Zimbabwe: Mugabe scribbles a tragic scenario. (Coder story).

Our October 2001 cover story asked if there was light at the end of the tunnel in Zimbabwe following the Abuja accord wherein the government had pledged to end farm occupations among other things. Sadly, since then, the flicker of light seems to have been almost extinguished. Tom Nevin revisits Zimbabwe to assess the situation post Abuja and finds a desperate scenario being scripted on the hoof.

Two events in September conspired to rake the heat off Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe as he sat pickling in the strong and acidic backlash of his farm invasion policy, and its concomitant economic crisis. The first was his acceptance on September 6, of the strong terms imposed by his peers at an emergency conference on the Zimbabwe issue in Nigeria. The other was the terror attack on New York five days later.

He was sent home with the rebuke of fellow presidents ringing in his ears, having been forced to accept an imposed solution to Zimbabwe's vexing land redistribution issue based on the rule of law. However, Mugabe was able to escape, however temporarily, the harsh glare of the international spotlight following the twin towers atrocity.

He apparently took the respite as an opportunity not to reform his land-grab agenda, but to enforce it with renewed vigour. Despite the Abuja accord, farm occupations intensified with, says the Commercial Farmers Union (CFU), 829 violent incidents and 688 new farm invasions since September 6.

International observers arrive

In late October, a Commonwealth and European Union delegation arrived in Zimbabwe to see for itself how the Abuja resolution was being put into practice. According to the Abuja agreement the UN Development Programme (UNDP) will help ensure that the land distribution programme benefits all. Zimbabwe's UNDP representative, Victor Angelo, says the UNDP is aiming at a process that will have a positive impact on food production in three or four years' time. Britain is willing to contribute [pounds sterling]35m if land reform is done fairly and peacefully.

The Commonwealth team, which included Ministers or representatives from UK, Australia, Canada, South Africa, Nigeria, Jamaica and Kenya, was welcomed by a Zimbabwe's Foreign Minister, Stan Mudenge, with a warning that the delegation should not try to misrepresent the Abuja accord. The deal thrashed out in the Nigerian capital demands that the Zimbabwe Government address specific issues that include an end to fresh land invasions, the removal of illegal occupiers, restoration of the rule of law, an end to violence, the upholding of human rights and democratic values and the start of a just and fair land redistribution programme.

By all accounts, the seven-member team had its work cut out in reaching a representative cross-section of players in the land saga. They were able to side-step a government attempt to stage-manage the tour by limiting to six the number of organisations the delegates would be allowed to see. After vigorous representation, the team was permitted to broaden the scope and interview a wider cross-section of recipients.

'Frightening' reality

Canada's commission member, Keith Martin, found the reality of the accord's implementation "frightening". Martin said workers "have a loaded gun pointed at (farmers') heads and I find that chilling. Zimbabwe must not be allowed to get into a spiral of violence and anarchy." He maintained that if the Abuja accord is nor satisfactorily applied, the international community must act to "remove the government of Zimbabwe from the Commonwealth".

Before they left, the delegates issued a no-fireworks communique that said simply: "Harare had established a process in accordance with the Abuja accord" and that "the top leadership of the law enforcement and security organs ensure that that Zimbabwe's (Abuja) commitments are implemented and, wherever necessary, enforced". It also recommended that the government establish a stakeholders' committee to explain the agreement to the public.

Return to socialism

What little dust was raised by the Commonwealth visit had hardly settled when Mugabe announced that after a decade of institutionally-imposed economic structural adjustment he was raking Zimbabwe back along the path of socialism. He pledged to set up a panel of bankers and economists to recommend the way forward. Zimbabwe watchers, both pro- and anti-Mugabe say the decision may well be his final mistake. "This is Russian roulette with all chambers loaded," said one.

On October 22 his government implemented a price freeze on basic foods, followed three days later by the injunction that Zimbabwe is abandoning market-led economic policies, throwing down the gauntlet to business people of the country. Those who oppose the socialist-style command economy "should pack up and go" -- the government, he promised, would take over any businesses that were closed. Bakeries and other food manufacturers find themselves in the lose-lose situation of producing food they can only sell at costs above the price of making them.

A positive step

A white farmers' peace project, the Zimbabwe Commercial Farming Union's Joint Settlement Initiative, made the first positive move in settling 20 months of land grabs by handing over to the government a 1,300ha tobacco farm 90km north of Harare. "We can demonstrate that it is possible to resolve the land issue without conflict," said Initiative chairman, William Hughes. "Violence, intimidation and extortion have no place in land reform."

There was, however, some irony in the name of the donated farm Retreat. The prosperous 1,300ha farm formerly owned by Vernon Tapson, is the first of 562 farms totalling 1.3m hectares that white farmers have agreed to sell to the government in an effort to settle the land reparation problem.

