Media Under Siege, a report on media coverage of the 2002 presidential and mayoral elections in Zimbabwe, begins with a paragraph discussing a propaganda manual used in 1994 by Rwandan media, now notorious for inciting genocide. The manual argued for an approach called “accusation in a mirror”, in which the enemy would be accused of carrying out acts that the accusers themselves were planning or executing. It is this “uncanny echo” that Media Under Siege begins with, and with the horror of Rwanda imprinted on the psyche of Africa, it is a chilling comparison. But this report does not set out to warn that Zimbabwe will become another Rwanda. Rather, and as laid out in the conclusion, it is a pointed warning to those working in the public media that their time will come.

The report concludes: “The evidence from the output of Zimpapers and ZBC points overwhelmingly to the existence of a deliberate campaign to disseminate lies with the aims of discrediting the political opposition and inciting violence against the MDC and its supporters…” It does go on to acknowledge that the prospect of journalists being charged is a distant one. “But it is important that the legal obligations and accountability of journalists be clearly understood.”

Media Under Siege is an in depth look at the media context of the 2002 elections and some of the major events covered by the media, including the victimisation of the Amani Trust, the alleged assassination plot against Robert Mugabe and some of the more outlandish conspiracy theories advanced in the public media. It talks through the pre-poll, poll and post-poll context in a format that compares how the public media covered issues in relation to the private media, and visa versa. Some of the statistics are astonishing and clearly indicate the vested interests of the media and the massive dived between the public media on one side and the private media on the other. For example, Radio Zimbabwe quoted a total of 304 official party voices of the contesting parties. Of these, Zanu-PF was quoted 258 times (85 percent), while the MDC was quoted 28 times (nine percent). And out of a total of 14 hours and 41 minutes and 30 seconds that ZBC television news bulletins devoted to the presidential elections campaign between December 2001 and March 2002, Zanu-PF’s candidate was granted a total of 13 hours 50 minutes and 30 seconds, or a little more than 94 percent.

This is not to say that the report is uncritical of the shortcomings in the coverage of events by the Daily News, and this is frequently pointed out. But the difference is that this is constructive criticism of mistakes carried out in the line of duty. In the case of the public media, criticism is more scathing. “Bad journalism was what Zimpapers and the ZBC did in the now distant past, when they at least aspired to practise journalism of some description. In the 2002 election campaign their business was not journalism at all. At its most benign it was to sow confusion; at its worst it was used as a tool to incite hatred and violence.”

This report might not be the glossiest publication you ever lay your hands on, but it is a gritty account of the media environment over the election period and will be of value to anyone with even a passing interest in the media. The report does not cover the subsequent closure of the Daily News, but this does not matter. Its indictment of the public media for its failure to fulfil its most basic journalistic responsibilities during the election period makes clear the huge hole that the closure of the Daily News has left in Zimbabwe.

Media Under Siege is published by the Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe, an independent Trust that works to promote responsible journalism in Zimbabwe.
ISBN: 0-7974-2736-8
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United States President George W. Bush, other leaders of the G8 group of industrialised countries and political leaders in Africa deserve congratulations for their courage in leading a genuine attempt to deal honestly and respectfully with the problems facing Africa in 2003.

The pace was set when George W. Bush touched down in Dakar, Senegal earlier this year. Following a visit to Goree Island, which acted as a transit camp for Africans during the slave trade, Bush experienced a road to Damascus moment. With tears in his eyes, he said the experience had for the first time helped him to grasp the enormous damage caused by slavery. Clearly his country had benefited in a grossly immoral way and therefore it was logical that reparations should be made for this blotch in the history of his country. He immediately offered reparations – 'apologies are not enough', he said.

