ZIMBABWE: A TIMELINE
In March, Zimbabweans supposedly voted President Robert Mugabe out of office in favor of opposition candidate Morgan Tsvangirai. Many of the southern African nation’s serious problems result from Mugabe’s policies.
The once respected but now despotic Mugabe refused to acknowledge Tsvangirai’s win. Since then, Mugabe has been at the helm of political violence directed towards citizens supporting the opposition. Following is a synopsis of some of the major events that helped spiral Zimbabwe into civil chaos.
1980
The country formally known as Rhodesia gains its independence and becomes Zimbabwe. In a landslide victory anti-colonial, revolutionary hero Robert Mugabe becomes the first prime minister.
The country formally known as Rhodesia gains its independence and becomes Zimbabwe. In a landslide victory anti-colonial, revolutionary hero Robert Mugabe becomes the first prime minister.
1987
Mugabe becomes president of Zimbabwe. He has been the country’s only ruler since.
Mugabe becomes president of Zimbabwe. He has been the country’s only ruler since.
2000
Backed by Mugabe, veterans of Zimbabwe’s war for independence squatted on farms owned by whites. The Blacks wanted land they claim the British stole during colonization.
Backed by Mugabe, veterans of Zimbabwe’s war for independence squatted on farms owned by whites. The Blacks wanted land they claim the British stole during colonization.
March 2002
Unwilling to give up power Mugabe used intimidation and force to blatantly rig the general election.
Unwilling to give up power Mugabe used intimidation and force to blatantly rig the general election.
August 2002
Mugabe ushered in his land redistribution campaign. The government confiscated land owned by white farmers and gave it to Blacks. Mugabe’s policy ruined the farming system, which in turn threw the economy into chaos, causing rampant inflation and widespread fuel and food shortages. Millions of Zimbabweans went hungry due to Mugabe’s actions.
Mugabe ushered in his land redistribution campaign. The government confiscated land owned by white farmers and gave it to Blacks. Mugabe’s policy ruined the farming system, which in turn threw the economy into chaos, causing rampant inflation and widespread fuel and food shortages. Millions of Zimbabweans went hungry due to Mugabe’s actions.
May-July 2005
The government initiates Operation “Drive Out Trash.” This initiative called for the destruction of urban slums. It has made 700,000 people homeless. Mugabe claimed the operation would help Zimbabwe because, according to him, its cities had become overrun with criminals. Others noted that the areas destroyed contained supporters of the opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change.
The government initiates Operation “Drive Out Trash.” This initiative called for the destruction of urban slums. It has made 700,000 people homeless. Mugabe claimed the operation would help Zimbabwe because, according to him, its cities had become overrun with criminals. Others noted that the areas destroyed contained supporters of the opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change.
February 2008
Inflation in Zimbabwe reached 100,580 percent.
Inflation in Zimbabwe reached 100,580 percent.
March 2008
Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the MDC, wins the first round of the presidential election. Zimbabweans voted out Mugabe because they felt he was corrupt.
Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the MDC, wins the first round of the presidential election. Zimbabweans voted out Mugabe because they felt he was corrupt.
May 2008
The Electoral Commission calls for a presidential run off election between Mugabe and Tsvangirai.
The Electoral Commission calls for a presidential run off election between Mugabe and Tsvangirai.
June 2008
Zimbabwe’s social welfare minister announced that aid organizations had to leave the country. The aid cutoff put two million Zimbabweans at greater risk for disease, homelessness, and starvation.
Zimbabwe’s social welfare minister announced that aid organizations had to leave the country. The aid cutoff put two million Zimbabweans at greater risk for disease, homelessness, and starvation.
Despite massive food shortages and millions of hungry citizens, U.S. said Zimbabwean officials seized 20 tons of food donated by the U.S. and gave it to Mugabe’s supporters. Human rights and aid groups accuse Mugabe of using starvation tactics in order to ensure votes in the runoff election. Tsvangirai dropped out of the run-off election.
Tsvangirai cited political violence against ordinary Zimbabwean citizens at the hands of Mugabe and his supporters as the main reason for dropping out.
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Copyright 2008 Chicago Defender. Marissa Lee
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MUGABE RIVAL QUITS ZIMBABWE, CITING ATTACKS
Associated Press
Men with sticks and iron bars beating unidentified victims Sunday at the site of a rally that had been planned by the main opposition party in Harare, Zimbabwe.
JOHANNESBURG — The leader of Zimbabwe’s opposition party withdrew Sunday from a presidential runoff, just five days before it was to be held, saying he could neither participate “in this violent, illegitimate sham of an election process,” nor ask his voters to risk their lives in the face of threats from forces backing President Robert Mugabe.
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Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi/Associated Press
Morgan Tsvangirai, the opposition party leader, on Sunday.
The opposition candidate, Morgan Tsvangirai, the standard-bearer of the Movement for Democratic Change, said at a news conference in Zimbabwe’s capital, Harare, that his party was facing a war rather than an election, “and we will not be part of that war.”
