic decline. Why was the Stay Away so poorly supported? An analysis of several factors involved in the preparation for the mass action help to explain this.

Appropriate Choice of Tactic: Little consultation was conducted with members of the general public or even with members of the organisations that comprise the Broad Alliance in advance of announcing the stay away. In Zimbabwe, fear is a significant obstacle to mass action that cannot be overemphasised. Many Zimbabweans are afraid of state repression, and of the state security forces. They are reluctant to take part in any action that might end in tear gas, beatings or arrest.

The strongest argument in favour of the Stay Away was that it seemed the least threatening option. However, this did not account for the fact that employees would be afraid to stay away and risk losing their job if their employer did not sanction the action, and the fact that some employers themselves feared their business would be targeted by the state—either violently or through increased investigation and surveillance—if they participated in the Stay Away while few others did. Also, some Zimbabweans questioned the effectiveness of a stay away as they doubted that the regime would "feel" the impact of it, or that it would achieve anything. To counter this, others admitted that a stay away in isolation would not achieve much, but cited the Stay Away as a first step—an initial action that would bring people together, demonstrate unity, build confidence and help to instigate the spirit of collective defiance that would be essential for the success of any future action. They argued that, if the Stay Away was successful, even the week immediately following would see a ramping up of actions at a local and national level. These actions however were not specified or announced.

This issue of fear must be overcome if Zimbabweans are ever going to effectively confront the regime and reclaim power from the state. However, this can only be overcome with a series of small actions that are appropriately chosen and carefully planned, so that they expose the weaknesses of the state and build the confidence of the people.

Leadership: This is probably the single most important factor responsible for the failure of the stay away. With it, many of the other shortcomings might have more easily addressed. Without it, even the potential strengths of the organisations within the Broad Alliance did not have a chance.

As one colleague said, if you had been in White Cliff, or Mabvuku, or Epworth, or any other neighbourhood while everyone’s home was being destroyed, and you had said "come, everyone, follow me, this is what we are going to do . . . " you could probably have been a Welsh lesbian violinist and people would have followed you. The Zimbabwean crisis at present is not a situation where leadership requires particular charisma or even popularity. But it does need clarity, courage and commitment. Unfortunately, the leaders of most of the organisations within the Broad Alliance did not demonstrate these characteristics in calling for the Stay Away.

The main organisations within the Broad Alliance, while agreeing that "something must be done," were reluctant to take responsibility for the call for a stay away. This largely seemed to be because they were afraid of government crack down on their organisations if they were seen to be advocating mass action. Also, both the ZCTU and the MDC are currently so fraught with their own internal discipline and leadership issues (possibly as a result of ruling party infiltration) that they are largely unable to give the time and commitment such a coordinated action would require. The Broad Alliance is unfamiliar to most Zimbabweans—the individual member organisations are well known, but the label of "Broad Alliance" is not one that most Zimbabweans are familiar with. When being called to action, most people want to know who is asking them to do something. They want to know if the initiative has credibility, if they think other people will support it, and if it has a chance of success. Thus, if the Stay Away was to take off, each member organisation of the Broad Alliance would have needed to clearly and openly associate itself with the action and claim responsibility for it.

The ZCTU consistently refused to associate itself with the stay away. A week before the stay away, members of the International Socialist Organisation (Zimbabwe) met with ZCTU President Lovemore Matombo to learn what the ZCTU had planned to protest Operation Murambatsvina, and to find out how they could work together. At that meeting, Matombo said he agreed that "something must be done" and that the ZCTU was committed to doing "something about it," but he could not be drawn to say what that might be. As mentioned above, the leadership of the ZCTU is currently embroiled in its own internal crisis, which is diverting a great deal of its attention. In the days before the mass action, one "faction" of the ZCTU prepared fliers on ZCTU letterhead dismissing the Stay Away and saying that the ZCTU did not support it and favoured dialogue instead. The other "faction" of the Stay Away—that had been in Broad Alliance meetings—did not give any directive to the ZCTU staff or its affiliate unions. Shop stewards and floor level organisers were not informed about the Stay Away, and the national office did not approach regional offices. All of this meant that these individuals, even if they heard about the stay away through other means, were not encouraged or even allowed to promote the stay away as a ZCTU initiative. In the days before the stay away, calls to the national ZCTU office, regional offices outside of Harare, and even ZCTU officials regarding the stay away were met with comments like "We do not know anything about it," and "We are not doing anything like that." This meant that every day employers and employees seeking to confirm the call for a stay away or get more information about it were being discouraged by the ZCTU from taking part in it.

