THEMbos Development Interventions & Assessments (CC)

March 2009

The issue that has become a bone of contention and to some extent a polarizing issue in Southern African Development Community (SADC) has been the Zimbabwe political conflict since the March 29 2008 Presidential and Parliamentary polls. The post-election conflict which Zimbabwe African National Union – Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) refused to accept the result which initially indicated Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) victory in both Parliamentary and Presidential ballot (MDC 47.87% and ZANU-PF 43.24%) (EISA 2008), has resulted in economic collapse with unimaginable hyper inflation figures, acute food insecurity, health system breakdown with nation-wide cholera epidemic. Furthermore, there has been loss of one academic year for the education and massive Zimbabwe refugees crossing over into other SADC countries and elsewhere. The current stalemate of eight months effort by South African government and SADC to broker a power-sharing deal of the two main rival parties, ZANU-PF and MDC is now beginning to yield results of cooperation towards unity government in February 2009. All these have happened in the midst of sporadic community violence, and arrests and arbitrary detention of some members of MDC as well as other political activists. The ruthless handling of the post-election stalemate by the Zimbabwe security forces has shown a tendency to trigger full-scale armed conflict in the country. Notwithstanding the acute attack the opposition faced with militant violence from ZANU-PF, MDC has refrain from engaging the Mugabe regime in full-scale civil war as a response which usually happen to be the case elsewhere in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Now, our curiosity is what then prevented the eruption of civil war in Zimbabwe? Could it be that some other factor (s) have contributed to stemming a full-scale civil war in Zimbabwe? These are the two issues this article seeks to explore an answer in the next sections, that, would Zimbabwe have gone to war?

Before analyzing the Zimbabwe political impasse and possible consequences, it would be interesting at this stage to begin with a glimpse at what normally cause wars in SSA. Since 1990, many African states have experienced some form of armed violence or war. Conflict analyses provides three categories of war that occur in SSA namely, inter-state wars which happen with two countries fighting across borders or one invading the other; second is intra-state war or civil war which happen between the government and normally rebel groups (which constitute opposition to the government) engage in violent resolution of political disaffections. The third type can be described as the one-sided conflict which happens between two non-state parties. Inter-tribal or inter/intra religious attacks over differences or protracted resource disputes. E.g. Northern Nigeria Muslims and Christians have recurrently attacked and executed vengeance against each other with deaths in hundreds. Since 1990 SSA has witnessed over 134 civil wars with estimated war deaths of over 5 million (Armed Conflict Location and Event Data (ACLED); Human Security Report 2005 part IV, p. 128). These civil wars have generated massive refugee movement across the continent and beyond. The level of lost human lives, property and infra-structure destruction is estimated to cost over £150 billion since 2007 (Guardian 2007). In addition, the manner of civil wars has left room for the proliferation of small arms and light weapons (SALW) with the consequence of violent crime increase in many SSA states. High level violent crimes have negative impact on development by reducing foreign direct investments into Africa. Despite, this huge cost and impact of civil wars across SSA with acute development problems, armed violence remain an intractable challenge to governments and political institutions in Africa as the means to resolves political disaffection due to economic injustice among other factors. In early 2008 for instance, the aftermath of Kenya’s democratic election turned into bloody violence with over 1000 deaths because the opposition parties led by Railey Odinga cried foul over the results which made the incumbent President Mwai Kibaki winner of the Presidential poll in December 2007.

Giving the rife and increasing occurrence of conflicts in SSA after a period of decline, conflict analysis experts have debate on the cause of civil wars which happen to be on the increase. There are two main dominant debates on the causes of SSA civil wars. The earlier assumption posits that civil wars are the product of deep-rooted and unresolved political grievances that defies resolution due to factors such as political and economic injustice to minority groups, political ideology, and autocratic regimes among others. The alternative side to the debate argues that the abundance of natural resource such as minerals and crude oil are the root cause and underlying factor in civil wars in SSA. Described as ‘resource curse’, this position espouse civil wars are generally caused by greedy individuals who claim to be war lords, and by take advantage of deep political crevices turn such weakness into platform to mobilize rebellion. The rebels attack the state in order to plunder natural resource for personal gain and also use such gains to forcefully demand regime change in order to disrupt democratic process in most cases. This type of demanding regime change has occurred in places such as Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

In considering the two perspectives on the causes of war, the expectation is that some current conditions in Zimbabwe could have made civil war inevitable. Notwithstanding the high tendency of Zimbabwe plunging into civil war, the country has escaped that catastrophe as a greater evil over what has happened in the country over the past 10 months and beyond. Once that did not happen requires some further empirical research to confirm what is being discussed in this article. We shall now look at some of the factors that could underscore the possibility of civil war occurring in Zimbabwe.

There exist in Zimbabwe levels of historical ethnic grievance from the area of Matabeleland who feel that they have no place in ZANU-PF. Matabeleland people narrate their story of having suffered not only marginalisation and economic injustice with ZANU-PF, but also violence in the hand of oppressive ZANU-PF rule. Historically, “the early 1980s were marked by a five-year brutal repression in Matabeleland and Midlands against the minority Ndebele population that supported rival ZAPU. ZAPU was later forced into a merger, leaving Mugabe head of a de facto one party state, under ZANU-PF, by 1987” (International Crisis Group 2008) . The forceful implementation Land Reform and Redistribution Policy in 2000 resulted in renewed unwarranted attacks on dissenters to the policy and the Mugabe regime. The period leading to the March 2008 election and the post-election has seen Matabeleland and its localities suffered much human right abuses to its highest level, because of the majority support for the MDC in the area. The area has been deprived of needed relief food aid and basic health needs. The arrest and detention of many political activists constitute violations which are capable to incite reprisal in the form of explosive armed rebellion as occurred elsewhere in SSA. In Cote d’Ivoire, e.g. the stalemate around the disqualification of Alassan Ouattara, former Prime Minister under Houphouet-Boigny, resulted in enmity between the southern dominated ruling party and the Northerner Ivorian which eventually erupted into civil war with other root factors contributing to the starting of that war.

Zimbabwe has mineral resource that could attract plundering by war-lords, e.g. gold, diamonds, and platinum, among others like asbestos, chrome, coal, nickel, and copper (US Bureau on African Affairs undated). The greenstone belts along the Mazowe, Runde, Insiza and Umzingwane rivers are sites for gold panning by mostly unemployed Zimbabweans. There are rich deposits of diamond in Chiadzwa in eastern Zimbabwe (Sunday Times 2008). There is a coal-bed methane deposit in Matabeleland which is one of the highest deposits in the SADC region which can fuel rebellion within the current political situation for separatism as happened in Southern Sudan over crude oil discovery. Another important volatile issue for consideration here is the differences of the Zimbabwean political rivalries over the land redistribution policy. MDC prefers a flexible approach where once a Zimbabwean citizen should suffice entitlement to land acquisition irrespective of race. This means a complete reversal to ZANU-PF forceful land reclamation policy supposed to favour the majority landless Zimbabweans. MDC has alleged that ZANU-PF officials have expropriated the land for themselves and not for the ordinary rural dweller as expected. This policy as bone of contention has contributed to ossification of positions between the two political rivals. This has threatened Mugabe into regime entrenchment. In Mugabe’s own words, “we are prepared to fight for our country and go to war for it” (Sunday Times 15th June 2008), if that will prevent MDC victory necessary to reverse the land redistribution issue.

Human Sciences Research Council Report identifies foremost, politics, economy and ideological interests as underlying issues in SADC conflicts (Human Sciences Research Council 2006). The examples provided above as political, economical, and ideological factors show the volatile situation in Zimbabwe. Notwithstanding, the country did not plunge into civil war. It will be interesting, therefore, for us to look for the possible reason that has prevented MDC and other opposition forces from armed rebellion against the entrenched Mugabe regime.

Considering the scenario since March 2008 post-election state-sponsored violence in Zimbabwe, we cannot analyse the development and trend of the conflict from resource curse and grievance positions. The two premises become less relevant to adequately explain why Zimbabwe political crisis did not erupt into full-scale civil war in the second half of 2008. By statistical means which is not provided here, a regression analyses may show a situation of deterioration into civil war using either resources argument or grievance hypotheses. This means that, indeed, the ingredient for civil war is present in Zimbabwe making eruption of civil war inevitable in the recent political environment.

The state of the economy has been in absolute record mess with unreasonable hyper inflation record at 13.2 billion per cent (Gold World 2009). The political crises with March 2008 election results rejected by the ruling ZANU-PF resulted in sporadic confrontation between ZANU-PF and MDC members, and further arbitrary arrests of opposition members and human rights activist by state security personnel. Socially, the crumbling of ordinary people purchasing power and hunger caused by acute food shortage and scarcity of other basic needs including deterioration of health system constitute a recipe for violent revolt. The recent violent political development in Madagascar provide an example of how politically frustrated opposition and supporters can react when over stretched. The ensuing hunger coupled with scarcity of hygienic water has resulted in cholera epidemic with over 41 986 people current infected and over 2 201 deaths in Zimbabwe according to World Health Organisation (WHO) reports (The Citizen 2009). The ZUNU-PF government went to extent of barring some humanitarian NGOs that are critical of the government and some international media representatives. Despite the deteriorating conditions that augur for violent civil rebellion, Zimbabwe escaped imminent civil war. The glaring factor is that the cause and underlying factors for civil war in SSA are complex than have been known.

Despite the intricate nature of the causes of SSA civil wars, a broader understanding of the causes and underlying factors can help in the log-term reduction of incidences of civil wars by setting up early-warning mechanisms for conflict prevention and the development of political conflicts into full-scale wars.

At this stage, we will consider an alternative approach for assessing the reason behind Zimbabwe electoral conflict evading full-scale civil war. Possibly, let’s capture a stratified view of the situation which takes into account the key parties and not the issues per se. Such an approach can be an integrated or a combination of analyses structures that take cognizance of the broader layers of direct and indirect actors involved in the conflict and their concerns. It will help us to have a specific focus on different levels of interacting systems within and surrounding the conflict, thus, individuals, groups, and nations or states and their circumstance, the geo-political domain as regional factor, and also the international networks that transcends the regional barriers which are of strategic and economic importance (Levy, Jack S. 2001: 3 – 27; Waltz, Kenneth N. 1979; Brown, Micheal E. 2001: 213).

We find that whilst the internal activities in Zimbabwe have been set to trigger of a civil war with Mugabe and Tsvangirai at their highest bellicose level; what is lacking has been an external source of armament and other military support to the opposition. The oversight by SADC this time has helped to prevent the repetition of DRC where force was used to oust entrenched Mobutu and the consequence thereof. Normally, the opposition group or rebelling party get external motivation by conflict entrepreneurs within the international system, especially the developed and transitional states in Europe. In the case of Zimbabwe, the government effort to arm itself could be controlled to some extent by the landlocked position of the country. A consignment of arm (assault rifle ammunition, rocket propelled grenades, and mortar rounds) from China were intercepted in South African port and prevented from reaching its destination in fear they will be used against government opponents. The consignment, however, miraculously reached the Zimbabwean government after docking in Angola as regular order. The opposition lack of access to sophisticated weaponry, and possibly without any guarantee of supplies stalled all out confrontation with ZANU-PF.

The conflicts of the DRC and Angola brought major sub-regional parties embroiled in what is described as internationalized conflict, due to the nature of mixed interests. South Africa, Angola, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Namibia on one side and Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi on the other eastern frontiers of DRC (Human Security Center 2005). In Angola, South Africa and Namibia had played an active role in fighting alongside National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) and the government forces respectively (Batchelor, Peter, Dunne, Paul and Lamb, Guy, 2002: 39/341, 342). The involvement of most of the economically struggling SADC neighbours had incurred an increase in military expenditure during that period. This was due to the economic political nature of the conflict, and the role of crude oil and mineral resource.

It could be inferred that the Zimbabwean electoral political stalemate has not erupted into armed conflict because the SADC neighbours have learnt their lesson in DRC. None of the SADC states have dared to contribute arms or allowed illegal arms transfer through their territory to support MDC. Therefore the importance of external actors is required to make civil war possible. The Zimbabwe opposition, without military aid from any regional party cannot mobilize an armed response to Mugabe’s tyranny. The lack of any SADC members’ armed intervention has prevented violent alternative to topple Mugabe’s entrenched regime. As neither war nor pressure resistance provides a short-cut to a resolution, the latter eliminates excessive cost of post-war reconstruction (Owusu-Sekyere, Bernard N. 2007: 70, 71). MDC did not have any choice but to yield to the best possible way of achieving resolution of the political conflict for peace, which is by mediation and mediation alone.

The conclusion on this brief analyses is that political conflicts, especially electoral related ones may continue to occur within emerging democracies in SSA for extended period. But to the extent by which such electoral conflicts will flare up into catastrophic events such as civil war require not only internal readiness of political rivalries, but critical support from external parties, especially those within regional proximity, to makes civil war possible. Zimbabwe escaped civil war because regional parties showed no interest in making undue capital and gains from illicit and dangerous transfer of arms and other military support. The SADC commitment to insist on mediation as the best and only way to achieve peace in Zimbabwe has been given the chance to yield the result without much undue recovery cost of massive destruction of lives, infrastructure, and properties. Therefore, Zimbabwe would have gone to war should the regional parties and other stakeholders contributed in violence by arming MDC among other support.

References

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