Some 40 workers and farmers have been murdered, 75,000 driven from their homes and 4,500 white farmers are facing ruin as invaders shut down their operations.

The CFU says farm occupations by armed squatters in Zimbabwe could cut the production of tobacco by a third in the coming season and cost the country $227m in export earnings. Disruption of commercial tobacco growing by squatters will affect some 1,200 farms reducing next season's output by 65m kg. A survey carried our by the Union says: "Farm invasions have had a devastating effect ... and will have an adverse impact on production for the domestic market and for export." The survey reports that farmers have been unable to plant 26,000ha of tobacco, 2,170ha of paprika, 855ha of coffee and 3,600 ha of vegetables and flowers.

Mbeki reportedly getting tough

The South African media's exasperation with President Thabo Mbeki's hands-off 'quiet diplomacy' in dealing with the Zimbabwe farm invasion and economic crisis was summed up in a headline in The Star newspaper. It read: "Must Mugabe crash a plane into the (Johannesburg) Carlton Centre before Pretoria wakes up?" suggesting that only a world-shattering event would shake the SA government out of its slumber.

The article brought swift response from Mbeki's director general of the Presidency, Frank Chikane. "On September 11," he says, "the committee of Heads of State of the Southern African Development Community met in Harare, listening to various stakeholders and working on ways to help Zimbabwe out of its crisis. Hard statements were made at the start and end of the conference. South Africa is closely associated with a most serious Commonwealth initiative, too."

Chikane insists that the record shows Mbeki's expressions of gravest concern about Zimbabwe.

"Afghanistan is living testimony to a human tragedy," he says, "and South Africa will play any role it can to bring peace about. The same resolve exists over Zimbabwe."

Looming food shortages

According to Zimbabwe University lecturer Pangirai Tongoona, farm invasions, topsy-turvy fast-track land reform, a late start to seasonal rains and fuel shortages are combining to cause a drop in agricultural production and force critical food shortages. The situation is made more drastic by deep cuts in foreign aid and dwindling hard foreign currency needed for food imports.

It now seems certain that wide-scale starvation can only be averted by significant food imports, and that means aid money. But there's a snag here. Pleas for funds to buy food can't easily be hidden from a hard-nosed core of media, and for the government to do so would mean acknowledging the extent of the problem - not something Presidents are willing to do on the eve of an election. So far, Mugabe has decided to tough it out and hope for a kinder roll of the dice.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation reckons, at last estimate, that Zimbabwe needs to import around 570,000 tons of wheat and maize to avoid a famine. And there's the rub, according to Elphious Mukonoweshuro, a Zimbabwe University political scientist, who claims that the government is deliberately downplaying the food shortages, fearing that Zimbabweans will hold the farm invasions responsible.

"It would be accepting a liability for the government to accept figures scientifically produced by local and international food experts that put the food deficit much higher.

What is happening in Zimbabwe is an unscripted, unrehearsed pot-boiler of a movie, a series of gripping and breathtaking plots and sub-plots written on set, and directed by a film-maker who has no idea about what will happen next. It is real-life cinema by reaction, and masterful ad-lib. It would be a wonderful comedy if it weren't so serious.

RELATED ARTICLE: ARREST OF NEWSMEN 'IMPROPER AND OBJECTIONABLE'

A short time before we went to press, news arrived of the arrest in Harare of The Daily News Editor-in-Chief, Geoffrey Nyarota and Associated Newspapers of Zimbabwe founding ceo, Wilfred Mbanga. They were charged with fraud or breaching a section of the Zimbabwe Investment Centre Act. Observers at home and abroad saw this as another attempt to intimidate the independent Daily News which has been critical of the Mugabe government.

Lawyer Eric Matinenga, representing the two accused, deplored as "deserving of censure," the circumstances in which the police, without warrants, arrested Nyarota and Mbanga just after dawn, interrogated them for hours and detained them overnight at Rhodesville police station.

The State had alleged that sometime in July 1998, Nyarota and Mbanga, purporting to be the two subscribing shareholders of Motley Investments (Pvt) Ltd, had applied to the Zimbabwe Investment Centre saying they had formed a partnership with Africa Media Investments (Zimbabwe), a British-owned company, to form a company called Associated Newspapers of Zimbabwe (ANZ).

The correct name of the company owned by Nyarota and Mbanga is Motley Trading (Pvt) Ltd, but a typist at PricewaterhouseCoopers had erred and written it down as Motley Investments (Pvt) Ltd in documents submitted to the ZIC.

Matinenga produced, as evidence to the court, a letter from PricewaterhouseCoopers in which the firm of chartered accountants and management consultants accepted blame for the clerical error. He added: "Someone here does not know the basics of company law. For a police officer of average intelligence to fail to see that there was no offence in that is inexcusable."

A ruling on whether or not Nyarota and Mbanga had a case to answer was to be made on Friday, November 17.