Zimbabwe: Zimbabwe: Dissent and repression (2000-2007)

Updated January 2008

In January 2000 President Robert Mugabe announced that the draft constitution would be put to the electorate in a referendum in February (Brown & Saunders 2007, 1290). The December draft allowed President Mugabe to serve two more terms and to dissolve Parliament without cause and also granted government officials immunity from prosecution and sanctioned the seizure of white-owned commercial farms without compensation (Wikipedia 2007). Mugabe's ruling Zimbabwe African National Union - Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) campaigned for a yes vote while the newly formed opposition party the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) led by Morgan Tsvangirai led the campaign for the no vote. In the referendum the proposal was rejected by 53% of the voters, but voter turnout was extremely low (26%) (see Referendum 2000: Results for more detail). This defeat stunned the ruling party and revealed the strength of the opposition MDC (Encyclopedia of the Nations 2007). Shortly thereafter local and international monitors reported a marked increase in human rights abuses (US Department of State 2001). The geographic spread of voter turnout figures indicated that the MDC had been more successful in mobilizing its urban constituency than ZANU-PF its rural peasant base (Brown & Saunders 2007, 1290).

Towards the end of February white owned commercial farms were illegally and often violently invaded by land-starved rural poor people led by the war veterans; it quickly became apparent that government condoned these actions and may have initiated them (Brown & Saunders 2007, 1290; Esterhuysen 2004; see especially Selby 2006, 286-290). It was clear that this was an attempt on the part of the government to mobilize support in the rural areas ahead of the House of Assembly elections later in the year and the police did nothing to halt or reverse the invasions (Masunungure 2004, 177; Brown & Saunders 2007, 1290; Esterhuysen 2004). In July 2000 the government launched an initiative that aimed at speeding up the identification and acquisition of 5 million hectares of land and its settlement, along with the provision of agricultural, economic and social infrastructure using national rather than donor resources (Hanyama Undated). By mid-2001 the Commercial Farmers Union (CFU) reported that 95% of commercial farms (8.3 million hectares) had been listed for appropriation (Brown & Saunders 2007, 1291). By the end of 2003 the CFU estimated that less than 900 of the original 4500 commercial farms in 2000 were still operating (Columbia Encyclopedia 2005; Selby (2006, 319) estimates that about 600 farmers were still farming).

The immediate effect of the land invasions was to sharpen the simmering conflict between the judiciary and the executive as the government ignored repeated court rulings that the law be enforced and that the government remove the invaders; in reply the courts were occupied by ZANU-PF supporters to intimidate judges and matters came to a head when the chief justice was forced from office in March 2001 and over time new loyal appointments to the bench ensured the compliance of the judiciary (Esterhuysen 2004; ICG 2004, 90). Food production declined rapidly, food shortages emerged by mid-2001 and food had to be imported, foreign exchange shortages notwithstanding; in April 2002 food shortages, as a result of drought and the farm invasions, forced the government to proclaim a state of disaster (Brown & Saunders 2007, 1291; ICG 2004, 86, 100-102). Food aid supplied by the World Food Programme (WFP) was used to reward ZANU-PF supporters, while perceived opposition supports were punished by denying them food (Esterhuysen 2004; ICG 2004, 102-103).

The land invasions further undermined the already fragile economic capacity of the country as commercial agriculture and related activities contracted (Esterhuysen 2004). As the economy unraveled the manufacturing sector, which had been hard hit by the Economic Structural Adjustment Program of the 1990s, declined rapidly (Brown & Saunders 2007, 1291). Tobacco exports, a major component of commercial farming and earner of foreign exchange, declined by three-quarters by 2004. In the same period GDP fell by 30% and unemployment, already high, rose to about 70% and about 80% of the population were living below the poverty line by the end of 2001 (Esterhuysen 2004; Brown & Saunders 2007, 1291). The state budget deficit before borrowing ballooned as did domestic debt and the arrears on foreign debt, while inflation soared from the high level of 198% in December 2002 to an unmanageable 623% in January 2004 (Kanyenze 2004, 132).

Mugabe responded to the challenge presented by the new opposition by intensifying control of ZANU-PF through silencing dissent, sidelining opponents within the party and filling key positions with loyalists (Esterhuysen 2004). The MDC was subject to attack and harassment in different ways and on various levels; the youth brigades that had been effective in silencing dissent in the countryside prior to the elections and the war veterans were used to attack opposition public meetings and threaten individual members and supporters (Esterhuysen 2004; Brown & Saunders 2007, 1290). The media was subject to attack, critical foreign journalists were deported, the offices of a newspaper, the Daily News, was bombed and journalists were harassed by police (Esterhuysen 2004).

References

BROWN, R & SAUNDERS, C 2007 "Zimbabwe: Recent History" IN Frame, I (ed) Africa South of the Sahara 2008, Europa Publications, 1287-1295.

COLUMBIA ENCYCLOPEDIA 2005, "Zimbabwe" Sixth Edition, [www] http://www.bartelby.org/65/zi/Zimbabwe.html [opens new window] (accessed 6 Dec 2007).

GWISAI, M 2002 "Revolutionaries, resistance and crisis in Zimbabwe" FROM Zeilig, L (ed), Class Struggle and Resistance in Africa, New Clarion Press, Cheltenham, UK, [www] http://www.dsp.org.au/links/node/77 [opens new window] (accessed 12 Dec 2007).

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE NATIONS 2007 "Zimbabwe: History", [www] http://www.nationsencyclopedia.com/Africa/Zimbabwe-HISTORY.html [opens new window] (accessed 6 Dec 2007).

HANYAMA, M UNDATED "Background to Land Reform in Zimbabwe", Embassy of Zimbabwe in Stockholm, [www] http://www.zimembassy.se/land_reform_document.htm [opens new window] (accessed 6 Dec 2007).

INTERNATIONAL CRISIS GROUP (ICG) 2004 Blood and Soil: Land, Politics and Conflict Prevention in Zimbabwe and South Africa, Africa Report No 85.

KANYENZE, G 2004 "The Zimbabwe economy 1980-2003: a ZCTU perspective" IN Harold-Barry, D (ed) Zimbabwe: The Past is the Future - Rethinking Land, State and Nation in the Context of Crisis, Weaver Press.

MASUNUNGURE, E 2004 "Travails of Opposition politics in Zimbabwe since Independence" IN Harold-Barry, D (ed) Zimbabwe: The Past is the Future - Rethinking Land, State and Nation in the Context of Crisis, Weaver Press.

SELBY, A 2006 COMMERCIAL FARMERS AND THE STATE: INTEREST GROUP POLITICS AND LAND REFORM IN ZIMBABWE, Doctoral Thesis, Oxford University, [www] http://www.era.lib.ed.ac.uk/bitstream/1842/493/1/thesis+final.pdf [PDF document, opens new window] (accessed 11 Dec 2007).

US DEPARTMENT OF STATE 2001, "Background Note: Zimbabwe", Bureau of African Affairs, November.

WIKIPEDIA 2007 "History of Zimbabwe", [www] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Zimbabwe [opens new window] (accessed 6 Dec 2007).