"Racism in China: With friends like these does Africa need enemies?"

By Blessing Vava

 

The recent photos,  videos of African nationals, living and/or working in China, being evicted from their homes by landlords turned away from hotels, despite many claiming to have no recent travel history or known contact with Covid-19 patients are quite disturbing. It’s disturbing because of the default assumption that COVID 19 started from outside China, yet it emerged from within and the world had to burden with the containment strategy on the same.

 In some of the videos, awash on social media, African nationals can be seen being harassed by police and others sleeping on the streets in the cold southern Chinese city of Guangzhou.

The unfortunate incidents have drawn ire from many parts of the continent particularly on social media with African social media users taking turns to attack the Chinese people, government over the racist and xenophobic actions exhibited in Guangzhou. In this regard, civil society organisations in Africa have launched a petition to the African Union on Chinese mistreatment of Africans in China.  

The Chinese government ought to be pressured to respond adequately and in a manner that shows they acknowledge the problem at hand. So far,  Beijing's responses have been inadequate, unconvincing and insincere.

Incidentally, American media and government found this as an opportune time to put a wedge between China and Africa in their diplomatic rivalry and battle for political and economic influence across Africa.  A statement from the US State Department said: "It's unfortunate but not surprising to see this kind of xenophobia toward Africans by Chinese authorities…Anyone who watches Chinese engagement in projects across Africa recognises this kind of abusive and manipulative behaviour."

Several African countries have remained mum except for a few who have released statements in that regard. Countries like Nigeria, Uganda, South Africa and Ghana to name a few have spoken out over what happened in China.

Zimbabwe, a country that has aggressively pursued an active and engaged relationship with China than other African states chose not to speak. However, the reactions so far from African countries are weak and quite disappointing, they failed to hit the bull straight in the eye. It appears as if they are also defending the actions of the Chinese. The responses by the African leadership are worrisome as they confirm suspicions on shady deals that are happening at elite levels without consent by African citizens.

In a majority of the statements, no country dared challenge the Chinese government to at least acknowledge and apologise for the barbaric behaviour towards African nationals. Despite  “expressing concern” over the incidents, our inferiority complex was exposed.  One country after the other re-emphasised on the "excellent" relations dating back to the decolonisation project in Africa. It cannot be business as usual and this is not a very good example of excellent relations.

Posting on his, Twitter handle yesterday April 13, 2020, the Chairperson of the African Union Commission Moussa Faki Mahamat claimed that he had a phone call with Chinese Foreign Minister Mr Wang Yi, who assured him of the measures  underway in Guangzhou to improve the situation of Africans, in line with  what he termed “the strong and brotherly partnership between Africa and China.”

For how long will Africa continue being beholden to China’s poisoned chalice, quoted in “generosity”?

One would have thought that Africa, through organised formations such as the African Union and her sub-regional blocs should aim at advancing and protecting its interests and that of its people first, but it seems there is a challenge of protecting our sovereignty in the face of a domineering imperial China.

In response, Chinese officials have repeatedly denied the stigmatisation and mistreatment of African nationals despite the overwhelming visuals of several of these incidents captured in Guangzhou. Several Chinese diplomats accredited to Africa had a fair share denying the allegations.

Consequently, the official statement made by Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian displayed sheer arrogance lacked an acknowledgement of what had happened and bordered on emotional blackmail.

While the Chinese have been at pains to acknowledge the racial discrimination, McDonald's China apologised after a video went viral, of a McDonald's employee in Guangzhou, China, holding up a sign that read: “From now on black people are not allowed to enter the restaurant”.

Instead of (1) issuing an apology, (2) an expression of regret (3) a commitment to investigate the allegations (4) condemning the barbaric acts; the Chinese Foreign Ministry went on counting fingers and toes on the number of African countries they assisted. Overall, the response from China is disgusting, arrogant lack sincerity and borders on a stinking superiority complex with clear insinuations that China is doing Africa a big favour.

The emphasis on mutual respect, brotherly love is not sincere as we have noticed that the relations between China and Africa are not as even as mutual as the emphasis being made. 

