Mugabe Cracks Down

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"To focus on this so-called tribalism is to the disadvantage of the poor people and the advantage of the government. It's the poverty and the social issues that should be the focus. And you'll find thos issues in every factory and mine'.

A meeting called by Socialist Organiser in London last Sunday, 13th, heard a Zimbabwean comrade argue that the press is misrepresenting the issues.

Also at the meeting were a number of comrades active in Soutern Africa solidarity, including three who had recently been in Zimbabwe. They agreed that the repression - which has now claimed probably more than 2500 dead - is essentially a drive to eliminate political opposition especially the more radical elements in ZAPU, and to enforce the submission of the peasantry through mass terror.

Far from effectively

countering South African efforts to 'destabilise' Zimbabwe, the repression opens the way for intervention by the apartheid state.

Some comrades stresser the need to promote a class analysis of capitalist Zimbabwe, as against the vague nationalist and populist ideas which are current on the left and lead many to acquiesce in Mugabe's suppression of democratic rights. Behind the current conflict lies the fact that the Mugabe government has done very little to improve the conditions of the black workers and peasants, and is now, under IMF pressure, going for wage controls.

Promises of land reform have not been kept. And wage-workers in largescale capitalist agriculture - the biggest section of the Zimbabwe working class — find their exploitation unchanged.

British imperialism

shares responsibility for this, through the Lancaster House agreement. And right now several hundred British troops are involved in training and organising the forces of repression.

The nature of the dissident movement is unclear. The government makes an amalgam between political opposition [ZAPU and others], bandits, South African agents [who doubtless are operating] - and practically the who population in Matebeleland. But we should not let ourselves be confused on the basic issue of democratic rights.

We decided to plan a further meeting to organi a campaign of informatio in the labour movement and the Left. With Joshua Nkomo fleeing abroad, conflict is escalating in Zimbabwe. Jennifer Jackson and Bob Fine look at the background to the latest events.

UNDER THE guise of the suppression of 'dissidence' the Mugabe government in Zimbabwe has unleashed a formidable apparatus of terror.

Approximately 5000 men, women and children - according to opposition reports - are detained by the security forces. The best known of them are former leaders of ZAPU's military wing, ZIPRA: Demiro Dabengwa, former ZIPRA chief-of-staff, and his successor, Lookout Masuku. These people are accused of treason arising from the discovery of arms caches last year.

Less well known are the thousands of former guerillas, unemployed youth and villagers suspected of harbouring dissidents now in detention camps and prisons.

The largest of these camps is near the Botswana border, at Tsholotsho. It was set up by the government earlier this year in its 'Clean Up Matabeleland' campaign.

It actually consists of two camps: the larger one holds 2000 people, mainly peasants from Matabeleland, and unemployed from Bulawayo; the smaller holds 300 people, mainly former members of the Zimbabwe National Army, for intense "interrogation'.

The prison camp at Gonakudzingwa, where both Nkomo and Mugabe were held for many years by the Smith regime, has been reopened under its new management. And there are camps in the North where Shona and former ZANLA (ZANU military wing) 'dissidents' are held.

Overall, the scale of detentions is on a par with the Smith era.

Primitive

Conditions in the camps are primitive: food usually reserved for cattle, in inadequate quantities and only once every two days; no shelter; no washing or toilet facilities.

At the interrogation camp at Tsholotsho there are reports of constant beatings, the use of electric shocks, barbed wire bound around inmates, wet sacks put over the victims' heads, and other means of torture to extract confessions of dissident activity. Many people have not been seen since their interrogation.

The camp is operated by the "Task Force' , a special unit of about 1000 men. It was members of the "Task Force' who were filmed by British TV beating suspects. They are responsible for the 'clean up Matabeleland' campaign, which reportedly includes the use of exemplary public executions in the villages.

Cld apparatus

The Task Force is made up of former members of such units as the Rhodesian African Rifles, the Rhodesian Light Infantry, the Special Air Service, the Police Anti-Terrorist Unit (now Police Support Unit), Central Intelligence Organisation, and the Selous Scouts (the crack troops under Smith). Many of these are trained by the British. It is a vivid example of how the new regime in Zimbabwe employs the old apparatus.

They work alongside but are distinct from the Fifth Brigade, a kind of 'Praetorian Guard' also notorious for its atrocities, trained in North Korea and comprising mainly ex-ZANLA troops.

All these troops are put above the law, thanks to the reintroduction of Smith's old Indemnity Act, according to which security forces cannot be prosecuted for abuse of powers.

South Africa What is the significance of this crackdown? The government presents it as a fight against dissidence stemming mainly from the, aggrieved Matabele tribespeople who have supported Nkomo and ZAPU and some of whom serve as agents in one way or ?? other of South African imperialism. In the name of national unity and the fight against imperialism, the government declares, these people must be suppressed.

Certainly former members of ZIPRA have been involved in hit and run attacks on farms, stores and buses. The government says that the South Africans have set up four military camps with 4000 Matabele recruits, and are infiltrating them into the country. Whatever the truth of this, it is certainly the case that South Africa is imposing an economic squeeze.

Supplies

South Africa handles about 75% of Zir babwe's trade through 11 ports, transports most o its fuel supplies, and is Zimbabwe's largest export market.

The apartheid regime can easily intensify its hold by attacking fuel pipelines and railway lines through Mozambique - the only alternative to the South African connection - and Zimbabwe troops now find themselves locked in battles to keep these lines secure in Mozambique against the South African backed insurgents of the Mozambique Resistance Movement.

Beneath the surface, however, there is another story to tell. After a period of impressive economic growth in the first two years of independence, the economy has hit the rocks.

Austerity

Under pressure from the International Monetary Fund, Mugabe is introducing a potentially severe austerity package. A 20% devaluation is raising the cost of living through higher import prices (the main beneficiaries are the mining companies in Zimbabwe, who have sought government permission to lay off workers); government subsidies on food are probably being withdrawn and the price of food in particular is expected to soar; annual Christmas wage increases have been put off until July, and the IMF is calling for wage restraint and the erosion of minimum wage laws brought in by Mugabe after independence.

The government's growth plan of 8 per cent per year appears to most observers as pie in the sky; at present growth runs about 2 per cent per year. Mugabe hopes the difference will be made up basically by private foreign investment. This is one reason why he is so keen to make a show of a firm hand against the forces of instability.

South the current conflicts The long and the short of A QUESTION it is that the government is both expressing and exploiting tribal prejudices between Shona and Matabele, as it directs attention away from the class consequences of its economic Trade Unions and political policies. The ettect, moreover, is to faci- InSouth Afric litate South African intervention, as dissidents -lacking any alternative centre of gravity - are in part drawn into the South African net, Terrible Imperialism in Zimbabwe works in diverse ways: 90p through South Africa, through the IMF, and not least through Mugabe's BOb state. Repression of the Fine Matabele may not be a Lawrence 'rational' way forward by any standard, but given the Welch factional nature of class rule in Zimbabwe, it is perhaps in accord with a terrible logic.

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124, March 1983, Page