What was even more shocking, said the president, was that his country continued to support policies that were difficult to justify  - in fact, they added insult to injury and continued to build on the injustices of the past. He admitted that the US and Western powers systematically undermined the African liberation movements by slaughtering leaders such as Patrice Lumumba, supporting terrorist movements in DRC, Angola, Mozambique and elsewhere. This newfound commitment to Africa would require serious financial bankrolling, announced Bush, and as a result the war on Iraq would end forthwith to prevent resources being diverted from Africa. Even this would not be enough, however, and he had personally ordered the scrapping of his $400-billion defence budget, which would be diverted towards peaceful activities, rather than killing fields. Following a nightmare about the havoc $400-billion dollars worth of guns would cause, he was no longer convinced that the military-industrial complex held the solution to the world's problems. The US militarisation of the African continent through the establishment of forward bases in the war against terror would be scrapped. Africa needed less, not more, militarisation, he said. The USA would immediately ratify the Rome Treaty for the International Criminal Court: 'There can be no excuse for impunity for those guilty of crimes against humanity.'  

The cynical have argued that Bush's announcement was forced upon him by massive and unprecedented popular pressure from across Africa. Whatever the case, Bush's announcement was the culmination of a groundswell of change that nobody could have predicted at the beginning of 2003. South Africa's president Thabo Mbeki announced that he had given up golf. Golf, he said, was an elitist game and an environmentally damaging one at that, which did not befit the image of a president who stood for the people and with the people. Moreover, Mbeki, along with other New Partnership for Africa's Development (Nepad) architects, President Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria and President Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal, could now see that Nepad was indeed an imperialistic tool (as some ultra-leftists had previously stated). Nepad, if implemented in its current form, would work to serve the interests of the West and further impoverish the African people. The project would have to be reworked in favour of a genuine consultative programme that placed people before profits.

With global and continental leadership in line, seemingly intractable problems moved towards quick resolution. A host of undemocratic and dictatorial African leaders were either summarily removed by bloodless peoples' coups, or fled office after seeing the writing on the wall. Where there are gaps, the African Union has transformed itself from a toothless organisation and firmly laid down the law when required. As we end 2003, genuine people's democracies are sweeping across Africa.

This revolution could not take place in and of itself and needed to be accompanied by radical structural changes. One of these changes involved the onerous debt burden facing many African countries, long acknowledged as a serious obstruction to the development of Africa and responsible for diverting funds away from health, education and the social services. With a new moral fervour evident globally, The Highly Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) initiative was scrapped as a complete failure in 2003. In its place illegal debt was immediately eliminated without any unfair terms or conditions. Africa's development of rich industrialised countries through the repayment of debt has therefore ended.

A significant victory of 2003 was the establishment of the Commission on International Financial Institutions (CIFI), which announced that the World Trade Organisation, International Monetary Fund and World Bank were undemocratic institutions who had failed to function in the interests of the majority of the world population. The commission recommended – and these recommendations were subsequently adopted – that the IFI's be scrapped and replaced by truly representative, democratic institutions designed to operate in the interests of all the people of the world. Investigations into possible prosecutions regarding the harmful policies of the IFI's over the last 50 years and the damaging effects of their Structural Adjustment Policies and Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers on Africa are ongoing. There was widespread agreement for the need to distinguish between investment and recurrent expenditure: money spent on education, social welfare and health were vital investments, the returns on which could only be measured over decades. A massive programme of investment has been put in place for 2004. Given the failure of privatisation of services over the last decade, governments were encouraged to nationalise social services, including power, water, health services, etc. This has sparked a vibrant public debate across the region about whether the same approach should be taken with production of other socially necessary products.

The ending of double-speak and spin over the issue of HIV/AIDS is another welcome development that took place in 2003. 'Treat all the People Now!', long seen as a distant dream, has become reality. The year began gloomily as countries failed to meet their commitments to the Global Fund to Fight Aids, TB and Malaria, then promised more money and failed again to deliver. But the new political climate and unprecedented action by civil society organisations mean that the fund is now topped up and dispensing money in a way that has seen major victories in the war against the epidemic. Treatment is now approaching 100 percent. Furthermore, the control of the medical industry by a handful of enormously powerful and unaccountable multi-national pharmaceutical companies was beaten back in a serious of battles in which the people stood up and demanded their right to be treated.

