The largest genocide for many years, some 700,000 people a year for the last three years, is being carried out by Robert Mugabe’s government against its citizens. It continues to remain unnamed and thus ignored by the international community.

The ravage of a 40% plus HIV/AIDS infection rate exploits the enormous difficulties most Zimbabweans already face in that ‘failed state’. At the 60th anniversary of Auschwitz, Kofi Annan, UN Secretary General, called for an end to genocide. “It is, above all, a day to remember not only the victims of past horrors, whom the world abandoned, but also the potential victims of present and future ones. A day to look them in the eye, and say: “you, at least, we must not fail”.

Not a word about Zimbabwe. Not by any authority. Not by South Africa, SADC, the African Union or the UN. Yet, Kofi Annan quoted the old chestnut, “ Truly it has been said: “all that is needed for evil to triumph is that good men do nothing”.

In Zimbabwe, HIV/AIDS has turned to a form of genocide as economic, political and electoral policies have devastated the economy and made it hard for people to care for their families and to find and to buy food. In 2002, it is estimated that some 700,000 Zimbabweans, all recently infected with HIV/AIDS, died rapidly as they could not look after themselves. Their normal life expectancy should have been for another ten to fifteen productive years. That is, 700,000 of the 1 million who died that year died of HIV/AIDS related illnesses in the early years of HIV infection.

The same pattern continues in Zimbabwe except that more Zimbabweans now live outside that county and so, together with the massive death rates internally, there are fewer to kill by official neglect of economy and of human rights. Nonetheless, it remains the largest genocide for decades worldwide.

The Khulumani Support Group’s reparations case under the Alien Tort Claims Act of the USA, along with the other ‘apartheid’ cases, was thrown out on September 29, 2004 by a conservative New York judge. He found that there was no violation of the law in commercial links with South Africa – an action that has drawn criticism from the South African Human Rights Commission.

Amongst the cases thrown out was the troublesome case initiated by Ed Fagan, in which he had demanded that the South African Government and companies should pay into a $20 bn "humanitarian fund".

The Khulumani case is being taken on appeal in a process that will demand that the merits of its case are more carefully reviewed and discerned. The case is viewed in the international human rights movement as the strongest case yet in enforcing international norms in respect of the behaviours of foreign multinational companies.

The Khulumani Support Group represents both the victims of apartheid who told their stories to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) and the even larger group of survivors of gross human rights violations under apartheid who did not manage to engage with the TRC process.

The Khulumani case has survived several attempts to have it destroyed. One such attempt was the request by a number of multinational corporations, supported by several governments, including the American and British, to the United States Supreme Court not to allow foreigners to file lawsuits in America for human rights violations committed elsewhere in the world. However, on 29 June 2004, the United States Supreme Court, in the case of Sosa v Alverez, held that foreigners could use the Alien Tort Claims Act to institute lawsuits in the United States for human rights abuses wherever they may be committed in the world.

The Court held that "today the door is open to a narrow class of international norms" for litigants to institute lawsuits under the Alien Tort Claims Act. The Court observed, "It would take some explaining to say now that federal courts must avert their gaze entirely from any international norm intended to protect individuals." The court saw that the statute was intended, from the time of the Founding Fathers of the USA, “to have a practical effect the moment it became law." This judgment represents a significant victory for human rights globally and a milestone in the progress of the Khulumani International Lawsuit.

What are the merits of the Khulumani lawsuit? While other ‘apartheid lawsuits’ sought ‘open-ended’ redress for all black South Africans born in the country between 1948 and 1994, the Khulumani lawsuit, rather, seeks limited individual, tailored relief for identified victims from private actors – those foreign multinational corporations which violated international law and were involved in colluding with the apartheid state’s security apparatuses. With the support of these corporations, the apartheid government committed extra-judicial killing, torture, sexual assault, prolonged arbitrary detention, and multiple crimes against humanity.

It is time South Africa – government and business – treated it fairly. It represents a positive opportunity for both. Khulumani has emerged as a world leader in the struggle to advance international human rights jurisprudence – a fact that many individuals of stature and many international human rights organisations have recognised, amongst them are former Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Nobel Laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz.

The Khulumani lawsuit is highly significant in terms of international human rights law, in particular in the advance of international customary law and the creation of a world of greater social fairness. That is why it is lodged in New York, a city that houses both global corporations and the United Nations. It is a vital test case to ensure that any person anywhere in the world who is violated by a government or a multinational business would have access to redress.