The MDC’s involvement in the action was similarly half-hearted. In the run up to June 9 & 10, MDC President Morgan Tsvangirai issued a statement urging the people to "mobilise themselves," and warning government that if it continued with Operation Murambatsvina, the people’s reaction might be "unpredictable." When questioned, MDC Secretary General Welshman Ncube distanced the organisation from the activities of the Broad Alliance. Like the ZCTU, the MDC was at the time mired in its own internal commission of inquiry regarding cases of indiscipline and fracturing party unity. It did not take a strong leadership role in coordinating the call to mass action. Two days before the Stay Away, the MDC began to associate itself with the action in formal public statements. However, it did not send any message through its structures instructing or encouraging them to mobilise people for the action. On Wednesday 8 June, the MDC announced that it would be boycotting the opening of Parliament the following day. This action, however symbolic, was taken as a positive sign that the MDC was honouring the Stay Away, and was taking its own initiative to demonstrate its discontent with President Mugabe and Operation Murambatsvina. This was probably the MDC’s most powerful contribution to the Stay Away, and the MP’s no-show at Parliament received much more state media coverage than did any commentary about the Stay Away.

On Monday 6 June, Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition issued the above quoted statement, announcing the Stay Away, and naming the members of the Broad Alliance who were calling for it. Members of Crisis and the NCA, such as the Combined Harare Residents Association (CHRA) and the International Socialist Organisation (ISO) agreed to support the Stay Away and sent out statements in support of the action. But, as the Chairperson of Crisis is also the Secretary General of the ZCTU, and the ZCTU did so little to take up the call, it is unclear how many other member organisations of Crisis were actively involved in mobilising support for the Stay Away.

Ownership: This point is closely related to appropriateness of tactic, clarity, outreach and communication. If a large number of people were going to participate in the Stay Away, they needed to feel like it mattered to them. They would have needed to know why it was being called, what it hoped to achieve, and why their participation was necessary. Because of poor outreach and mobilisation, people did not feel that the Stay Away really affected them. Many people commented on the risks, without having a clear sense of what they had to gain from participation. Because the call to action was poorly led and hastily called, the outreach and mobilisation that would have needed to be done to alter some of these perceptions and build support for the action was not done.

Clarity: For a mass action to be successful, its specifics—its purpose, its format, its dates, timing, venue, leadership, etc. must be very clear to people. Unfortunately, there was a great deal of confusion in the run up to the Stay Away. The Broad Alliance itself changed the dates of the action, and the type of action it was calling for, several times. In the course of three days, three different text messages with three different dates were doing the rounds. One claimed Mass Action Monday 6 June. The next said Stay Away Wednesday and Thursday 8 & 9 June. The next said Stay Away Thursday and Friday 9 & 10 June.

This lack of initial clarity caused many people to become suspicious of the action altogether. Many people saw the conflicting messages as a sign of poor coordination or lack of leadership from the organisers of the action. Others stated that they had become so confused about when they were supposed to stay away they had decided to ignore it altogether. Similarly, the lack of clarity regarding who was responsible for the Stay Away discouraged many would-be participants. A week before the action, people asked to help mobilise support for the action were advised to say that "the democratic forces" in Zimbabwe were calling for a Stay Away—but were urged not to name a single participating organisation. The lack of clear statements from the ZCTU and MDC specifically fuelled suspicion regarding the action.

Like anyone, Zimbabweans need clarity. They want to know what is expected of them, when, by whom, and for what reason. If the organisers of an action are not willing or able to present this basic information in a straightforward and coherent manner, it becomes much easier for people to slip into inaction rather than counter the sceptics and confront the risks inherent in getting involved. In such a situation, there is even greater need for strong communications, but this was also sorely lacking (see below).