Another important area with regards Africa that deserves mentioning here is that of unequal terms of trade, long regarded as a sticking point in the development of the continent. In September, Africa stood up to the industrialised countries at the World Trade Organisation meeting in Cancun, Mexico, over unfair trade and refused to allow further onerous conditions to be imposed on them. The result was a humbled United States and European Union. Both finally agreed that outrageous subsidies which would hypothetically speaking allow their dairy herds to take round the world vacation trips while people in certain parts of the world starved, served nobody's interests and were an utter embarrassment to their moral standing, or lack thereof.  U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellig declared that industrialised countries had long been 'spoilers' and pledged to work towards terms of trade that benefited Africa.

It has been a truly memorable year. There have been major victories leading to decreased militarisation, the spreading of democracy, treatment for those with HIV/AIDS and equitable terms of trade. The benefits in terms of Africa's social and economic indicators are already being felt. Significantly, international legal mechanisms have also been set in place to ensure that never again will Africa, or any other part of the world, be allowed to occupy a position at the bottom of the global development index. No longer will certain power brokers be allowed to glibly take the moral high ground with one hand, while continuing a self-enrichment exercise of plunder and looting with another. Africa can now enter 2004 knowing that, in contrast to a year ago, it will not have to confront the battery of unjust and exploitative policies that kept it in subjection for so long.

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While the debacle over world cup cricket matches being played in Zimbabwe continues to attract headlines, there is mounting concern over the trial of Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leader Morgan Tsvangirai, with many believing that the charges against him have been manufactured to remove the opposition leader from the Zimbabwean political landscape. Tsvangirai, Welshman Ncube, the MDC secretary-general and MP for Bulawayo North-East, and Renson Gasela, the shadow minister of agriculture and Gweru Rural MP, are facing charges of hiring Dickens & Madson, a Canadian-based political lobby firm owned by Ari Ben-Menashe, leading witness for the state, to plot the assassination of President Robert Mugabe and subsequent overthrow of the Zanu PF-led government. The three deny the charges, but could face the death penalty if convicted.

Evidence in the trial has so far consisted mainly of a video recording of a meeting between Ben-Menashe and Tsvangirai, in which Ben-Menashe says the two discussed “eliminating” Mugabe. The defence argues that the meeting was set up to trap Tsvangirai. Tsvangirai has claimed that he is innocent of all charges against him and that the videotape was heavily edited with the word “eliminate” taken out of context.
Ben-Menashe claims that Tsvangirai had offered him money to facilitate the assassination of Mugabe, initiate a coup d'etat, and install a transitional government, but his credibility has been damaged by his ties to the Zimbabwean government. According to the Zimbabwean Independent, Dickens and Madson received a US$400,000 contract from the Zimbabwean government last May. They were hired to try and improve Zimbabwe's image abroad.

The International Association of Political Consultants, a professional association of political advisers from more than 50 countries, has sharply criticized the trial. IAPC president Ken Feltman urged media organisations to focus on what he called a “bogus trial which could cause an innocent man to lose his life” and said the IAPC were “disturbed” that Ben Menashe was the star witness for the state. “We have learned that Ben Menashe’s firm, Dickens & Madson of Canada, was on President Mugabe’s payroll long before he met with Tsvangirai and had received $400,000 from the Mugabe government.” Feltman said although Ben Menashe had described himself as a political consultant, he was not nor ever had been a member of IAPC. “The directors of IAPC reject the contention that Morgan Tsvangirai is guilty of trying to plan an assassination and believe this is a plot organised by Ari Ben Menashe and financed by Mugabe as a means of eliminating Tsvangirai as a political opponent.”

Meanwhile, the latest round of quiet diplomacy is being conducted by South African President Thabo Mbeki and Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, who has stressed “constructive engagement” to help Zimbabwe. Obasjano reportedly said: “We must help Zimbabwe out of its predicament and problem. We cannot do that if we become unduly and unnecessarily critical and antagonistic to Zimbabwe. We must remain constructively engaged with Zimbabwe. If there are points to be raised with Zimbabwe, like brothers we put ourselves in a room, we lock the door and we tell ourselves (the) truth.”

