The Unleashing of Violence:
A report on violence against peaceful protestors in
Harare

1. Background
1.1 Increase in violence
As Zimbabwe moves towards the holding of a general election, which, according to President Mugabe, will be held in May 2000, the political situation has become increasingly troubled and violent. There have been violent clashes between supporters of the ruling party, ZANU (PF) and the main political opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). Additionally raiding groups consisting of some war veterans, but mostly of men and women who were too young to have taken part in the liberation struggle, have invaded numerous white owned farms. Regrettably, the President and other ZANU (PF) leaders have instigated much of the violence perpetrated by ZANU (PF) supporters or at least have condoned it.

1.2 The referendum and its aftermath
As regards inter-party violence, although MDC supporters have on some occasions taken violent action against ZANU (PF) members, whether with or without provocation, the majority of the instances of violence and intimidation seem to have been perpetrated by ZANU (PF) supporters. There have been concerted attempts by members of the ruling party and high-ranking police officers to demonise the Movement for Democratic Change and depict them as a party intent on using violence and intimidation to come to power. The State media have given great prominence to violence allegedly committed by MDC supporters whereas they have played down violence allegedly committed by ZANU (PF).¹

1.3 Co-option of the veterans and farm invasions
In order to trace the build up of this violence in Zimbabwe, it is necessary to go back to the events surrounding the holding of the referendum held in mid-February. (12 and 13 February). A government Commission had drawn up a draft constitution. Before putting the draft to a referendum, government made various amendments to the draft. The most important amendment was to amend the land acquisition provision so as to provide that if Britain did not pay into a fund for land acquisition, the government could proceed to expropriate land without compensation. The government then endorsed this constitution and joined with the Constitutional Commission in campaigning for its acceptance by the people. Especially towards the end of its publicity campaign, the executive of the Constitutional Commission used racist and politically inflammatory rhetoric. It alleged that persons opposed to the draft constitution were sell-outs and puppets of their colonial masters and that the whites, who were reactionary and racist, were campaigning against acceptance of the draft out of self-interest. When the majority of the voters rejected the draft, the executive of the Constitutional Commission and various government officials alleged that whites had been instrumental in the rejection of the draft constitution. It was alleged that the whites had voted in large numbers and white farmers had intimidated their workers into voting against the draft.

To start off with the President seemed prepared to accept the will of the people expressed in the referendum. He publicly stated that government would accept the referendum result. This statement was, however, only the calm before the storm. As time went on it was clear that government was certainly not going to accept the referendum result as regards the land issue. There was also a welter of recriminations against whites, especially white farmers. Recently, for instance, President Mugabe said that the whites were determined to fight against ZANU (PF) and the President declared that the fight was on against them and that they would not win the fight. If they aligned themselves with the MDC they would be treated as MDC and MDC would never win the election.² Other members of the ruling party made statements in which they have tried to generate anti-white sentiment.

The conditions for a major escalation of violence in Zimbabwe were created by the fateful decision by the ruling party to co-opt the war veterans to spearhead their election campaign. The ruling party announced that the war veterans would help with its election campaign. The war veterans were allocated Z$20 million for this purpose, although the Chairman of the War Veterans Association, Dr Chenjerai Hunzvi³ complained that this amount was inadequate.

In early March war veterans together with many young people started to invade white owned farms. They proclaimed that they were going to take back the land that had been stolen from the indigenous people of Zimbabwe by the white settlers after Zimbabwe had been colonised.

The white farms that were particularly targeted belonged to farmers who had allegedly campaigned against the draft constitution, who supported the MDC or had successfully resisted by legal action previous efforts to take away farms. The farmers believed that the leadership of ZANU (PF) was orchestrating this whole campaign of farm occupation in order to drum up support for the ruling party whose popularity had been declining⁴. They allege that the occupiers have been transported to the farms in various types of government vehicles and that these trucks have delivered regular supplies of food to the occupiers and that these persons are being paid wages of between $50 and $200.

