“You’re always very conscious of what you are saying, where you are saying it, and how you are saying it,” says Nhamo Sibanda. She is talking about life in Zimbabwe, her native country and a nation that is currently ruled by ‘president-for-life’ Robert Mugabe. Sibanda, now a student at U of T, knows first hand how, under his repressive rule, saying the wrong thing in the wrong place can have drastic consequences.
Sibanda, who asked her real name not be used for the sake of her family back home in Zimbabwe, joined the opposition groups known as the National Constitutional Assembly in 1998, and the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) in 1999. Her involvement in the groups led to numerous arrests, and three years ago forced her to seek refugee status in Canada. Since she left, the struggle to oust Mugabe from power has intensified, especially in the run-up to the Zimbabwean presidential elections, which are to be held this Thursday.
But overthrowing Mugabe has proven to be no easy task. He is a shrewd politician who has deftly manipulated Zimbabwe’s political system to maintain power for the past twenty-five years, a remarkable feat in the unstable climate of post-colonial Africa.
Mugabe first came to prominence as leader of the independence movement in what was then the British colony of Rhodesia. His success in overthrowing the brutally racist government gave him tremendous legitimacy as a ruler. This status as an anti-colonial hero, as well as his well-run system of patronage, continues to garner Mugabe supporters in some sectors of Zimbabwean society. He leads the Zimbabwe African National Union party (ZANU), which has been widely criticized in the past for vote-rigging and voter intimidation. Mugabe has repeatedly claimed that Zimbabwe’s elections are free and open, but the country’s main opposition party (the MDC, of which Sibanda is a member) and independent observers say that ZANU manipulates the polls.
Sibanda agrees, and said that Mugabe has severely damaged the country.
“He has caused shortages and economic decline,” she said, “there’s so much poverty and suffering and he doesn’t seem to care.” In fact, she said, Mugabe is daily adding to his country’s distress.
He recently caused turmoil in the countryside by implementing a land reform plan which took property away from white Zimbabweans and supposedly transferred it to the nation’s poorer black farmers. The program was supposed to help rectify some of the injustices of the colonial era, but it appears now that much of the land has gone to Mugabe’s cronies, many of whom do not have the means or will to manage productive farms. Now the fields lay fallow, and Sibanda says even Mugabe has admitted that the country is facing “an impending food crisis.”
Despite the apparent short-sightedness of such a program, Sibanda warns not to underestimate the dictator. “There is a misconception that Mugabe is deranged or irrational,” she said, “but there’s a logic to his madness. He has been systematically creating a framework where dissent is virtually impossible.”
Bit by bit, he has managed to limit and contain any challenges to his authority: The Access to Information Protection of Privacy Act has resulted in the closure of the only national newspaper that was critical of the government (Zimbabwe is rated one of the worst countries in the world for press freedom); The Public Order and Security Act has given the police overwhelming powers, stipulating that any opposition groups must apply to the police in order to meet. Unauthorized meetings are broken up by hundreds of officers dressed in riot gear. Sibanda recalls how throngs of demonstrators are given only two or three minutes to disperse before the police attack them with tear gas and truncheons.
In the past, Mugabe’s efforts to consolidate power have turned very bloody. In the mid-1980s in the region of Matabeleland, it is believed his forces killed 20,000 civilians who were supposedly opposition supporters. Over the years, many dissenters and even members of parliament have died suspiciously, killed in collisions with army trucks or suffering deadly accidents while jailed for reasons of ‘national security.’
Despite widespread violence and intimidation, ZANU only narrowly won national elections in 2002. Indications are that this time, the president is not prepared to accept only marginal victory.
“It’s likely that Mugabe is starting to prepare for life after Mugabe,” said Sibanda. She believes that the de facto dictator, now 81, is seeking to amend the national constitution in order to solidify ZANU hegemony for the foreseeable future, and to make himself immune to prosecution when he decides to relinquish control of the country. To do so, he needs at least two-thirds of the vote in the upcoming elections, a figure he is predicted to attain thanks to his strong-arm tactics.
Zimbabwe’s future looks ominous. If Mugabe does indeed amend the constitution, he will render it virtually impossible for a change of government through political avenues. The opposition will be left with few options, and there are already rumours that should their political movement die on Thursday, an armed struggle will be born.
