As the world’s attention is riveted on the Middle East and global terrorism, Africans should spare some thought for Zimbabwe. A creeping revolt by the country’s youths has galvanised other sections of the society and calls for President Robert Mugabe to step down have risen. African leaders should resolve to deploy diplomacy to prevent a bloody repression by the desperate autocrat and his storm troopers.
After 36 years of autocratic one-man rule, Zimbabwe’s youths have finally found their voice and the courage to demand their freedom from the only head of state they have ever known. By last weekend, weeks of protests had turned more violent as police tear gas, batons, truncheons and beatings gave way to live bullets. The protests began in July when thousands marched through the streets of Harare, protesting repression, unemployment, corruption and poor social services. Scattered gatherings to ventilate complaints included one to remind the world of Itai Dzamara, a journalist and activist who was campaigning for Mugabe’s resignation. His abduction and disappearance in 2015 are blamed on state security agents in whose hands many other opposition figures had reportedly turned up dead or missing in the past. A sit-in he had initiated, Occupy Africa Unity Square, was joined by other youth groups. One by a cleric, Evan Mwararire, whose campaign under the hashtag, #ThisFlag, has attracted many Zimbabweans across the country and in the diaspora.
Huge street gatherings in major cities have since spread to the rural areas, the strongholds of the ruling ZANU-PF, whose residents have since independence in 1980 remained loyal to the party in recognition of its leading role in the nationalist struggle against white minority rule. Utilising social media to great effect, thereby evading the government’s repressive machinery, Zimbabwean youths have been challenging the 92-year-old leader and his circle of nationalist veterans, the military and party stalwarts. Police have turned out in force and physically prevented gatherings in many rural towns. Photographs have since emerged of tortured protesters, including women, after simultaneous demonstrations organised by the National Electoral Reform Agenda, a coalition of opposition parties, were broken up by police in several cities.
For the youths, who bear the brunt of Mugabe’s misrule, featuring 95 per cent unemployment and lack of freedom and opportunities, they have little to lose and appear ready for a long fight. Though the next presidential election is not due until 2018, we urge Zimbabweans to step up their peaceful campaign to force the resignation of this autocrat who has vowed to stand for another re-election two years hence.
Mugabe is a blight on Africa. He reinforces the negative image of the typical African strongman who approximates the fate of a country to his personal ambition and ego. After coming to power, first as prime minister in 1980, he has typically crushed all opposition with violence and repression of the press and civil society. He has been serially rigging elections and used all the tricks to frustrate Morgan Tsvangirai, winner of the 2008 first round polling, from power. Unlike the 2008/9 botched diplomatic effort that kept him in power and Tsvangirai as prime minister, African leaders should, this time, seek the enthronement of democracy and civil liberties, instead of compromise and peer group solidarity.
Under Mugabe, Zimbabwe’s economy has collapsed. Once an economic athlete, powered by mining, agriculture, services and tourism, disaster set in, beginning in 2000, when, faced with his first electoral defeat in a referendum, he sought popularity by a controversial land reform policy, whereby 4,000 white farmers were forcibly dispossessed of their farms and handed over to “Africans”. These were the war veterans and ZANU-PF members, who promptly mismanaged and ruined the farms. The International Monetary Fund said Zimbabwe quickly moved from food exporter to being food-dependent.
As whites and skilled workers emigrated to escape ZANU-PF repression and violence, the economy tanked and, in response, Mugabe simply raised salaries of soldiers, policemen and civil servants and printed money at a furious pace, causing the landlocked Southern African country of 14 million people to break the world record in hyperinflation. This reached 231 million per cent by 2008 as government spending reached 97.8 per cent of GDP compared to 20.3 per cent in South Africa and less than 17 per cent in Nigeria.
A 2014 report said it would take Zimbabwe, at current form, 190 years to double its $600 GDP per capita. Today, the Zimbabwean dollar has been discarded in favour of the United States dollar and the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe has also accepted the South African rand, Botswana pula, pound sterling, euro, Chinese Yuan, Australian $, Indian rupee and Japanese yen as legal tender.
Recently, the ageing autocrat suffered another blow when some war veterans, his strongest support base, asked him to step down, joined by some youthful ZANU-PF members who are seeking a breath of fresh air for their country.
Nigeria should link up with South Africa, the regional power, to help the democratisation of Zimbabwe. Every diplomatically acceptable encouragement should be given to activists to recover the country from the corrupt stranglehold of Mugabe and his party cronies who, the IMF alleges, cream off proceeds of revenues from its abundant minerals. The country still has great potential: apart from agriculture, it is rich in platinum, gold, iron ore, chromite, coal, asbestos, copper and nickel.
A rejuvenated Zimbabwe can also leverage the one good legacy of the tyrant: a literacy rate of 90.7 per cent, Africa’s highest, compared to South Africa’s 86.4 per cent, Egypt’s 71.4 per cent and Nigeria’s 68 per cent.
The international community needs to watch Zimbabwe closely and prepare for the usual strife and humanitarian crisis that accompany the exit of a maximum ruler. More importantly, all Zimbabweans, including the security personnel, should ask Mugabe to kindly step down to facilitate a second attempt at making their fatherland great.