What is happening in Guangzhou is not new, racism against Africans once hogged the limelight in 2013 and still, no decisive action was taken. Negative attitudes toward the peoples of Nigeria have been fuelled by their alleged involvement in drug-related crime in Guangzhou, which is a rather low bar.

 In a 2014 Al Jazeera report on African migrants in Guangzhou, journalist Jennifer Marsh highlighted the plight of African migrants. She noted that “While the central government publicly welcomes the migrants, recent draconian visa legislation has sent a clear signal: Africans in China - even highly prosperous, educated economic contributors — are not welcome.”

This, coupled with how the Chinese have treated Africans working for Chinese  in Africa in places like Nairobi and Addis Ababa shows a serious challenge in the China-Africa relations. Several cases of racism, discrimination by the Chinese people in Africa with an exceptional case of a  Chinese boss in Kenya comparing Africans to monkeys.

China's relations with Africa have changed over the past half-century. In the decolonisation period, China played a critical role under the internationalism of its communist principles but as China emerges as a powerful capitalist state the relations have changed. Under the latest phase, China-Africa relations are now dominated by the search for natural resources and markets for its goods, in turn, African economies are loaded with debt and nationalist leaders are now shareholders in companies. Thus, the weak statements from African countries point out to three fundamental narratives, Firstly, the African elites are compromised and embedded in the soft power cocoon at Chinese business relations level and as such in most African countries, you would notice that much of the shareholdings are between the Chinese and local elites.  Secondly, the political party relationship between the Chinese Communist Party and ruling parties in most African countries are very cosy, the exchange programmes and scholarships that ruling party activists in Africa have been enjoying makes them compromised. Thirdly, African countries are benefitting from the Chinese Belt and Road initiative with infrastructural developments with the construction of airports, roads, railways and the telecommunications have left African leaders compromised and in this case, they do not have the moral standing to challenge China. The question is, are these relations simply going to be a replica of what Walter Rodney in the book How Europe underdeveloped Africa said about Europe: “It was economics that determined that Europe should invest in Africa and control the continent’s raw materials and labour. It was racism which confirmed the decision that the form of control should be direct colonial rule,” and in this case China. Considering the racism it seems Africa hasn't learnt anything from Walter Rodney. 

However, going forward, Africa (in particular the AU, regional bodies like ECOWAS, SADC, EAC and the civil society) must compile and document the evidence of the abuse of Africans in this regard and speak loudly against these abuses.  South Africa’s president Cyril Ramaphosa, in his capacity as the Chairperson of the African Union (AU), must show leadership and demand a public apology from the Chinese government over the racial xenophobic attacks committed in Guangzhou and other parts of China. China must be forced to apologise and put in place clear measures to bring this barbarism to an end before it escalates. There is a need for genuine engagements of both parties to ensure peace to improve people to people relations based on genuine mutual respect.

Further to the afore-stated, the peoples of Africa need to increase muscle as the agency in the holding of their respective political leaders through people to people solidarity. This is the time to consider such a move especially when African citizens are vulnerable in economic capitals with an enslaving mindset like China. In essence, if the AU is to be considered a serious actor in the global polity, it needs to move with speed to facilitate for the repatriation of African citizens, despite its Headquarters in Addis Ababa being a donation from China. Without citizen to citizen solidarity, Africans, you stand alone!

Blessing Vava is a Doctoral candidate researching on China-Africa relations in the School of Communications at the University of Johannesburg. He writes in his personal capacity and can be contacted on blessingvava@gmail.com

Covid-19: the Unheeded Ides of March and lessons for Africa

By Blessing Vava

“Beware the ides of March" — these famous words are spoken twice in Shakespeare's play “Julius Caesar,” warning the titular character of his assassination. The event, which took place on March 15, 44 B.C., has become known as an unlucky date for more than just Caesar.

Since then, the month of March, specifically the 15^th has been associated with superstitious narratives and bad omens.  On March 15, 1889, a cyclone destroyed six warships -- three US and three German ships -- and killed more than 200 sailors in the waters of Apia, Samoa.

On March 15, 1939. Adolf Hitler ignored the Munich Pact -- an agreement between Germany, Great Britain and France that gave Germany the Sudetenland, in western Czechoslovakia -- and invaded other parts of Czechoslovakia and that marked the end of appeasement and further escalated tension leading toward World War II.

