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A Times Editorial
© St. Petersburg Times, published May 7, 2000
The peaceable citizens of Zimbabwe must feel as though they are trapped in an Orwellian nightmare from which they cannot awake. Big Brother, in the person of the once-progressive President Robert Mugabe, watches everyone, especially supporters of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change. He flouts the nation's courts, ignores the constitution and enforces his will with an army of thugs called "Veterans of the War of Independence," even though most of the "veterans" weren't even born in the late 1970s and early 1980s when the war was taking place.
Mugabe keeps talking about empowering the poor as he gives more land to his cronies. He insists there is no violence in Zimbabwe as both black and white supporters of the MDC are beaten, raped and killed. He says there will be free and fair elections, but he refuses to set a date. He is obviously an expert at Orwellian Newspeak: War is Peace. Ignorance is Strength.
After the white farmers, who own 80 percent of the viable farmland, cut a deal with the "war veterans" to stop supporting the MDC in return for a promise of non-violence, Mugabe pledged to seize white-farmed land without compensation. He also declared that no political rallies will be allowed without special police permits. His own Zanu-PF party evidently will find it easy to obtain permits. The MDC, being "enemies of the state," evidently will not.
Zimbabwe is a nation of wrong piled upon wrong. British colonists stole the land belonging to indigenous peoples and imposed minority rule; their descendants today contribute mightily to Zimbabwe's economy but pay their farm workers next to nothing. Mugabe liberated black Zimbabweans from the racist regime of Ian Smith but is now set to destroy democracy in the country he helped build.
The conflagration in Zimbabwe isn't about land, never was about land. Mugabe had the better part of 20 years to do something comprehensive about redistribution and did not. This is all about power. The squatters occupying the farms are not harvesting the tobacco or planting a new crop; they are there to scare farmers and their workers away from supporting the MDC, which, until recently, was favored to win the next parliamentary elections by a landslide.
The "war veterans" and their leader Chenjerai Hunzvi (whose nickname of choice is "Hitler") say openly they are there to decimate opponents of Zanu-PF. Anyone caught wearing an MDC T-shirt or attending an MDC meeting is subject to a severe beating or worse: To date, 15 party workers have been killed.
Meanwhile in Harare, Mugabe's goons are suspected in the bombing of the capital's largest independent newspaper, while the police have been arresting MDC supporters on slim to no grounds. Attacks on whites seem to have subsided since the Farmers Union capitulated (whites were never the chief sufferers anyway) but attacks on black Zimbabweans have escalated.
It is almost impossible for outside nations to take direct action: Mugabe was democratically elected. South African President Thabo Mbeki is said to be working behind the scenes, applying pressure on Mugabe (South Africa supplies most of Zimbabwe's electrical power) while Britain has offered money to fund land redistribution -- but only if the violence stops.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the venerable South African civil rights leader, has said Mugabe is acting like the worst stereotype of the African dictator. It is sadly true.
Fearing an election loss, the president is mounting a pre-emptive coup d'etat, destroying all dissent, even while insisting that all is well in Zimbabwe. He seems to believe that repetition of the lies will make the lies come true: War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery.