Cry, Another Beloved Country

On Election Day Zimbabwe was peaceful. But then, it always is. Those of us who have covered this country for a long time know that it's what goes on quietly in the repressed rural areas during the run-up to the poll that really counts. This time, though, there was a brief moment of hope when it looked as if it could all be different. For a few days before and after our March 29 ballot it seemed that the combination of common sense, rampant inflation and concerns about his legacy had persuaded President Robert Mugabe, 84, to let democracy have its way. Sadly, we forgot to remember that Mugabe's democratic urges are never more than brief spasms.
 
During our interlude of optimism, the authoritarian Mugabe—prodded by an earlier agreement with South African President Thabo Mbeki—allowed the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) to campaign in the rural strongholds of Mugabe's ruling ZANU-PF. Thousands turned out to see and hear MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai for the first time.
 
In that respite, too, the foreign journalists who previously had to sneak into the country as tourists came out of hiding and stepped into Harare, the capital's disintegrating streets with their cameras and microphones. Agents from the country's feared Central Intelligence Organization watched unperturbed as a correspondent did a stand-upper outside our colonial matron, the Meikles Hotel; a Tsvangirai press conference drew a crush of elbowing journalists tripping over cords and plugs.
 
The beatings and assaults, kidnapping and torture came later—when results posted outside 9,000 polling stations showed the extent of the losses by the country's rulers. ZANU-PF narrowly lost its parliamentary majority, and Mugabe, by all accounts, lost the presidential ballot to Tsvangirai. Mugabe's response: to hold off on releasing the results of the presidential race. Almost a month later he has yet to do so.
 
Meanwhile, the postelection retribution continues. Mugabe, trying to intimidate voters into choosing him in the event of a runoff with Tsvangirai, ordered police and army to punish rural residents who had voted for the MDC. That involved beating residents within inches of their lives and burning their houses to force them out of their voting areas. The nation's few hundred remaining white farmers have been targeted too. At last count some 150 farms had been damaged in some way and many farm workers forced to quit their jobs and homes. Hundreds who remained have to attend all-night ZANU-PF propaganda sessions, called pungwes.

Mugabe is also trying to buy time by demanding a recount in some of the parliamentary votes. While that situation lingers, the beatings are increasing in both numbers and savagery. On Friday police raided the MDC headquarters in Harare—further undermining the movement's already weakened infrastructure—and detained election officials around the country. At least three are said to have been tortured to try to force "confessions" that they cooked the vote for the opposition.

Of course, thanks to price controls Zimbabwe's cell phone networks are largely disabled, so it's often impossible to independently verify the dead, assaulted, displaced and detained. (I regularly go the roundabout route of having a family member in neighboring South Africa text-message government officials in Zimbabwe for comment. Not surprisingly, none has responded.)
 
Nor is there an end in sight. While the outgoing Mbeki is best placed to resolve the crisis, his past record—and his present silence—does not inspire hope. During 2007 Mbeki refused time and again to heed advice from MDC negotiators Tendai Biti and Welshman Ncube during nine months of interparty dialogue that was supposed to deliver not only better election, media and security laws but a new constitution and transitional arrangements to deliver Zimbabwe from Mugabe. The negotiators kept on asking Mbeki whether he had a plan B to prevent precisely the kind of deadlock and violence in which Zimbabweans now find themselves. Of course there was no plan B. Mbeki never believed what they told him about Mugabe—a man he has known since Zimbabwe gained independence—and thought he knew the Zimbabwean better.
 
Economically, the country has become ungovernable. A single U.S. dollar now costs 100 million Zimbabwe dollars; local economist John Robertson estimates that inflation will hit 5 million percent by Oct. 1. The mint's sturdy German presses spew out ever higher-denomination notes, and the central bank doubles the money supply weekly, but most factories remain closed after central bank governor Gideon Gono removed foreign currency from corporate accounts in January to fund the elections. In supermarkets outside Harare, there is little to buy beyond Jell-O, corn curls, cabbages and cleaning materials.
 
For now, Mugabe has been strategically weakened by the saga of the An Yue Jiang, the Chinese ship laden with weapons he ordered last year. After port workers in neighboring countries refused to offload its contents for fear they would be used against Zimbabweans, the ship had to return to China. There's also mounting outside pressure from countries like the United States and Britain, but in the end this is a problem that will have to be solved by regional leaders. Depressed Zimbabweans may be convinced that Mugabe lost the presidential vote by at least 7 percent, but that's cold comfort when the old man refuses to release the results and ever more people in rural areas are savagely beaten for voting "the wrong way."

What a mess.

Peta Thornycroft is a freelance Zimbabwean journalist and winner of a 2007 Courage in Journalism award from the International Women’s Media Foundation. She writes for the Daily Telegraph (U.K.), Independent Newspapers (South Africa) and Voice of America.

© 2008