Outreach: No targeted outreach was done in preparation for the Stay Away. The NCA and the Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition distributed fliers announcing the mass action, but no organisation approached any key sector to lobby its support. Specifically, for a stay away to be perceived as successful by the majority of the people, the largest and most visible businesses must close. These include the large supermarket chains and banks. There was no effort made to meet with core business leaders or business organisations. Because the ZCTU was not acknowledging participation in the action, it missed the opportunity to mobilise workers in the crucial bankers union to stay away from work. When asked, members of the Broad Alliance said they did not have the time to meet with employers or business leaders either collectively or individually, or to send them couriered letters or personal emails. They also said they did not have the resources to send faxes to key businesses personally targeting their management.

Aside from meeting with "captains of industry," another option would have been to organise business community meetings around some of the many shopping centres in the low and high-density areas of cities around the country. Even if closing down the Central Business District (CBD) felt like too big a target, individual shopping centres—comprised of 10 – 50 businesses each—might have been closed down. And, because of the "community" feeling of these shopping centres, this would have had a very visible impact and would have enabled many to call the Stay Away a success—at least in certain "liberated" suburbs. MDC Members of Parliament for a given constituency, perhaps in coordination with local NCA leaders and ZCTU leaders could have called "community meetings" in the car parks of key shopping centres at the end of the day to discuss the need for a stay away and why everyone’s participation was important. This would have given an opportunity for shopkeepers to voice their concerns or seek reassurance. Organisers of the action would have heard people’s opinion about the stay away as a tactic, and might have gotten some useful suggestions as to what other actions could be organised in the future. Regrettably, nothing like this was done. The suggestion was posed to a few MDC leaders, but time was too short to implement this. Also the commitment to the sort of personal and time intensive initiative that would need to happen for mass action to come off was lacking.

Communication: Those calling for the Stay Away did make good use of their access to the international press. Even if the majority of Zimbabweans on 8 June were not planning to stay away the next day, dozens of international press reports claimed that they were. The international news wires were abuzz with the plans for the Stay Away, and the yet to be determined actions that would follow it.

Unfortunately, communications within the country were much less successful. To move its message about the stay away, the Broad Alliance relied primarily on email and fliers. None of the fliers mentioned the "Broad Alliance," or named any organisation that was claiming responsibility for encouraging people to stay away. There was no contact information or organisational ownership of the fliers. This contributed to recipients’ mistrust in the veracity of the information on the fliers.

Flier distribution was done very haphazardly, and coordination of distribution was very loose. There was no protocol on how fliers should distributed, resulting in some people throwing fliers from moving vehicles. While this approach can be used to cover a large geographic area in a short space of time, activists need to consider the implications of "thrown" fliers vs. those handed out to individuals, or even left in letter boxes or bus shelters. If fliers are thrown from a moving vehicle, people must scurry to the kerb or in the dirt to collect them. They feel furtive in collecting the fliers, because the person distributing them has been acting furtively. If the activists themselves appear afraid while distributing the information, those receiving it will sense this fear and themselves be reluctant to pick up the flier, or to participate in the action.

Conversely, youth activists distributing fliers in Highfields described the experience as very empowering. They interacted with individuals there, who saw their commitment to the cause as demonstrated by their bravery and willingness to risk being caught distributing such information. They were able speak with individuals, thus enhancing the mobilisation potential of a flier. Their dedication inspired others, and some even asked for extra fliers so that they could carry the message farther.

Like fliers, email can be a powerful communication tool if it is used effectively, and if it does not operate in isolation. Crisis did send out an email announcing the stay away, as did CHRA and the ISO. These emails were useful in clarifying the dates and taking responsibility for the action (the Crisis email, for example, named the members of the Broad Alliance, stated the demands of the Stay Away and was signed by Lovemore Madhuku). This in turn prompted others to spread the word about the Stay Away. These mailing lists, however, are limited largely to those who are already sympathetic to such calls to action. Targeted emails to employers, to large businesses, to banks etc—which do have email—might have moved the message into the key areas it needed to go. However, to do this effectively implies having already data captured exactly those email addresses you will later use, and having grouped them by sector so that you are able to personalise and target your message. In addition, email cannot be over-emphasised as an information dissemination tool as there are many people who do not have access to email at all.