Will our media assist all South Africans to understand the importance of the Khulumani lawsuit in this struggle for justice? Could the entire country, led by our President and by business leaders committed to corporate social responsibility, embrace this struggle and in so doing recognise the legitimacy of the Khulumani Support Group’s lawsuit?

International business was pleased by the submission of the former Minister of Justice to the presiding judge as that did not distinguish between the different “apartheid” cases. Their pleasure has been misguided. Government claimed that these cases would impede the foreign investment that is still needed to redress the legacies of apartheid. In truth, it may well be that by upholding the right of Khulumani to seek redress from those companies that broke international sanctions and knowingly aided the apartheid regime, government would build greater certainty in investors and business. As Joseph Stiglitz has pointed out, “addressing corporate misconduct brings confidence to consumers and markets, creating a more positive business climate – genuine foreign investors are attracted to conditions of stability where social justice and good political, economic and corporate governance prevail.”

President Mbeki has stated that the South African government is not and will not be a party to litigation against corporations that benefited from the Apartheid system. Nonetheless, at the tabling of the TRC final report, he noted that, "the Government recognizes the right of citizens to institute legal action."

President Mbeki now has the opportunity take the ‘higher ground’ and clarify or correct the affidavit previously submitted by our government to the New York court. Such a clarification should distinguish the Khulumani case from the others and support the right of redress to American courts for all those who become the future victims of bad governments and criminal businesses. After all, the Khulumani lawsuit strengthens South Africa’s constitutional democracy by acknowledging the supremacy and universality of an international rule of law that obligates adherence to behaviours that respect basic human dignity. The Khulumani lawsuit does not seek any action that is inconsistent with government’s approach to achieving its own long-term goals, including programmes of community reparation and rehabilitation.

It is also time for South African Business to come out into the open and tell South Africans and the world that it is confident of itself and its practices, that it endorses the domestic TRC process that lies behind the Khulumani case, and that it stands tall for human rights and the redress of abuses worldwide.

As Justice Albie Sachs pointed out in his keynote address at the Human Rights and Democracy Awards ceremony in Johannesburg on December 10, 2004, South Africa represents one “shining star” in a global human rights community pervaded by an overwhelming sense of gloom as atrocities continue to be perpetrated in Sudan and Zimbabwe. In South Africa, he said, we have seen “the coming together of the best in all of us”. But he also reminded the gathering that the challenge is the ongoing construction and deepening of our democracy. The Khulumani International Lawsuit presents an important opportunity to do this. What better way to present our morally ambitious country as courageous, organised and united? Good things can only follow both domestically and globally.

* Please send comments to

Namibia, close on South Africa's heals, has entered the realm of compulsory land appropriation to speed the distribution of agricultural land to small farmers and to the poor. To use law (a blunt instrument) and arbitrary measures is unnecessary and dangerous. It is the result of policy failure that should be corrected. In South Africa a new economic reform movement, proposes a Land Tax and the Community Investment Programme that, together, provide the land market and the community wherewithal for the small farmer and the poor to enter the land market and to successfully buy additional land for themselves.

Politics and arbitrary actions should not be part of any market operation. Rather, the state can influence a market's general working and it can act to assist certain groups to enter a market on fair or even favourable terms. The Land Tax, only on land and not on improvements, will force under-used, unused and land held for speculation onto the market. It will not punish or inhibit development. The former will swell the supply of land entering the market and so act to lower its price.

Small farmers and poor rural residents need a programme to help them to gain organisation, investment and resource management skills as the prelude to their deciding that it is time they expanded their land base and entered the market to buy land. The Community Investment Programme provides annual Investment Rights to all adults who organise, register Community Development Associations and set up the management conditions needed to invest in and to care for land and other productive resources. Most poor communities can turn a hopeless village into a dynamic investment body because, being poor, they have abundant labour to invest which commercial farmers do not have (see under Ownership in the web page for explanation).

Within a few short years, there will be hundreds, if not thousands of communities that find that to invest where they are is no longer their best option. They will then wish to enter the land market to seek land suited to their ambitions - maybe for just some of the families - near a market, on certain soils or enjoying particular crop conditions. These reform communities will find that, thanks to the Land Tax, there is land to buy at prices they can afford. Government's role is to support, to 'get policy' right and to stand back and 'to see the wood for the trees' so as to improve policy as citizens make their own business decisions. A quiet, optimising, production maintaining agricultural revolution is possible on behalf the small and the poor. But not if government uses arbitrary measures and the blunt instrument of the law to fix its policy and programme failures.

* See the Land and Land Rights section of Pambazuka News for more coverage of this issue.

Southern Africa is rushing pell-mell into the cauldron of Zimbabwe’s Presidential election.

If the election is held and Mugabe wins, but it is declared to be unfair and not acceptable by Zimbabweans and the world, there will be chaos in Zimbabwe. The chances of this happening are high; Mugabe can only win by cheating and violence. South Africa may have to intervene militarily.

Not only ZANU, but also the Army, the Police and the Administration are deeply riven. Ultimately Mugabe has built a worthless edifice by doing little more than playing populist politics. He has abused land and race and conjured up a host of “enemies” from the global economy to Britain to, fashionably but cynically, branding the opposition “terrorists”. The ace in his pack of cards is his and his cronies’ rape of the DRC, the land, violence against internal and external enemies, and officially controlled resources – their joint culpability.

It is long since time to call Mugabe’s bluff, to openly avoid him and his cronies and to stand squarely behind the citizens of Zimbabwe.

The region and the international community must now prepare to help the MDC establish political, social and economic stability either after the March election if there is a normal transfer of power or after a period of chaos and bloodletting.

South Africa remains the key player. There are still creative measures that can be taken to both help ensure an acceptable election and to prepare for the likely aftermath. During the SADC monitoring visit two weeks ago, Labour Minister Membathisi Mdladlana reported that the delegation was "amazed" by the cooperation of the Zimbabwean ministers. He added, “Normally, there is a flat-footed denial. They are now accepting that the situation is beyond their control and that they need help," He said many issues were "raised sharply" with the Zimbabweans, including reports of state-sponsored violence and land invasions.

The view reported by Mdladlana no doubt led to the current ANC fraternal visit to ZANU. The outcome has to show the ANC putting aside ZANU as paralytic and destroyed by corruption. The ANC must be seen to treasure the worth of Zimbabwe as a people and an economy, just as the Constitution would demand.

The ZANU and the MDC Congresses have just been held. They revealed two worlds far apart. Zanu’s was a mad, ranting, demagogic and frightening example of lunatic showmanship. The MDC’s was a serious, participatory, comradely, democratic meeting espousing human rights, dignity and a courageous resolve to bravely soldier on so that, maybe, the voters could vote. The MDC is relying on Mugabe not being able to stop its messages being spread by word of mouth and by a new external and independent short wave radio station. The aim is to encourage Zimbabweans to vote in droves if they can.

Days before the Zanu Congress, the Zimbabwe Army, Police, Intelligence Organisation, and Air Force brass urged Mugabe to quit and to anoint a successor to enhance Zanu PF’s chances in the election. Most of these officers are heavily implicated in corruption, political violence, the rape of the natural resources of the Congo, and many have received farms and other favours.

They no longer see Mugabe as able to protect them. They know that there is rampant factionalism tearing ZANU apart. Mugabe had now lost the former Zanu strongholds of Masvingo, the Midlands and Manicaland together with his complete lack of support in all the cities. He can only bank on the Mashonaland vote.

If Zimbabweans can vote, Mugabe will lose. That loss will herald the political oblivion of the corrupt, venial and grasping political elite that has all but destroyed a wonderful people and country. This explains that elite’s desperation to avoid jail by clinging to power at whatever national and individual cost. Hence the general’s “advice” to Mugabe to go!

Many senior ZANU officials share the sentiment of one quoted in the free press in Harare, "Campaigning for Mugabe is a futile exercise. People are tired of him and it is clear to all of us that the writing is on the wall. It will be a miracle if we win.”

A senior party member summed up the mood of the ZANU Congress thus, "It's only an ill-advised fly that follows a corpse to the grave." ZANU as a coherent political party could fall apart quite suddenly. Zimbabweans will recognise that moment and act accordingly.

When the MDC President, Morgan Tsvangirai, reminded Mugabe that the people might be driven by the collapsing social order and economy to throw him out, Mugabe had him charged with treason. Now Mugabe, above the law, is openly inciting violence. Worse, acting as a dictator or fascist, Mugabe is saying that his followers must go out and use brute force because victory can only be achieved by violence.

To underwrite his on-going war against citizens, Mugabe has added three further threats.