More recently, the Syrian Civil War began on March 15, 2011, when protesters took to the streets of Daraa after a group of teens and children were arrested for writing political graffiti. This leads to an estimated 400,000 Syrians being killed and more than 6.1 million internally displaced.

Most superstitions are hundreds of years old, stemming from the human instinct to attribute reasoning to the inexplicable.

While putting a more particular focus on the Shakespeare play, Julius Caesar set in 44 BC, the Roman Senate was jealous of the growing power of one of its own, Julius Caesar. Caesar had consolidated his power by acclamation, but not by consensus. As a result, he was assassinated on the Ides of March, 15th of March.

The assassination was led by one of his longtime and closest friends, Marcus Julius Brutus. The attempt to restore the Roman Republic by assassinating an ascending 'Dictator', backfired. The Roman Republic was forever discarded. In its place rose a brutal, aggressive, and eventually rotten and corrupt Empire that failed. This lesson should be held closely. We should keep it in our minds for not only the political changes coming but also in our ways of ascertaining what strategies to employ in our economic lives.

As such, the tragedy that befell the Roman Emperor got me thinking in assessing the world preparedness in dealing with Covid-19 despite the warnings with clear examples of how the disease wreaked havoc in China. When the disease affected China, the West and its media were reluctant and stigmatizing as they didn't see it coming right to their doorstep. Therefore, in drawing some narratives in the wake of the deadly pandemic that has wreaked havoc globally killing many lives and threatening human existence, William Shakespeare’s epic play provides a candid explanation on the warnings of March which the world ignored.

In its early stages, the Covid-19 crisis in Italy looked nothing like a crisis. The initial state-of-emergency declarations were met by scepticism by both the public and many in policy circles — even though several scientists had been warning of the potential for a catastrophe for weeks. Indeed, in late February some notable Italian politicians engaged in public handshaking in Milan to make the point that the economy should not panic and stop because of the virus. (A week later, one of these politicians was diagnosed with Covid-19.)

After the devastating effects in Wuhan, China coronavirus spread in many parts of the world came and denialism has cost many lives and affected economies, some which might never recover. US President Donald Trump's scepticism and denialism around the deadly pandemic coronavirus left the world in awe and total disbelief. The month of March has been a dreadful month with the coronavirus spreading like veld fire in many parts of the world. On the 11^th of February 2020, Prof. Marc Lipsitch of Epidemiology, Harvard School of Public Health warned; “This is really a global problem that’s not going to go away in a week or two. What makes this one perhaps harder to control than SARS is that it may be possible to transmit before you are sick. I  think we should be prepared for the equivalent of a very, very bad flu season, or maybe the worst-ever flu season in modern times.’’ Many other experts warned.

Like Julius Caesar's failure to heed the warnings of the Ides of March, Trump dismissed the existence of coronavirus accusing the Democrats of politicizing the coronavirus. He said: "Now the Democrats are politicizing the coronavirus. You know that, right? Coronavirus. They're politicizing it ... And this is their new hoax."

It should be known that by this time, the U.S. had confirmed 60 cases of coronavirus. The CDC had already warned the public to prepare for the virus to spread, assuring them that this was not a hoax.

On the 18th of March, in typical Trump’s fashion, the American president failed to hold his loose tongue stigmatizing the pandemic as a Chinese virus. "I always treated the Chinese Virus very seriously, and have done a very good job from the beginning, including my very early decision to close the 'borders' from China—against the wishes of almost all. Many lives were saved. The Fake News new narrative is disgraceful & false!"

Trump was urged to stop calling COVID-19 the "Chinese Virus," a term he has used repeatedly and that some have called racist and dangerous. And many public health experts have criticized the administration's lack of preparation and failure to act quickly when the virus was first recognized. Despite Trump's denials, the US has surpassed China in terms of the number of infections. A warning to Trump that indeed, the ides of March have come and they have not gone!

In the global south, we equally had our share of madness and denialism with Zimbabwe, top government officials Zimbabwe's Minister of Defence and war veterans, Oppah Muchinguri-Kashiri, making dangerous claims that the coronavirus was unleashed by God to deal with US President Donald Trump and other Western countries for imposing sanctions on Zimbabwe.