1.4 Violence and intimidation
In recent weeks numerous threatening and intimidatory utterances have been made by government officials and persons connected with government. In mid-March one of the leaders of the National Liberation War Veterans Association threatened to use violence to overthrow the MDC if it won the upcoming election. Andrew Ndlovu⁵ said that the war veterans would never allow the country "to go back to Smith" and that if they did come back to power they would "declare a military government". Ndlovu said the war fighters had stashed arms in caches all over the country. "We will get arms from government armouries. We are a reserve army and we have the right to use the arms to defend the government of ZANU(PF). We will invade military camps just as we have gone to the farms."⁶ This statement amounts to treason as Ndlovu is in effect saying that if MDC is democratically elected, the war veterans will then overthrow it by the use of force. No government leaders have seen fit to condemn Ndlovu for advocating treason and the police have turned a blind eye to the commission of a serious criminal offence by Ndlovu.

A few days later speaking in Shona at a ceremony relating to the opening of the water pipeline between the Pungwe and Mutare, President Mugabe said: "Those who try to cause disunity among our people must watch out because death will befall them."⁷

Towards the end of March President Mugabe threatened violence against white farmers. Talking about the farm invasions Mugabe said that they had largely been peaceful with no major incidents of violence reported. He said: "There have been very few cases of violence, but if farmers start to be angry and start to be violent, then of course they will get that medicine delivered to them. And it can be very, very, very severe, but we don’t want it to get there."⁸ This was subsequently reiterated when President Mugabe urged white farmers not to seek confrontation with the war veterans as this could result in them getting hurt.⁹

In actual fact the white farmers had tried hard to behave in a way that would not antagonise the war veterans and the ZANU (PF) youths who were accompanying them. The Commercial Farmers Union called on farm owners to exercise maximum restraint and avoid any violence. At first the persons occupying these farms, although threatening in their words and gestures, were relatively non-violent in their actions. Since the end of March, however, they have become increasingly aggressive and there have been numerous reported cases of beatings of farm labourers and white farmers and the holding hostage of various people. At least two white farmers have been seriously injured as a result of beatings administered by groups of "war veterans".

1.5 Inaction of the police
When the invasions started to occur the Police Commissioner washed his hands of the matter. He said that the police could not act because the matter was political.¹⁰ The President denied that the government had encouraged these farm invasions but said he would not intervene in this matter for as long as the war veterans remained peaceful. He said that their action simply constituted a form of protest against the rejection of the draft constitution.¹¹ On 17 March 2000 the Commercial Farmers Union obtained a High Court action, which declared the invasions to be illegal, and ordered the police to evict the unlawful occupiers from the land within twenty-four hours.¹² This High Court ruling was made with the consent of all the parties, including Dr Chenjerai Hunzvi. In his affidavit in connection with this case, Dr Hunzvi denied that he had been involved in organising or encouraging the farm invasions. Yet in an interview at the beginning of March Hunzvi had said that it was within the rights of the former combatants to invade the farms as they were bitter about the fact that the white farmers had engineered the rejection of the draft constitution which contained a provision for state acquisition of land without compensation.¹³ The police have not attempted to comply with this order, claiming that it would be impossible and counterproductive to do so.¹⁴ The Attorney-General has appealed against the order. Leaders of the war veterans have proclaimed that they would not comply with the court order but instead they will intensify the programme to occupy farms.

There have also been reports of ZANU (PF) supporters using intimidation and threats of violence to pressurise people to attend ZANU (PF) rallies. There have also been reports of these supporters telling people that there will be war and killing in Zimbabwe if the MDC wins the election.¹⁵

1.6 The reign of terror
The ruling party has thus orchestrated a reign of terror by the war veterans and has very much encouraged a campaign of racial hatred against white farmers and other whites in Zimbabwe. A wave of lawlessness has swept across the country. The police have not been prepared or able to offer proper protection to persons who have been affected by this lawlessness.  TOP