For the last three weeks, Zimbabwean authorities have raided scores of farms in once-productive white commercial farming areas, evicting settlers and burning down their homes. The settlers are said to have invaded the land under President Robert Mugabe's land grab scheme in 2000. The mass evictions are seen as a dramatic reversal of the government's land reform policy, denounced internationally as violent, illegal and chaotic.

Zimbabwe's seven Catholic bishops sent a pastoral letter to churches demanding a "credible electoral process" and peaceful campaigning ahead of March elections. And they warned against propaganda, favouritism and discrimination against dissenters, including the main opposition party. In a separate move also seen as a crackdown on dissent, the government proposed criminalising charity work done without a government permit, and banning charities and private groups focusing on "issues of human rights and good governance" from receiving foreign funding.

The Zimbabwe Republic Police is running re-orientation courses in which officers are taught about the ill-treatment of blacks by whites including the killing by British settlers of Zimbabwe's 19th century spirit medium, Nehanda. Sources said the courses were meant to prepare the law enforcement agency for the crucial general election scheduled for March 2005, but have been criticized as being highly political and apparently meant to drive a wedge between the police and anyone who did not support the ruling Zanu PF party and government.

The members of Women of Zimbabwe Arise (Woza) had walked 400km from Bulawayo, the country's second-largest city, and were stopped just 30km from Harare, their destination. The women began the 12-day protest march last week to raise money and awareness for human rights work at a time when Robert Mugabe's government had proposed a law to restrict human rights organisations. 48 women have been arrested.

The hearing to investigate allegations of racism levelled against the Zimbabwe Cricket Union by the group of rebel players began in Harare on Wedneday. If found guilty, the ZCU could face a range of penalties, including possible expulsion from the ICC. The findings will be presented to the ICC's executive board for discussion at it's next full meeting in October. The ZCU will deny all the charges, and is expected to counter-claim that there is a legacy of racism by whites in Zimbabwe and that previous regimes did nothing to encourage blacks.

More than half of Harare's three million residents are either chronically short of water or without any at all just days before the start of the hottest month of the year. President Robert Mugabe's administration is facing allegations of incompetence as dams feeding the city, although polluted by untreated sewage, are full. The Zimbabwean capital has also run out of foreign currency to buy chemicals to treat its water.

The Zimbabwe government has continued a campaign against "illegal" settlers on former commercial farms with the eviction of about 200 families from a property 10 km north of Bulawayo, the country's second city. The government has defended its actions, saying it had warned the settlers against erecting permanent structures on the farms they had occupied under the land redistribution programme. It pointed out that a rationalisation exercise was needed, as many did not have the skills to exploit the potential of the commercial farms they had taken over.

With the advent of the new school term in Zimbabwe, emergency school feeding is supporting the nutritional needs of thousands of vulnerable children from families struggling to cope with rising food insecurity. USAID funded C-SAFE will be stepping up the feeding program through partners Catholic Relief Services, World Vision and CARE, targeting 354,000 children in 722 schools.

The Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum has recently published a report which covers human rights violations for the month of July 2004. It emphasizes continuing high levels of violations, particularly assault of political opponents and general infringement on the right to association and assembly. The report also highlights attacks on teachers, which in the past has been associated with elections in Zimbabwe.

Editor Vincent Kahiya, reporter Augustine Mukaro, and General Manager Raphael Khumalo of the weekly Zimbabwe Independent were arrested and charged under Zimbabwe's repressive media law on September 23rd and told to report back to police next Tuesday for a court appearance. The charges stem from an article on why judgment has been postponed in the treason trial of opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai.

Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe has accused US leader George W Bush of behaving as though he is God, with UK Prime Minister Tony Blair his prophet. He said the US and the UK were "raining bombs and hell-fire on innocent Iraqis, purportedly in the name of democracy."

About 50 members of the rights group, Women of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA), have embarked on a 440 km march to Harare, to protest a proposed bill that will require all NGOs to register with a government-appointed regulatory council and disclose details of their programmes and funding. The proposed legislation also seeks to ban foreign NGOs concerned principally with "issues of governance", and deny registration to NGOs receiving foreign funding for "promotion and protection of human rights and political governance issues".

In its latest report, the International Crisis Group has warned that if SA and Zimbabwe do not take concrete steps to tackle land reform issues, racial tensions and poverty could rise in the region. The report said that while events in Zimbabwe were unlikely to be replicated in SA soon, it was clear that countries in the region were burdened with chronic land problems that were frustrating attempts to promote economic development and eradicate poverty.

Zimbabwe's information minister has accused the mayor of Bulawayo of lying about food shortages in the second largest city, where independent media have recently reported that scores of people have been dying of hunger. President Robert Mugabe has shut out food aid saying it should be given to more deserving countries.

A year after the privately-owned Daily News newspaper was shut down by police, suspecting that they were publishing the paper illegally, a Zimbabwean court has dropped the charges against four of the newspaper directors. The publication will stay off the news-stands pending a decision by the Supreme Court on the constitutionality of the media legislation which compels all journalists and newspapers to be accredited by a government-appointed media commission.

Zimbabwe's main opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) said it may launch mass protests to press President Robert Mugabe to enact voting reforms ensuring free and fair parliamentary elections next year. Mugabe, in power since independence in 1980, is accused by critics of a harsh political crackdown as Zimbabwe spins into economic crisis, partly due to the government's seizure of white-owned farms to give to landless blacks.