Speaking at a Zanu-PF meeting, as the party's chairperson, Muchinguri-Kashiri said: "Coronavirus is the work of God punishing countries that imposed sanctions on us. They are now keeping indoors. Their economies are screaming just like they did to ours. Trump should know that he is not God." Shockingly, the coronavirus has proved not the be a Chinese disease as Trump called it nor the work of God to punish the countries that imposed sanctions on Zimbabwe.

Already, the US is now has the highest number of infections by Thursday the 26^th of March, confirmed coronavirus cases in the United States reached 82,400 on Thursday, more than any other country, overtaking both Italy and China, the Johns Hopkins University tally showed. China had 81,782 cases, and Italy had 80,589 cases.

Zimbabwe has already recorded a single death with some infections recorded, with infections tallying to 7 though there are fears that they might be many infections because the government has not been honest in their handling of information with regards to the disease. The poor state of public health facilities, which the ruling elites have failed to equip into modern facilities is a ticking time bomb for the Southern African nation. For many years the masses have been clamouring for good public health facilities but the elites left everything to deteriorate because for them they always had alternatives to go and seek medical health care overseas. And now with the coronavirus closing borders, ruling elites will have to get used to going to local public health facilities they failed to prioritize. This should be a big lesson not only for Zimbabwe but many African countries that have been operating the same. 

As Africa respond to the spread of Covid-19 unanticipated challenges have emerged. Resistance and social challenges exemplified by the way people are living particularly in informal settlements. The challenges facing the majority of our people are enormous and poverty remains one of the biggest threats to humanity in Africa. Our people are more worried about poverty and their living conditions more than they are worried about Covid-19, a disease some are jokingly calling a disease for the rich. African leaders should draw many lessons from this pandemic and make consented efforts to improve their economies and the livelihoods of their people. The resistance to the lockdowns and other precautionary measures put in place point out to a very complex nature of our situation. The challenge we have as Africa is how our leaders' failures to come up with solutions that are in tandem with the realities on the ground. What we are witnessing is just a copy and paste job and mimicry of western solutions even with our vastly different political economy and social realities. The lockdowns will be difficult to enforce as we have already witnessed in South Africa, and one wonders how Zimbabwe will lockdown places like Mbare or rural areas which our people are already flocking to. There are largely two factors that inform our economies in Africa, the first one is the rural agrarian economy and informality, therefore policy responses must speak to these issues because that's were the majority of the masses are.  How are we going to deal with infections in the rural areas with no rural system of testing, racking and isolation?  

In conclusion, yes, several African countries have been putting measures to combat the spread of the disease despite the earlier lackadaisical approach and myths that the coronavirus does not affect Africans. Our social, political and economic realities should inform the kind of policy response mechanisms which we should employ and not mimicry of western solutions.

Denialism and ill-preparedness costed many lives, it was wrong to ignore science and early warnings from health experts. So, Beware, The ides of March are come, but not gone!!

Blessing Vava is a blogger who writes from Chipinge. He can be contacted on blessingvava@gmail.com

Armed Factions, Post-Colonial Decay and Popular Revolt?

By Tinashe L. Chimedza & Tamuka C. Chirimambowa** (Guest Bloggers) response to Blessing Vava

Factional Theatrics and Elite Contests

From time to time, Zimbabwe's political landscape is gripped by mass hysteria when the elites in charge of the state spar amongst each other. In fits of excitement and volumes of amnesia, the citizen suddenly becomes ahistorical. The ruling factions within ZANU PF are treated as 'foundational'. Meaning that varied and convoluted interpretations are drawn about the tantrums emanating from the ruling class. Conclusions are drawn up quickly, infantilism writ large, that the ruling party is fissuring, that the kudu horn must be oiled and sounded and gather the village crier for the burial. That these intra-party infractions are so fundamental that they can shift the way Zimbabwe is governed. At the peak of this hysteria, mistaken as a matter of structure, some rush to say perhaps the elites are now tearing each other up and that perchance, not political will, the ruling class will smoulder without organised resistance. But it was Dr Alex Magaisa who summed the ruling class in Zimbabwe as a ‘mafioso’ and elaborated how the ruling structure is a copy and paste extractive class centred on violence and networks of patronage and paying tributary. But consult history, the ruling class is a stubborn collection of power and exploitation. Down in South Africa, the architects of apartheid are gathering force apace and denying apartheid is a crime against humanity - and poor Thabo Mbeki muddled a response.