The Broad Alliance made very limited use of the mass media to announce its action. While Zimbabwe does have a very closed media environment, there are three weekly newspapers that might have published advertisements about the Stay Away, but the Broad Alliance did not advertise in any of them. The Standard of 5 June published a cover story—"Stayaway!" that talked about a stay away planned for Thursday and Friday 9 & 10 June, but did not attribute the specific call to action to any individual or organisation. The quotations about the action from Madhuku, Tsvangirai and Matombo were bold, but none of them discussed any details.

Planning: Serious questions need to be asked about the amount and quality of planning that went into the action. It seems that organisations within the Broad Alliance agreed that "something" needed to be done, and calling for a stay away seemed the easiest thing to do. However, little time was allocated to detailing the specific activities that would need to happen to make this action a success.

Explanations for this include the haste with which the action was organised, and the lack of participation/buy in from the ZCTU and the MDC in the action itself. Without the committed participation of these large organisations in preparing for the action, it was doomed to fail. The dates of the action were announced without a clear action plan of what needed to be done in advance, who would do what, how long it would take, and how it would be accounted for. The Broad Alliance had sat through three weeks of Operation Murambatsvina before deciding to take action. If it had waited one more week and prepared a carefully planned, well thought out and meticulously implemented programme, this would have had a much more powerful impact than a poorly organised hastily called action that had little support.

Coordination: Working in coalition is always difficult. But these difficulties can only be overcome with practise and trust. If the members of the coalition themselves do not fully agree to or support a proposed action, one must question the usefulness saying that they work together. If the different member organisations are not drawing on their own strengths to build support for the action, it will never be as successful as people imagine. This will lead to disillusionment with the potential for mass action, and suspicion about actions called both by the Broad Alliance and by individual members of it. This will also make members within the coalition increasingly disinclined to working together.

Mobilisation: This point has been touched on above. But there seems to be a fundamental lack of understanding among many organisations in Zimbabwe as to what "mobilisation" really means. It requires something much more active than "throwing fliers" or issuing a press release. Mobilisation demands much more time and energy than the Stay Away received. It implies individuals actively and personally communicating with, convincing and leading one another to act in a certain way. It involves building that sense of collective responsibility for something, a sense of shared participation and group involvement. All of that was very sorely lacking in the preparation for the Stay Away. Even organisations such as the ZCTU and the MDC—which have strong membership structures that could most effectively be activated to take the lead in mobilising individual support for the Stay Away—did not take up this challenge. That is the area in which, in theory, the ZCTU and MDC should be most effective, as they can access their national membership structures to support a specific action. However, without strong, clear leadership, these networks will not be activated. And without an appreciation of the importance of mobilisation as an essential component of preparing for a successful action, these networks will remain under-utilised and poorly functioning.

Where does this leave us?
The Broad Alliance, and the pro-democracy movement in Zimbabwe more generally, should not despair about the poor support for the Stay Away. However, it does need to take advantage of this opportunity to critically re-evaluate its approach to organising and mobilisation. There is a need to strengthen very basic core capacities such as leadership, organisation, planning, mobilisation and communication.

The lack of public statements from members of the Broad Alliance following the Stay Away—thanking people for their participation, admitting its short comings, or even acknowledging the action and advising people of proposed next steps—also has hazardous implications for people’s future willingness to participate in such actions. Commenting on the poor support for the Stay Away, one MDC official reportedly said "Well, we told the people to stay away, if they didn’t want to follow us, that’s their problem." This is exactly the type of thinking that needs to change—both the arrogance of assuming that the action called for was the most appropriate action, and that sending an email and printing fliers qualify as mobilising people or demonstrating leadership.

Most Zimbabweans are disappointed with a lack of leadership from civil society, and are frustrated that the very organisations, which supposedly champion their interests, are doing next to nothing in the face of the Murambatsvina devastation. And, those individuals and smaller organisations that normally support such initiatives are losing patience with poorly conceived and poorly implemented actions. It is time to rethink and re-strategise if Mugabe is not going to have his way with Zimbabwe without so much as a whimper of protest.

Amanda Atwood can be contacted at shahin@ananzi.co.za

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