The continued emphasis on quiet diplomacy despite its failure is viewed with dismay by human rights and democracy groups. In late January, Amnesty International issued a statement saying the level of fear among human rights activists in Zimbabwe had never been greater. And in a report released at the end of January, Tony Reeler, a former director of the Amani Trust, described the “grim picture” painted by a number of reports on the organised violence and torture that has afflicted Zimbabwe since February 2000 and the absence of credible government attempts to stop them. Gross human rights abuses had been perpetrated, including summary executions; extra-judicial killings; disappearances; torture; mass psychological torture; political rape; rape; illegal arrests and unlawful detentions.

However, Mugabe continues to escape censure from African leaders for the human rights situation in Zimbabwe, something which Tsvangirai himself has described as being a result of a “dubious African brotherhood”. Obasanjo’s meeting with Mugabe this week apparently dealt with attempts to persuade Mugabe to implement reforms ahead of a Commonwealth meeting that would strengthen the case against renewing sanctions. This would in turn encourage Mugabe to implement more reforms. Mbeki, Obasanjo and Howard are due to meet in South Africa next month to review their decision to suspend Zimbabwe from the Commonwealth after Mugabe was re-elected last March in elections dismissed by Commonwealth observers as fraudulent. South Africa, Nigeria and Australia are tasked with reviewing the one-year suspension of Zimbabwe.

A further diplomatic triumph for Mugabe has been the hosting of preliminary games of the cricket world cup in Zimbabwe. England was the only country to announce the cancellation of their match in Zimbabwe, but this was mainly due to safety concerns as opposed to being a result of taking a politically principled position. The only official statement of solidarity with the people of Zimbabwe emanating from World Cup structures that suggested there may be moral problems with playing a game in a country where torture and starvation were taking place came from Zimbabwean cricketers Andrew Flower and Henry Olongo, who wore black armbands during their game against Namibia. “We cannot in good conscience take to the field and ignore the fact that millions of our compatriots are starving, unemployed and oppressed. We are aware that hundreds of thousands of Zimbabweans may even die in the coming months through a combination of starvation, poverty and Aids. We are aware that many people have been unjustly imprisoned and tortured simply for expressing their opinions about what is happening in the country,” the pair said in a statement.

Two recent trials suggest that justice may prevail, says an article published by the Digital Freedom Network (http://www.dfn.org/news/zimbabwe/tsvang-trial.htm). The first is the dropping of charges against 41 white farmers who had refused to vacate their farms in protest of the government's land reform program that involves the involuntary seizure of land without adequate compensation. The second trial involved four MDC members, including Member of Parliament Job Sikhala, who were accused of plotting to overthrow the government. They filed a motion with the High Court in February to have their case dropped, claiming that a confession was coerced from them while under police custody. The judge ruled in their favour and dismissed the charges. But the DFN article also acknowledges that Mugabe has been known to fire judges and reverse their decisions on a whim and that if the court finds Tsvangirai guilty, then Mugabe would have succeeded in eliminating his political competition.

Just how far will the failure in quiet diplomacy extend? Having said little or nothing about Zimbabwe’s human rights record, it remains to be seen what Mbeki and Obasanjo would have to say if Tsvangirai was found guilty and sentenced to death. Not so long ago a similar exercise in quiet diplomacy involving a human rights activist, a South African president and a despotic ruler ended badly. In that case the characters were Ken Saro-Wiwa, South African President Nelson Mandela and General Sani Abacha of Nigeria. But lets hope that’s where the similarities end.

Links:
* Who should be sanctioned?

* Treason trial in secret session
http://allafrica.com/stories/200302110459.html
* Ben-Menashe a Crook, Say Tsvangirai's Defence Lawyers
http://allafrica.com/stories/200302040222.html
* African nations to drop Mugabe sanctions

In Zimbabwe, choosing your political affiliation is a matter of life or death, confirms a new report. Political abuse of food is the most serious and widespread human rights violation in Zimbabwe at present, according to a November report from Physicians for Human Rights, Denmark (PHR-DK).

The organisation said its most significant findings related to the abuse of food and warned that if it was not possible to increase non-partisan food supplies into the country, then starvation and eventually death would occur along party political lines in Zimbabwe. “We conclude that in the last four months, manipulation of food was directly related to elections. The threat of being deliberately starved by the government if the opposition won votes, was used to profoundly influence vulnerable rural voters in recent elections in Zimbabwe.”

PHR-DK said in all cases of problematic food distribution, those implicated in politically manipulating access to food were Zanu-PF officials or supporters. The lack of food – a situation maintained by Zanu-PF - served a dual purpose for the party: it allowed political control through controlling who accessed food, and it created a Zanu-PF dominated black market which enriched the party hierarchy.

Covering the period from August to October 2002, the report documents the story of a mother named only as DD, who has nine children under the age of 12. She was an active Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) supporter before the Presidential elections and had experienced trouble accessing food as a result. Shortly before the rural district elections, she realised that her food situation was desperate and that her children were in serious danger of starving to death. She realised that the MDC was not in a position to help, and that as long as she remained a MDC supporter, she would not get food, because that is what everyone in her ward had repeatedly been told by Zanu-PF officials. She had tried repeatedly during 2002 to get on to World Food Programme feeding lists and was told by the local community leaders responsible for drawing up lists that she was not eligible as she was from the MDC. The kraal head, named as T in the report, came to her home and told her she had to surrender her MDC cards if she wanted to benefit from WFP donor food. This was shortly before the Rural District Council elections. DD said she was made to publicly surrender her card and buy a Zanu-PF card. Immediately on doing this, she was declared as being eligible for WFP food, and was placed on their feeding lists. At the time her child was diagnosed as having kwashiorkor, a condition caused by protein and calorie deficiency.

The report is the third report in 2002 on torture in Zimbabwe written by PHR-DK. In January and May 2002, reports concluded that “mutilating torture” was being practised by government supporters against the political opposition, and that perpetrators operated on the assumption of total impunity.

The January and May reports both reflected concern at the clamp down on the Zimbabwean judiciary, media and civil society and its impact on the flow of information on human rights abuses to the international community. “In May we warned that in the Zimbabwean context, fewer formal reports about abuses did not indicate that fewer abuses were taking place. Rather it indicated that repressive legislation and a growing government campaign against independent voices had succeeded in decreasing the information flow.”

The organisation concluded in its November report that little had changed. “Torture and ill treatment beyond any doubt is still being practised by government supporters against their political opponents in Zimbabwe. The fact that perpetrators continue not to care whether they torture people who can identify them, or whether their acts of torture or ill treatment leave marks that can easily be recognised as caused by torture, underlines a clear assumption on their part, of impunity.”

PHR-DK said current findings reinforced the conclusion of earlier reports – that there was a deliberate policy of torture and impunity by the authorities. The November report documents that attacks on independent voices in the media, the judiciary and civil society have indeed continued, and are predicted to escalate yet further in the next few months, in the form of further repressive legislation, as well as attacks on individuals.

PHR-DK is an independent group of Danish medical doctors founded in 1990 whose goal is to bring the skills of the medical profession to the protection of human rights. Previous reports from the organisation are available at

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South African President Thabo Mbeki, his top government ministers and a grouping of international corporate heads dubbed the International Investment Council gathered last weekend at a luxury game lodge to discuss the country’s economic growth path. The situation in Zimbabwe and its impact on regional investor confidence featured prominently in their discussions. In a briefing, Mbeki, previously criticised for his softly-softly approach, defended his stance towards South Africa’s troubled neighbour in the north. Mbeki said he was committed to working with the Zimbabwean government on an “urgent” basis to resolve problems of land reform, famine and a collapsing economy. Echoing Mbeki’s quiet diplomacy, Niall Fitzgerald, chairperson of multi-national Unilever, said he believed the situation in Zimbabwe had to be dealt with “privately and urgently” and that there was no point in “shouting”. “The more things are done quietly and urgently, the more encouraged I will become that we will achieve some progress,” he said.