For now, we turn to an interesting article, written by Blessing Vava, who paused whether these latest factions are a prelude to another 'putsch'. In the article, he concluded that if the President 'buried his head in the sand' then 'the devastating actions by cartels and corrupt businesspeople will only serve to threaten to further destabilise Zimbabwe’ and that the President might not finish his term of office. Others, before him, had already jumped into the vortex, with prophecies of ‘November in February’. That was Professor Jonathan Moyo, who has been furiously grinding his axe, getting millstones ready and roped, salivating and ready to guillotine the architects of the 2017 November Putsch. Blessing Vava broached the question of how factional battles are now raging within the ruling strata in Zimbabwe but as subsequent events showed the youth league has kissed and hugged with the party commissar and accepted ‘party discipline’. The article was timely in the context of two major contests. Firstly, the ruling party seems to have been gripped by heightened instability that culminated in a series of press conferences by some members of the youth league. Secondly, for some time now, within and outside the ruling party there has been widespread discontent over what has been called 'state capture' and 'cartels'. People like former Minister of Finance Tendai Biti, journalist Hopewell Chin'ono, Eddie Cross and a few others, have demonstrated the extent to which key state institutions have been paralysed for private gain.

While the article identified how these factions are playing out it seems the analysis was not carried to its more logical conclusion so that we have a robust grasp of what these factional theatrics portend. In this article, we want to stretch the debate further and start from where he ended chiefly because the article parlayed with the forces in play but ended prematurely without hammering the nail. Firstly, the ‘state capture’ in Zimbabwe is a noticeable variation that can be distinguished from the South African case and this is significant. In South Africa what was called state capture was in dribs and patches meaning that there were some elements of the state, like parts of the intelligence, the police, the military and the judiciary, that remained outside the orbit of state capture. Secondly, in Zimbabwe state capture turns out to be such that of a general and systematic character that state institutions have been subdued, in whole, to the whims of private gain with the collusion of the President and his inner circle. The President has been at the centre of the people who are accused of state capture meaning that for the first-time state institutions, especially the treasury and the central bank, are now under the unfettered control of the President and his network of patronage. What has been called 'cartels' are in fact and practice the different tributaries that the President and his inner circle have subdued to empty the national coffers This is why any fight against cartels is an implicit attack on the President and his backers.  

Factions and Elite Fissures in historical view

While the ZANU PF party motto is ‘peace, unity and development’ this is far from the ruling party in practice, the party in power has displayed arrogance of power. The party slogan might well be ‘unity’ in grand-looting and underdevelopment, and this is because the party is unified in looting national resources and especially the treasury. These factions will crop up from time to time but make no mistake, like Dr Magaisa, said in one article this is a mafia structure which allows and sometimes deliberately allows factions to emerge as long as the tributary flows to the ‘don’. To have a firm grasp of how the politics of factions has served the ‘emperor’ in power we must turn to Africa’s tyrants like Robert Mugabe and Kenya’s recently departed, Daniel Toroitich Arap Moi. When in power tyrants actively provoke, organise, promote and use carrots and sticks to make sure there are factions raging at each other so that they appear as the neutral ‘arbiter’. In Kenya, for example, President Moi was known to agree to two contradicting advisory notes and let the people with those notes run around believing they had his ear, only to be struck down mercilessly. Confusion within the party ranks is often a creation of the puppet master at work. Bidding time, Machiavelli way. The master of this game was Stalin and he ruled for long, isolating once good friends, former allies, striking them down when it suited him and in that game, he was unforgiving. Trotsky was isolated gently, deliberately and first he found himself exiled and when he blinked, he ended with an ice pick in his brain. Tyrants and tyranny are patient.

Mugabe authored and fed fat different factions depending on the balance of forces within the ruling party. It was a deadly game, when Solomon Mujuru blinked, he was burnt to death. A reading of Blessing-Miles Tendi’s book The Army and Politics in Zimbabwe: Mujuru, the liberation fighter and King Maker (2020), reveals how the former army commander was dispatched when the factional wars demanded that his power be liquidated. At one point it was Edgar Tekere who looked powerful and he was checkmated; at another point, it was Dr Simba Makoni who seemed to gain traction and he was forced out. The game started again, and this time Joyce Mujuru was pitted against Emerson Mnangagwa, and eventually, the emperor showed his hand early and was too thinly spread to swim out of the crocodile's lair - violence. The key characteristic here was that Mugabe always successfully, using party structures, patronage and intelligence service, resolved the factions peacefully. When one faction appeared weak, he urged it on and when the other faction appeared powerful, he struck them down mercilessly and pushed them out of the party. Mugabe was able to play this game until the fateful putsch of November 2017 which carted him off and ended these long-running shenanigans. This time when he struck down the 'Lacoste faction' he exposed his hand thinly and underestimated the way the Vice President had marshalled the gun and tanks to his aid. For the first time in ZANU PF’s post-colonial game plays, the army was mobilised to rescue a specific faction within the ruling party. The precedent has now been set, that anyone who feels aggrieved in the party and can marshal the barracks can walk into Number 1 Chancellor Avenue and announce his or her arrival.

Armed factions, Youthful Opposition and a National revolt

So, what does this portend for Zimbabwe’s unstable political future?  As Blessing Vava, pointed to, the attempt to cool down political contests through POLAD has dismally failed. The failure of POLAD became obvious when President Thabo Mbeki came to Zimbabwe. In a few words, POLAD has been ‘weaponised’ for three purposes. One is to buy time within the party and state, increase authority and allow breathing space for the President to assert his hegemony. Secondly, POLAD is aimed at pre-emptying genuine political dialogue by ‘running’ to SADC and AU and say ‘here we are talking’ so that Pan-African institutions are demobilised. Thirdly, more dangerously when the broad dialogue commences POLAD members will be so compromised, such that they will be used to ‘soil the soup’ – they will be a choir of court camarillas doing the bidding for the paying puppet master. This is why anyone who follows the POLAD meetings the government has been very generous with hotels and a budget for 'anti-sanctions' is on the offer. This is the price that tyranny is willing to pay so that when the broad dialogue process commences there will be so much confusion in the process and tyranny will stake its claims against the forces of progress and democracy. Apartheid played the same game, so did white-settlerism at Lancaster, so did Mugabe in 2008.

The President is going to work very hard to provoke factions within the party so that he emerges as the central point or arbiter of these factions. Put simply, the President is trying hard to be puppet master within the party and if this happens then the President will rule unperturbed. This scenario is unlikely because the President, as Professor Mutambara is fond of saying, he is a 'man of minimum ability'. Within one week the youth league went from 'radical' press conferences, well-paid banners at the media centre, getting 'fired' from the Politburo, getting suspended from the party, trying to organise a 'youth rally or movement', refusing to go to the party re-habilitation school of ideology which doesn't exist and finally capitulated when they recanted their misbehaviour and hugged the ruling league Political Commissar. And here is what they said to the Political Commissar, 'from the word go we have emphasised we belong to the party. And we have said we take direction from the party' and they have finally agreed to the 'Political Commissar counselling and he will help to correct us'. This is why any analysis of the factions within the ruling party has to penetrate the structure of power and how this is articulated through society, to ignore the structure of power and its class content is to climb a greased pole of prophecy and that arena is a death of bed on many.

The barracks have tasted political power and the the undisturbed sweetness of the national treasury. Slowly and solidly military women and men have seeped into civilian state institutions where they now hold powerful positions. And they do not hold this power for nothing; the military is a highly regimented structure with a command and control element meaning at any point they can be activated into operational duties. In the present set up of ‘military-nationalists’ this has effectively subverted the constitutional fabric in which the military is subservient to the people via elected representatives. From the diamond fields of the Congo; the open field looting in Marange and the repression; the billions siphoned through the Command Agriculture grand looting scheme; the distribution and re-distribution of gold claims; the militias used for mining and to feed the lines of patronage; the deliberate controlling of the foreign currency market and running opaque preference allocation system for cronies; the comrades of Mgagao are back in full force and for the first time since the 1970s they have under them an unprecedented amount of state, party power and money.  Here is how they can be summed up:

The Zimbabwean economy looks to many like it’s being run by people who have no idea what they are doing. One would be forgiven for thinking it’s run by clowns who keep making economic blunder after blunder. But it is not. Our economy is run by top-grade criminals. Geniuses who have mastered the art of looting and disguising it as ignorance. The biggest beneficiaries of Zimbabwe’s economic woes is Zimbabwe’s ruling elite (Thandekile Moyo, Daily Maverick, 18 January 2020).

