Ethnic Conflict in Zimbabwe: A Ghost of the Past?
DEVELOPMENTS
Zimbabwe’s main opposition leader and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai ended his boycott of the government last week, raising hopes for the survival of the global political agreement – the country’s fragile coalition. Trvangirai and other Movement for Democratic Change cabinet members left their posts on October 16 citing a litany of grievances with Robert Mugabe and the ruling ZANU-PF.
Tsvangirai and the MDC agreed to the power sharing arrangement with the ruling ZANU-PF party after disputed presidential elections in March 2008. Since then, relations between the two parties and their leaders have been highly contentious, and the country has continued to suffer hyperinflation, food shortages, and a devastating cholera outbreak last year.
Zimbabwean politics are fraught with ethnic issues, with divisions between Zimbabwe's indigenous groups being a longstanding source of contention in the country. Meanwhile, Mugabe has used the country’s small white minority as a scapegoat during three decades of authoritarian rule. The recent dispute stemmed directly from the governments prosecution of Roy Bennett, a white MDC official, for terrorism charges.
BACKGROUND
Zimbabwe’s population is divided among the majority Shona people, which accounts around three-quarters of the population, and several minority ethnic groups, including the Ndebele, Kalanga, Tonga, and Europeans. Divisions within the country’s indigenous African population have shaped its development in the three decades since the end of colonial rule.
Two competing resistance movements – the Shona-dominated Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) and the predominantly Ndebele Zimbabwe African People’s Union (ZAPU) – arose to challenge the government of Ian Smith after the country, then called Rhodesia, declared independence from Britain 1965.
In the county’s first free elections, voting was split along ethnic lines, giving Robert Mugabe of ZANU a victory over his Ndebele rival. Mugabe drummed up Shona nationalism to consolidate his power and embarked on campaign of terror against the minority Ndebele. Between 1983 – 1987 as many as 20,000 minorities were killed in the Ndebele homeland.
More recently, ethnic issues have centered on the conflicts – both real and perceived – between Africans and the country’s small European minority. After voters rejected his plan to amend the constitution in 2000, Mugabe launched a campaign to confiscate land owned by white farmers. Since then, the confiscation of farmland has been a favored populist lever of Mugabe’s government.
For Jenni Williams and Magodonga Mahlangu, who run the civil society organization Women of Zimbabwe Arise, ethnic tension was always more a construct of the regime than a reality of Zimbabwean life. They believe the government’s indiscriminate violence in recent years has reduced ethnic conflict.
“ZANU has used color, race, and ethnicity to divide people, but now they have united people as victims of violence. People are seeing that this regime will inflict violence on anyone that gets in their way, and we have to fight it as one nation.”
ANALYSIS
For the time being, tensions between Zimbabwe's indigenous groups will continue to be overshadowed by the many other crises affecting the country. The MDC decision to leave the government was a further reminder of the fragility of the global political agreement, which has predictably been weakened by mutual distrust and accusations of sabotage on both sides.
The return of Tsvangirai and his ministers is a positive sign. He seems to have been encouraged by the Southern African Development Community, the regional organization charged with monitoring Zimbabwe’s coalition. At a summit in Mozambique the SADC laid down a thirty-day deadline to resolve the outstanding issues between the ZANU-PF and the MDC, suggesting the organization is inclined to step up pressure on Mugabe. SADC was accused of favoring Mugabe under the stewardship of Thabo Mbeki, South Africa’s former president.
Responsible international oversight will be important looking forward. Tsvangirai wants new elections if the outstanding issues, which mainly involve the appointment of ministers to key posts, cannot be resolved. Mugabe too has attempted to rally his supporters in anticipation of elections. The global political agreement stipulates that new elections can be called at any point after a new constitution is in place.
Only a genuinely democratic, consultative constitutional process will allow a successful transition. Given the widespread abuses surrounding last year’s election campaign, the prospects a peaceful process the next time around appear dim. If the international community is unwilling to confront Mugabe, a return to violence is likely. As in the past, the victims will be ordinary Zimbabweans of all ethnicities.
Teddy Kahn is a columnist for Foreign Policy Digest.