A governing party militia blocked his supporters from attending a major rally in Harare on Sunday, the head of an election observer team said. The opposition said rowdy youths, armed with iron bars and sticks, beat up people who had come to cheer for Mr. Tsvangirai.
It was the latest incident in a tumultuous campaign season in which Mr. Tsvangirai has been repeatedly detained, his party’s chief strategist jailed on treason charges that many people consider bogus, and rampant state-sponsored violence has left at least 85 opposition supporters dead and thousands injured, according to tallies by doctors treating the victims.
Mr. Tsvangirai’s decision to quit the race seems intended to force Zimbabwe’s neighbors to take a stand. There are growing cracks in the solidarity that African heads of state have shown for Mr. Mugabe, an 84-year-old liberation hero whose defiant anti-Western rhetoric has long struck a resonant chord in a region with a bitter colonial history.
The United States and Britain are pressing to put Zimbabwe’s political crisis on the United Nations Security Council agenda on Monday, a step South Africa, the region’s most powerful nation, has consistently opposed.
Gordon D. Johndroe, the White House National Security Council spokesman, said in an e-mail message that the United States wants the United Nations to consider taking additional steps. “Mugabe cannot be allowed to repress the Zimbabwean people forever,” he said.
It remains to be seen whether southern Africa’s leaders will collectively censure Mr. Mugabe or take tougher steps, such as economic sanctions, to isolate his government. They have never done so before, despite elections in 2002 and 2005 that were widely believed to have been marked by rigging and fraud, but that his regional peers declared legitimate.
Marwick Khumalo, who heads the Pan-African Parliament’s observer team, which witnessed the aborted rally on Sunday, said it would be unfortunate if bodies representing African nations endorsed the current election. He said he had just returned from the Rusape District in Manicaland Province where the police chief told him six people, all from the opposition, had been killed.
“How can you have an election where people are killed and hacked to death as the sun goes down?” Mr. Khumalo asked. “How can you have an election where the leader of one party is not even allowed to conduct rallies?”
Nonetheless, Zimbabwe’s information minister, Sikhanyiso Ndlovu, told The Associated Press that the runoff would go forward on Friday despite Mr. Tsvangirai’s departure from the race.
“The Constitution does not say that if somebody drops out or decides to chicken out the runoff will not be held,” Mr. Ndlovu said.
Mr. Tsvangirai notified the South African president, Thabo Mbeki, the regional mediator in Zimbabwe’s crisis, of his withdrawal, Mr. Mbeki’s spokesman, Mukoni Ratshitanga, said, adding that Mr. Mbeki was encouraged that the candidate “is not closing the door on negotiations completely.” Mr. Ratshitanga declined to comment on the legitimacy of the current election.
There may yet be more twists in this saga. Zambia’s president, Levy Mwanawasa, a Mugabe critic and the chairman of the Southern African Development Community, the bloc of 14 nations that chose Mr. Mbeki as mediator, suggested to reporters in Lusaka, Zambia, that the election should be postponed “to avert a catastrophe in the region.”
And Mr. Tsvangirai kept open the possibility that he might re-enter the race in the extremely unlikely event that the United Nations or the African Union stepped in to end the violence by Wednesday, when he intends to announce his party’s next steps.
Mr. Mugabe, in power for 28 years, has made it difficult for his fellow African heads of state to pretend there is anything normal about this election. He has repeatedly declared at public rallies in recent days that he would never allow Mr. Tsvangirai, whom he denounces as a pawn of Britain, the former colonial power in Zimbabwe, to become president through the ballot box, vowing that the bullet is mightier than the ballpoint pen.
“Only God, who appointed me, will remove me, not the M.D.C., not the British,” Mr. Mugabe declared in the city of Bulawayo on Friday. “Only God will remove me!”
Mr. Tsvangirai defeated Mr. Mugabe in a general election on March 29 by 48 percent to 43 percent, according to the government’s count. The opposition claimed it had won a majority outright and that no runoff was needed.
The Movement for Democratic Change has a history of agonizing about whether to participate in elections it presumed would be unfair, and there have long been deep divisions within the party about how to proceed. This year, Mr. Tsvangirai reluctantly entered the race, though he argued that Mr. Mbeki, the mediator, had failed to ensure conditions for a fair contest.
Mr. Tsvangirai said earlier this year that, at a minimum, the election would reveal the ugly face of Mr. Mugabe’s despotic and economically disastrous reign. The opposition then vacillated about participating in the June 27 runoff, but finally decided to do so.
Opposition party leaders assumed that the ferocious violence against its supporters would abate once election observers from across Africa arrived, making it possible for them to campaign openly and mobilize their poll workers. Instead, Mr. Khumalo, the head of the team of election observers, said, “As the election was gaining momentum, so was the violence.”
In a decision that will be likely to disappoint some of his supporters, especially those who have paid a terrible price for backing him, Mr. Tsvangirai apparently decided the level of violence had become intolerable.
The party also concluded that the systematic campaign to displace thousands of its poll workers had been so effective in the three vote-rich Mashonaland provinces, where Mr. Tsvangirai made strong inroads into Mr. Mugabe’s support, that they would be unable to staff the polling stations on election day, leaving them open to ballot-box stuffing.