Far to the north of Johannesburg in Harare, it’s unlikely that Raymond Majongwe, leader of a striking Zimbabwean teachers’ union, would have had much faith in Mbeki and Fitzgerald’s foreign policy on Zimbabwe. About the same time that South African Foreign Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma arrived in Zimbabwe last Thursday for a meeting with Robert Mugabe, Majongwe’s lawyer was alleging how his client had been “seriously injured” in policy custody. “He has been beaten up and when I saw him yesterday (Wednesday) night he couldn’t sit on his own. I think he has broken ribs and internal bleeding,” said lawyer Tererayi Gunje. Zuma landed back in South Africa on Saturday to hand out a pasting to the South African media for presenting Zimbabwe in a bad light. Dlamini-Zuma said the South African media was “very negative” and had “failed to paint a balanced picture of events both in Zimbabwe and South Africa”.

Also at the time of Dlamini-Zuma’s visit to Zimbabwe was the emergence of two reports compiled by the Zimbabwean Human Rights NGO Forum, one documenting political violence for September and the other reporting on intimidation of Zimbabwean teachers. Combined the reports run to nearly 50 pages and most of these pages are filled with the harrowing stories of people whose lives have been destroyed by a vicious cycle of beatings, burnings, torture, stonings, harassment and threats. Both reports convey the impression of a society at ransom to mob rule in an atmosphere of violence and intimidation where the police are unlikely to rush to the rescue. These are two random examples drawn from the report:

· OM, a youth secretary for the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), was taken to Chitungwiza police station and interrogated on the wherabouts of an MDC activist being sought in connection with a murder. He was then taken to Harare Central Police Station. On professing ignorance, he was assaulted under the feet whilst in leg irons. He was ordered to undress and taken underground where more assaults were perpetrated. He was blindfolded, had a gun poked into his mouth and was taken to Goromonzi Police Station where he was forced to confess to the whereabouts of Kitsiyatota under the application of electric shocks.

· AK, a pregnant teacher, was assaulted by Zanu-PF youths because her husband was the District Secretary for the MDC. The baby was born on June 29 but passed away on July 5. Medical reports attributed the death of the baby to the assault.

Nor can these accounts be dismissed as isolated incidents. Although political violence peaked around the March general election and September local election, according to the Human Rights Forum, between the beginning of the year and the end of September there have been 1057 cases of torture, or 117 per month. In the same time period, there have been 358 cases of political violence and intimidation, 223 abductions, 170 unlawful arrests, 110 unlawful detentions, 62 death threats, 58 murders, 29 assaults and seven rapes.

The report dealing with the attack on teachers says the violence has been ongoing since June 2 000 in the context of a campaign against civil servants by ruling party supporters, war veterans and the youth militia. “Violence against teachers has been concentrated in the rural communities where teachers are rightfully considered to be a group that has considerable influence on the communities in which they live. The reported attacks on teachers who support or are suspected of supporting the MDC seems to be a way of limiting their political influence on the rural populace,” says the report. “This report documents 238 individual cases of human rights abuses against teachers for the 18 month period between January 2001 and June 2002. The Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum believes the documented evidence that it has collected is merely the tip of a much bigger iceberg, and would wish to draw attention to the many previous cases reported in earlier reports.”

The assault on all sectors of society is in line with what is seen as the intent by the government of Zimbabwe to close down all social and political spaces available to the opposition in their attempt to hold on to power. This is implemented not only through a system of centralised control, but also through a situation of organised chaos that allows groups to operate that destroy the opposition and are increasingly likely to target groups such as churches, NGO’s and journalists.