There are three major ‘Harmattan winds’ bearing down on the national political landscape. Unlike the West African winds that are dry and dusty, these political tempests will re-configure the post-colonial considerably. On one front is the determined marshalling of opposition politics by a powerful youthful opposition leader under what has been called the 'five fights'; on another front, a dangerously collapsing political and social life stalked by a drought, and then a ruling party under the grip of factions with access to the national armoury. This is an explosive hotchpotch of forces and the grass is already very dry. In Tunisia, the self-immolation of a student torched a popular revolt.  In Algeria self-immolations quickly set off the dispatching of a tyrant. Zimbabwe is back into the vice-grip of the military shenanigans of the liberation days in the 1960s and 1970s; the Mgagao contests, the Badza-Nhari rebellion and what Professor Masipula Sithole called Struggles within a struggle'. But now, unlike then, the military-nationalists have access, not to guerrilla arms caches, but the national armoury and if 'putsch generals' gather outside the command structure the stage will be set for that infamous 'tide of men' that often come in floods to seal fortunes.

With the failure of 'elite' pacts: the 'unity government' of 1987; the global political agreement of 2008; the Constitutional reform process of 2013; and the putsch of 2017 it is becoming clearer that the pernicious road to a national popular revolt is slowly being paved. Zimbabwe’s pro-democracy forces will have to think of a broad political process, to organise and mobilise around a project that will unite urban, rural and especially the disaffected to reclaim the republic from the usurpers of the 'November Days'. Here is Alex Magaisa on ZANU PF:

In dealing with Zanu PF, as in dealing with the Mafia, it is necessary to appreciate that one is not dealing with a mere organisation. Rather, one is dealing with a way of life; the Zanu PF way of life; a circumstance that makes the task a lot harder and also calls for entirely different approaches to the challenges posed (Alex Magaisa, April 2017)

The social, political and intellectual structural process that morphed into the National People’s Convention in the late 1990s and eventually, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) provides many lessons to students of revolt and social change. Considering the generalised character of militarism, of grand-corruption, of systemic state capture and arrogance of power, the road to a national popular revolt has been slowly cooking. It is a national popular revolt that can sweep the ruling elites off quickly, just like it was in Sudan. Only then can a process of re-subduing state institutions to the democratic constitutional fabric begin in earnest- then, and then, the people will govern.

TLChimedza and TC Chirimambowa are Co-Editors of Gravitas.

History on repeat…is ZANU PF facing another putsch?

Captured? Vice President Chiwenga and Mnangagwa with business tycoon Kuda Tagwirei

By Blessing Vava

The past few days have been quite interesting with the developments in Zimbabwe’s ruling party ZANU PF.  The unfolding events have been triggered by a press conference by the now-suspended two  ZANU PF youth leaders, Lewis Matutu (Deputy Secretary for Youth) and Godfrey Tsenengamu (Political Commissar) naming what they allege are corrupt cartels which have caused harm to the country’s economy. 

As a result, the two, as they expected, together with the Secretary of Youth in the ZANU PF politburo, Pupurai Togarepi were slapped with suspensions by the ZANU PF politburo for indiscipline and not following party procedure after labelling business tycoons Kuda Tagwirei, Billy Rautenbach and Tafadzwa Musarara as corrupt.

Interestingly, Kuda Tagwirei and Billy are believed to be close to Mnangagwa and his allies and an equivalent of South Africa’s Gupta family, which was accused of state capture. Ironically, Kuda Tagwirei is a member of President Mnangagwa’s Presidential Advisory Committee which is amongst other things tasked with advising the President on how to turn around the economy.