1. The army is being largely recalled from the DRC, up to 10,000 troops, till after the election with all leave cancelled. He has already deployed troops in the townships and the regional strongholds of the MDC, ostensibly to “protect his supporters from terrorism". Defence officials are reported as saying openly that, "The president has indicated he needs the entire army for the forthcoming election.”

2. Zanu has long resolved to bar the opposition from campaigning in the rural constituencies. Apart from the army, the “War Veterans”, as they did at the last general election and since in a long orgy of terror aimed at villagers, white farmers and farm labour, will ensure this by intimidation. Again, they will operate beyond the law, be protected by the Police and be guided by the Central Intelligence Organisation.

Zanu regards its followers as its property, as cattle, not people; “The MDC must leave our rural supporters alone," stated the Vets Secretary-General, Mhlanga.

3. Having violated the adults and letting the Vets loose on citizens, Mugabe is turning to the youth and children as his newest foot soldiers. The youth brigades trained under the national service programme are not doing community work. They have been deployed in different areas where they beat up civilians.

The infamous Fifth Brigade massacred some 20,000 civilians in Matabeleland during the 1980s. Now, on a countrywide footing, with all the troops, the police, the Vets and his new foot soldiers, the youth and children, all Mugabe’s commissioned thugs, the numbers massacred could multiply to many times 20,000.

To hide Mugabe’s methods, his desperation, new savage press, security, defamation and electoral rules are being promulgated. Hundreds of thousands of voters will be prevented from voting because they come from places that oppose Mugabe’s terror. Only civil servants will monitor the vote. The outside world will be banished.

A bloody electoral battle is looming. Violence and intimidation already hold sway across vast swathes of the political landscape.
The ANC and the South African Government have to make a stand. The ANC must stop being the “ill-advised” fly that fraternally follows Mugabe’s corpse to the grave. The South African Government and the international community must do the following: -

§ Effectively deal with the food crisis. After eight months of clear food emergency, the UN has failed to reach agreement with Mugabe that imported food must not go through government (ZANU) channels where it will be used for political gain. Some US$54 million of imported foodstuffs (high protein biscuits etc) is now on its way to feed a present target group of 750,000 women and children. It will be distributed through Church and NGO agencies. This will not relieve the general food crisis beyond a month or so. The larger food problem remains.

§ Because of its strategic location and capacities, South Africa must set itself up as Trustee for Zimbabweans. It must oversee the immediate import and strategic storage of around US$250 million of maize, wheat and other basic foodstuffs so that there can be quick import into and distribution within Zimbabwe.

§ South Africa must set a number of actions that Mugabe must take and adhere to on a very tight timetable. At each failure, South Africa must turn off the lights, fuel or transport for a given period against another brief chance to make good. Gandhi would approve the method.

§ South Africa and Botswana, old Lesotho pals, must undertake serious war games on Zimbabwe’s borders aimed at forcing division within the Zimbabwe army and capable of being the launching pad for intervention.

§ South Africa, with international help, must set up “homes from homes” across the borders to care for Zimbabwean refugees. The refugees must be supported to re-enter to register and to vote or to stay and do both by agreement forced upon Mugabe.

§ These “camps” must be staffed by Zimbabwean and South African trainers to prepare refugees, most well educated, for the likely post-election economic and social work South Africa and other countries must support to help Zimbabwe to quickly sort out security and to establish civil and economic stability. This could be called, “the Zimbabwean Robben Island”!

§ South Africa and the international community must support a mixed Zimbabwe and international group to take further the general economic and social programme support the country will need. This must be done to advance implementation after a transfer of power, whether democratically or militarily. The UNDP simply cannot do this type of work. ZANU cannot think usefully about a normal future and the MDC has to fight an election under dangerous and trying conditions. Time must not be wasted.

§ The international community must announce and plan for US$300 million to be issued as ‘Work” and as “Training Rights” during 2002 to be issued to all adults every six months to inject family economic security, mobilize communities for joint investment and to secure individual opportunities to resurrect careers.

§ South Africa and other nations must offer Zimbabweans assistance and begin to put into place the Commission of Inquiry needed to nail those responsible for corruption, violence and human rights abuses. This time Truth and Reconciliation must be driven by the abused, not the guilty.

§ A fund must be established to support an independent national Land Commission to listen to all Zimbabweans talk about how they wish to see the land issue treated. The international community can help select Zimbabwean and international Commissioners to give it secure independent status. The MDC, with great maturity, has proposed such an independent body to both listen to citizens and to report, with recommendations, and to then oversee land reforms apart from Government.