Legislation has previously been used by the Zimbabwean government to control sectors of society that may be opposed to it. Most recently, civil society has expressed concern about an instruction from the government for all NGOs to register under the controversial Private Voluntary Organisations (PVO) Act. Last month the Ministry of Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare published an advertisement instructing all NGOs not registered to do so in terms of Section 9 of the PVO Act. Section 6 of the Act does not allow such a “body, institution or association to operate without being registered”, the notice said. Section 25 of the same Act makes it a criminal offence to operate without being registered. This is seen as an attempt by government to crack down on the activities of NGOs and civil society in the same way that the government has cracked down on other critical sectors like students, workers, the judiciary, the media and political parties.

At the same time as a deteriorating human rights situation, hunger is stalking the countryside, with reports indicating that up to six million people could be at risk from starvation. Recent SADC Food Early Warning system and World Food Programme reports confirm this picture of hunger. An August/September report of the National NGO Food Security Network (FOSENET), consisting of 24 organisations covering all districts of Zimbabwe, said that almost all area reports indicated that whole communities were now becoming vulnerable. “This is attributed to collapse of the harvests, the breakdown of supply through the Grain Marketing Board (GMB), the absence of meaningful levels of relief, the scarcity of commercial supplies and political interference and corruption in distribution of scarce supplies.” Almost all areas were reported to have had food stocks for only one month, with some provinces like Matabeleland North and South having totally run out, and others like Masvingo, Midlands and Manicaland approaching the same situation.

What does the future hold for Zimbabwe? Just after the disputed March elections, analysts warned that the prospect of serious internal conflict in Zimbabwe was imminent, with grave consequences for the entire southern African region. At the time Zanu-PF had just withdrawn from talks with the MDC, whose leader Morgan Tsvangarai was talking about mass action as a way to pressure the government into new elections. Since then the crisis has deepened and those inside Zimbabwe speculate that there may be a number of small scale and spontaneous “explosions” as a result of frustration at the current crisis. This would manifest itself through food riots, lootings, increased criminality and a resultant clamp down by the army and the police.

Increasingly, there are calls for greater international awareness of the urgency of the situation in Zimbabwe and for the international community to move away from seeing the crisis only through the eyes of white farmers and the land crisis. Geoffrey Nyarota, the editor of the Zimbabwe Daily News, said in a recent interview: “Their (the white farmers) rights are important, but the situation is not limited to the plight of those farmers. This is a much bigger situation: the rural population is totally without food. The plight of the opposition parties, the journalists, the judiciary - these are all groups who have been targeted …”

Meanwhile, Mugabe has shown a determination to cling to power and a corresponding unwillingness to compromise, leaving the MDC unable to engage meaningfully on a political level. The political gamble that the opposition would disappear and that things would ‘normalise’ in Zimbabwe has not paid off. Escalating violence by state agencies signals an escalating need to suppress the unwillingness of Zimbabweans to accept or normalise the current political situation. The violence and state control that has now penetrated areas of industrial relations, food security, civic life, residential areas and workplaces is not a sign of a system that fears only a few white farmers or foreign forces- it is a sign of fear of the people. Violently stopping opposition candidates from registering through violence in 700 local government election wards is not a sign of a leadership that is confident of its popularity with the people. The question for South African political leaders must therefore be whether they remain loyal to and enable President Mbeki’s statement - ‘Let the people of Zimbabwe decide their future’. And the test of their conduct will not be what they did and did not do towards supporting not one party or another. It will be in what they did and did not do to support the opportunities for ordinary Zimbabweans to have the political space and the basic rights to solve their own problems.

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The Bill Gates of Johannesburg in the gold rush of the 1880’s was reputed to be a Frenchman by the name of Jacques Lebaudy whose level of excess astonished even the stinking rich of the time. Lebaudy was said to have driven a carriage with a harness made out of solid gold, once filled his swimming pool with champagne, entertained his guests with troops of exotic dancers imported from Baghdad and made sure that a new city fountain gushed with wine. English journalist Flora Shaw coined the term “classless excess” when writing about the materialism of the post gold rush era represented by Lebaudy and - more than 100 years later - Johannesburg still thrives on its reputation as a center of smash-and-grab greed.