Mr. Tsvangirai, a charismatic former trade union leader who has been Mr. Mugabe’s hated rival for almost a decade, charged Sunday that the president’s violent, vengeful strategy had displaced 200,000 people, destroyed 20,000 homes and injured and maimed over 10,000 people in what he called “this orgy of violence.”
Sunday evening, downtown Harare was largely peaceful, with Mr. Tsvangirai’s supporters retreating home early, leaving the streets to pro-Mugabe brigades, chanting, “Win or war!”
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ZIMBABWE’S NEIGHBORS WARN AGAINST VOTE
Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi/Associated Press
Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the main opposition party in Zimbabwe, at a press conference in Harare.
HARARE, Zimbabwe — As Zimbabwe’s neighbors urged it to postpone this week’s presidential runoff, hundreds of beaten, newly homeless Zimbabweans gathered Wednesday outside the South African Embassy here in a desperate bid for help during the electoral crisis.
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European Pressphoto Agency
President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe held a rally ahead of Friday’s runoff election.
Multimedia
Back Story With Celia Dugger (mp3)By 8:30 p.m., around 400 people, mainly men displaced by the recent political violence, were pulling down their woolen caps and hunching into thin jackets to sit out one of the coldest nights this winter. Few of them had eaten in the last several days; they began converging outside the embassy in hopes of finding food, water and medical attention.
“The situation is absolutely desperate,” said an opposition official trying to find shelter for 80 women and children at the site.
The scene unfolded amid a scramble of regional and international diplomacy, with many African and Western nations saying the vote set for Friday would be neither free nor fair.
On Wednesday, officials from Swaziland, Angola and Tanzania — the so-called troika empowered to speak for the Southern African Development Community, a regional bloc of 14 nations — called on Zimbabwe to put off the voting because the current crisis would undermine its legitimacy.
Taking a different tack, Queen Elizabeth II stripped Robert Mugabe, the country’s president for nearly 30 years, of his honorary knighthood as a “mark of revulsion” at the human rights abuses and “abject disregard” for democracy over which he is presiding, the British Foreign Office said Wednesday.
The rebukes reflected the mounting international frustration over Mr. Mugabe’s insistence in going ahead with the runoff on Friday, even though his sole opponent, Morgan Tsvangirai, pulled out of the race on Sunday. Mr. Tsvangirai cited the persistent violence and intimidation against him, his party and their supporters.
Mr. Mugabe’s government has had a long history of human rights abuses, but he was granted the honorary knighthood during an official visit to Britain in 1994 when, the Foreign Office said, “the conditions in Zimbabwe were very different.”
But with the widespread attacks on the opposition, the Foreign Office said the honor could no longer be justified. Stripping away the title is exceedingly rare. A Foreign Office spokesman could think of only one other time it had been done: in 1989 with the Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu.
Mr. Tsvangirai, the opposition leader, called on the United Nations on Wednesday to send a peacekeeping force to bring calm to Zimbabwe and help pave the way for new elections in which he could participate as a “legitimate candidate.”
“Zimbabwe will break if the world does not come to our aid,” he said in an op-ed article published Wednesday in The Guardian newspaper in London.
Mr. Tsvangirai took refuge in the Dutch Embassy here on Sunday. He emerged briefly on Wednesday to hold a news conference in which he proposed negotiations, but only if Mr. Mugabe canceled the runoff first.
“We have said we are prepared to negotiate on this side of the 27th, not the other side of the 27th,” Mr. Tsvangirai said, according to Reuters.
But the American ambassador in Harare, James D. McGee, said that Mr. Mugabe and his party, ZANU-PF, were determined to hold the runoff “at all costs,” according to the State Department.
“We’ve received reports that ZANU-PF will force people to vote on Friday and also take action against those who refuse to vote,” Mr. McGee said in a conference call described by the State Department.
All over the country, destitute people have fled the political violence, and are now looking for food, shelter, protection and medical care.
One woman at a church in Harare held her 11-month-old baby, who had casts on his tiny legs. She said that after her husband, an opposition organizer, went into hiding she had gotten word that ZANU-PF supporters were looking for her, too. She fled with the boy.
She returned home the next day, though, and that is when “the youth,” as foot soldiers of the ruling party are often called, came looking for her, she said. They snatched her son from the bed and hurled him onto the concrete floor, shattering his legs, she said.
Afterward, she was too terrified to move. But that night, when all was quiet, she set out, able to carry only her distraught child. The 12-mile walk took most of the night.
She made it to a hospital, though. Now her son’s legs stick out at an odd angle below his blue romper suit, encased in too-tight plaster of paris.
The woman’s blanket was stolen, and because she has been surviving on one meal a day, her thin skirt and jacket hang on her. Her impossibly thin legs look as if they, too, might snap.
But when she looks at her baby, her strained face softens and becomes beautiful again. For three days the boy has had only water, she said, because her breast milk has dried up.
“I hate Zimbabwe,” she said. “I want to leave.”
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