Trouble across the Limpopo

Monday, 5 July 1999

This neighbourhood is starting to look really rough.

Depending on who you ask, the death of Zimbabwe's vice-president Joshua Nkomo is either good news or bad news for the country's leader Robert Mugabe.

It's bad news because a fragile peace in the central and south-western parts of the country has held as a result of respect by the Ndebele people of Zimbabwe for an accord signed 12 years ago by Nkomo. It's good news because Mugabe can now use the real possibility of ethnic strife to persuade international donors to let him have money quickly to dampen the powder keg.

I began my career in journalism in the year that Rhodesia died and Zimbabwe was born. Joshua Nkomo's name was well-known to us as a veteran leader of the Zimbabwe African People's Union. Less so the name of his co-leader of the Patriotic Front, Robert Gabriel Mugabe, who lived in the shadow of "father of the liberation movement" Josiah Tongogara.

Tongogara died. Lancaster House brokered a peace settlement. Elections were held. White South Africa put its money on Abel Muzorewa. Black South Africa put its money on Joshua Nkomo. The Zimbabwe African National Union under Mugabe confounded everyone — with the notable exception of the Zimbabwean people — and swept to victory.

Given the ethnic base of both Zanu and Zapu, things inexorably began to fall apart. South Africa helped things along with a little bit of destabilisation wherever it could — blowing up the rail link from Beira in Mozambique to Harare, feeding arms to disgruntled Ndebele via Renamo — and just about two years after independence, a full scale civil war was under way.

Five years later, the war came to an end. Nkomo and Mugabe signed a unity accord whereby Nkomo became vice-president and 12 of his lieutenants were absorbed into government in senior positions.

The true extent of the disaster of this civil war might well have remained unknown were it not for the release of a report by Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace and the Legal Resources Foundation two years ago.

Breaking the Silence, Building True Peace — A Report on the Disturbances in Matabeleland and the Midlands, 1980 to 1988 estimated more than 3000 "executions", hundreds of "disappearances", more than 7000 beatings or cases of torture and more than 10000 arbitrary detentions in Matabeleland North, Matabeleland South, and Midlands provinces. Eye-witness reports indicated that most killings and "disappearances" were committed by government forces, particularly the army's Fifth Brigade.

The leaking of the report to the Zimbabwe Independent and to the Guardian in London and its affiliates swung the human rights spotlight upon Mugabe as he was about to assume chairmanship of the Organisation of African Unity. Amnesty International called upon Mugabe to honour the recommendations of the report; to acknowledge that the violations took place, to remove perpetrators still in positions of authority, institute procedures to allow victims to claim compensation, look at constitutional safeguards to prevent a recurrence of the tragedy, and call in international assistance to further investigate.

Mugabe refused. Nkomo has been too old and ill to fight, and the Ndebele people have in the meanwhile stood by waiting for their hero to die.

Mugabe has made the right moves thus far by declaring Nkomo to be the country's greatest hero and his burial day a public holiday, but that won't last.

Zapu 2000 — a new Ndebele political party backed by former Zapu leaders who believe the peace accord has not delivered — is organising in Matabeleland. With troops committed to a war in the Democratic Republic of Congo, with the IMF refusing to budge on release of aid funds, with shops running out of maize meal, this is probably a good time to start preparing to deal with a disaster on our front doorstep.