Zimbabwe -- Lambs to the slaughter

ZWNews ^ | 20 January, 2004 | Michael Hartnack

[Clive]

It’s just not true there is no law and order in Zimbabwe. There is law, there is punishment for crime. But both are part of an intricate system of political patronage brilliantly run since Robert Mugabe came to power in 1980.

The system is reminiscent of the sheep and goats in St. Matthew’s Gospel being directed to separate folds. One lot - the chosen lambs - go through a door marked "Help Yourselves, Comrades". The others, the stinking goats, are channelled toward a door surrounded with pious admonitions on the evils of capitalism. This door is marked, "Beware of the wrath to come, capitalist exploiters and economic saboteurs".

Under the system, Mugabe’s cronies and other favour-seekers have to keep coming round, day after day, so even after 23 years a sheep may suddenly find itself corralled with the goats. Then indeed beware. An army of police fraud squad detectives and tax and licence inspectors may fall upon you, banks will suddenly recall long-overlooked concessionary loans, your leases and title to a wide variety of property may be withdrawn. And all this amid sanctimonious oratory about suppressing corruption, nepotism and exploitation of the poor.

Witness Phillip Chiyangwa, self-proclaimed billionaire businessman, ruling party mogul and Zanu PF member of Parliament. He thought he was untouchable when he told a magistrate on January 8 that three investment trust operators, his business partners, ought not to be prosecuted on charges of converting Z$61 billion of clients' money into expensive cars, real estate and foreign exchange.

"I am wealthy enough, if I wanted I could have paid all (their) creditors. The excited policeman who brought these allegations, I will deal with him at some stage," boasted the former Rhodesian policeman who entered the business world as a penniless boxing promoter in 1980.

Chiyangwa aroused the wrath of Joseph Msika, acting president while Mugabe is on holiday. "What political muscle? Who are you? I will show that I have more political muscle than you," 80-year-old Msika exploded in the midst of a speech opening a rural supermarket. Rambo-like, Msika then showed off his biceps.

Chiyangwa was reportedly associated with moves in December to replace Msika as a vice-president. Despite being even older than Mugabe, Msika proclaims he is willing to take over if the Zimbabwe leader, who turns 80 next month, retires.

Suddenly, police are finding great wads of share certificates and enough posh cars to start a showroom, all somehow linked to shady dealings by Chiyangwa. He was belatedly arrested for obstructing the course of justice, perjury, and contempt of court. Police have refused to release him although his lawyer, Happias Zhou, twice obtained High Court warrants.

Zhou said Chiyangwa's detention was "political", linked to "the succession issue" (i.e. who takes over from Mugabe). Or put it another way, Chiyangwa and Msika belong to different factions within the ruling party, delicately kept in balance by Mugabe through his sheep-and-goats feed-lot system.

The past 23 years has been littered with financial scandals involving the sheep: Mugabe's elite paying "ghost" ex-guerrillas in assembly points in 1980; Samson Paweni's scam with foreign-sourced famine relief during the 1982-84 drought; the "Willowgate" racket in cars from the state assembly plant were bought by ministers at cut-rates and resold on the black market; diversion of land, bought by Britain for peasant resettlement, to the elite; the Industrial Development Corporation fraud implicating commerce minister Christopher Ushewokunze; the millions in unrecovered loans given by Zimbank when it was state-owned. Roger Boka's "Universal Merchant Bank" which dished out similar millions, never recovered; payments for bogus "war disabilities".

After each initial outcry, police dockets quietly gathered dust. Few offenders were prosecuted. In the rare cases where convictions were obtained, the public was offered the example of speedy pardon and rehabilitation, rather than exposure and lasting disgrace.

The system of patronage - of permission to flout the laws applied to lesser mortals - dovetails with the grassroots organisation of the Zanu PF. Party moguls are expected to keep specific communities loyal and submissive. They are encouraged to create business empires and systems of economic dependency, involving their relatives and friends, in those specific areas. Or, as the state media puts it, to "show leadership in smart partnership for development".

They stage rallies in that area, and their vassals (including the subservient local police, licence inspectors, loan organisations, etc) ensure a good turnout. One sure way to get reclassified as a goat is to stray outside your area of designated pasture. Not only will people fail to attend your rallies there, but your business activities will receive notice from new jacks- in-office.

Only the shepherd himself has the free run of the whole of Zimbabwe.

Chiyangwa's friends from the Chinhoyi area are mightily alarmed by his plight. Their best hope lies in the fact that goats are constantly tantalised with hints they might be re-admitted with the sheep. Every now and then, sheep caught misbehaving and reclassified as goats are miraculously transformed back into sheep if they exhibit suitably humble behaviour. That, too, is key to the shepherd's flock-management trick.

Big question now is, who else gets the goat treatment? If things get out of hand, Zanu PF will be thrown into disarray.

Having shoved the wife and kids in the back of the family Boeing 767-200, Mugabe is home from his Asian trip but is still enjoying his hols. The drama may be allowed to run on a little longer while Msika is, theoretically, head of state. It would be like old times if, once Mugabe is formally back in control, unctuous clemency replaces the rigour of the law, and the lambs may be led gently back to the right path.

But how long can this system go on? The sheep have eaten virtually all the pasture. And no one, certainly not Msika, has the skill to run this system once its designer goes.

[Clive]

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[Dante3]

bttt

[Agnes Heep]

Reading about this unfortunate country is like seeing someone who has suffered a horrifying bodily disfigurement and thinking, "there but for the grace of God ..."

[cyborg]

I wonder how much longer Mugabe can run Zimbabwe this way. The zim dollar is collapsing. This is not good.

[Gritty]

It's a good thing we, the Brits and the rest of the world got rid of Ian Smith. No telling what kind of mess Rhodesia would be in if that bunch had stayed in office.