According to a report conducted by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), "inappropriate" policies, corruption and the government's human rights record have contributed to Zimbabwe's continued economic decline. However, Anti-corruption and Anti-monopolies Programme Minister Didymus Mutasa told IRIN that, as far as he was concerned, the government had made substantial strides in addressing the issue of corruption.

For ordinary Zimbabweans in the high-density suburb of Mbare, life is unbearable because of the dilapidated state of the housing units where residential flats are no longer suitable for human habitation. However, at the other end of the spectrum, are the likes of Robert Mugabe and Phillip Chiyangwa, whose wealth has been accumulated at the expense of the suffering masses. It is estimated that one half of the cost of the Mugabe mansion would be sufficient to refurbish all the dilapidated flats in Mbare.

Women in Politics Support Unit (WiPSU) is disappointed by the Delimitation Commission set by President Mugabe which is being entrusted with the responsibility of defining constituency boundaries in preparation of the upcoming elections in 2005. The work of the commission is extremely important as it will define which geographic boundaries determine constituencies, which has an effect on electoral reforms in Zimbabwe and the underrepresentation of women in politics.

The decision by the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) to withdraw from any future elections until a comprehensive range of electoral reforms is introduced by the ruling party was increasingly an option that had to be considered. Throughout the post-colonial period, Zanu PF has displayed open hostility and intolerance towards opposition parties. This hostility has been characterised by electoral procedures that negate the possibility of political alternatives, media practices that negate open political debate, state interventions that minimise the possibility of open political organisation in the public sphere and the ever-present threat and utilisation of violence as a central political strategy.

The period since 2000 has exacerbated these practices and shown the severe limitations of a parliamentary opposition in a political structure that has placed increasing power in an authoritarian presidency. Moreover, the ideological climate in the country has monotonously constructed the opposition as a foreign creation, undeserving of respect and subject to any form of legislative stricture and political violence designated by the state.

In 2000, after the momentous general election of that year, there was a residual optimism that a substantive parliamentary opposition would open up the political debate in the country and provide the option of future political alternatives. This optimism obtained, notwithstanding the fact that Zanu PF had already signalled its intention to undermine the opposition by any means necessary.

Since 2000, the MDC has been subjected to a broad onslaught of state coercion that has undermined any attempts to strengthen the legislature and turn it into something more substantive than the president's plaything.

Unfortunately any such lofty hopes have been comprehensively dispelled, along with the once national aspiration that legislative power would be secured within the framework of comprehensive constitutional reform. The excitement and sense of national involvement that drove this objective between 1998-2000 now seems like a distant memory, poisoned by the sour grapes and authoritarian acrimony of a ruling party unaccustomed to dissent.

That process demonstrated the best sense of patriotic involvement that relied for its success on tolerance, broadly based debate and the pre-eminent requirement of consent, rather than the commandist thuggery of state violence, and exclusive definitions of membership of the nation.

It is not only the legislature that has been throttled by excessive executive authority. Local government structures too have had to bear the undemocratic interventions of a ruling party, determined to ensure that citizen participation at this level is once again throttled by despotic interventions.

Urbanites have watched their representatives emasculated and their rights as citizens reduced to that of "totemless" subjects. Local authorities are more than ever run by an inefficient central government, through imposed mayors, and an additional political structure known as an urban governor, which is little more than an extra layer of political patronage.

The recent Southern African Development Community (Sadc) meeting in Mauritius, which set out electoral principles and guidelines for the region, provides a good opportunity for the Zimbabwean opposition to campaign for more equal conditions for electoral contest. The Sadc guidelines provide for a broad range of conditions on electoral practices and access to media as well to the public sphere generally. Such conditions are for the most part not available in Zimbabwe at present, and the electoral reforms proposed by the ruling party are not nearly sufficient to meet the Sadc standards.

The opposition will have to wait to see how much the proposed Zanu PF reforms will be extended to include broader demands around the media and the freedom to campaign without violence. The ruling party strategy may well be to open up such spaces as late as possible, which will then present the MDC with a dilemma.

For if such conditions are met, even though late in the day, the process could well receive the support of Sadc, as well as create some divisions in the rest of the international community. In the event a late opening of space would do little to undo the huge damage that has already been to the electoral process.

Notwithstanding these problems, the opposition needs to reflect critically on its performance over the last four years. This will include its performance in parliament, the state of its organisational structures, problems of internal accountability, its choice of parliamentary and local government candidates and its relations with its constituencies and civic partners.

It will also need to assess its regional and international alliances and the often clumsy manner it has handled its international relations. Additionally the MDC will need to consider its strategy after a boycott. Most importantly it will need to offer a message of hope to its existing and potential supporters, and provide a programme of action that will look beyond the 2005 elections.

Most importantly it will need to develop a broad range of political, economic, intellectual and cultural processes that will build its popular support in both urban and rural areas. This problem of developing alliances across rural and urban spaces will need to be confronted more seriously, as it is the key to building a more effective opposition. Broad alliance politics is still the order of the day, but it must take into account the complex struggles that are currently unfolding over the ongoing land question. These are huge challenges to which all who are concerned with long-term democratic changes must turn their attention.

* Brian Raftopoulos is Associate Professor, Institute of Development Studies, University of Zimbabwe. This article is reproduced with the author’s permission.

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