I hasten to say that all which has been happening has exposed President Mnangagwa’s style of leadership as anchored on deception as well as showing that many within his party have lost confidence in his government’s commitment to fighting corruption. The public has long dismissed the so-called new dispensation’s efforts to fight corruption by pointing out that it has a “catch and release” policy. I would also argue that what is happening in ZANU PF is the re-emergence of the factions and an indication that the centre is no longer holding.

Two days after the youth leaders were suspended, one of them a controversial figure Godfrey Tsenengamu, who actively campaigned against the late President Mugabe’s leadership which, at that time they described as very warm to looters, defiantly addressed a press conference in Harare. He threw more brickbats and vowed to escalate what he termed a fight against corruption and tacitly describing President Mnangagwa as “surrounded by criminals” like what the November 2017 coup announcer Sibusiso Moyo now Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Trade said justifying the removal of former President Mugabe from the office by the army. However, questions are still  being raised; if the former youth leaders’ actions are a real war against corruption or it’s a ZANU PF factional struggle to control the feeding trough at play. A closer look at these unfolding events is, therefore, necessary to understand the real story behind these developments. In this article, I will attempt to give different interpretations with regards to the unfolding events, which can form the basis of further discussions on this matter.

On the first look, the recent events seem to be a dress rehearsal typical of events preceding the November 2017 military coup when the likes of Tsenengamu, a known Mnangagwa foot soldier were at the forefront of supporting ED's ascendancy resulting in his suspension twice from the ruling party. Fast forward to February 2020, it looks the current developments are a replica of November 2017, which exiled former ZANU (PF) Politburo member and minister Prof Jonathan Moyo likes to call a November in February. Whatever that means, February might have ushered in an era of ZANU (PF) members joining the general population in expressing their disappointment and frustration over the failure by the “new dispensation” to remove the criminals which they say continue to surround the leadership.

On a second look, others are saying its nothing new but one of ZANU PF's diversionary tactics that it has been employing over the years to distract the masses from the ailing economy and pretend to be fighting corruption. Equally, but more importantly, they are trying to distract the progressive forces to mobilise the masses to rise against the deterioration of the economy and high cost of living. A recent report in the Zimbabwe Independent reported that the Joint Operations Command (J.O.C) has been doing joint intelligence analysis to understand the “national mood” to assess if there can be a national revolt due to the economic hardships experiencing the citizens. It might also be a counter-strategy, with the Tsenengamus pre-emptying a national revolt by calling for summits. Generally, we have seen before that despite mutation of factions, ZANU PF’s leaders are focused on power and grand looting, the factions manoeuvres have everyone intrigued and side-tracked.

On the third look,  one cannot also rule out an elite discohesion within the ruling establishment. Everything seems rehearsed, is history about to repeat itself? The likes of Tsenengamu and Matutu might have been let loose to test the waters and certainly, we should expect more drama. More conspiracies have been flouting linking the youths to either Mnangagwa and Vice President Chiwenga, with Tsenengamu vowing that their actions are neither supported by Mnangagwa and his deputy. History has also shown us that Tsenengamu and Matutu are in a party with a long history of using its youth as henchmen and certainly they are not on their own. What we are now witnessing is the re-emergence of the factions within ZANU PF and the biggest question on many observers is who is that faction behind Tsenengamu and Matutu or they are just overzealous youths overestimating their popularity?

Suspended ZANU PF Youth leaders Tsenengamu and Matutu addressing a press conference

Consequently, the following statements by the controversial war veterans leader and ZANU (PF) Politburo member Chris Mutsvangwa after the suspension of Pupurai, Tsenengamu and Matutu, clearly backing the claims by the suspended youth leaders. It is now clear  that some senior ZANU (PF) leaders are also convinced that there is a highly corrupt cabal which is very close to the centre of power, is impoverishing the whole population and sabotaging efforts to develop the economy. What is also apparent is that some ZANU (PF) leaders are now convinced that the State, in particular, the praesidium has been captured by Tagwirei and Rautenbach. What  remains to be seen is how some of these ZANU (PF) leaders are going to respond to State capture: are we going to see them making concerted efforts to fight State capture and advance the interests of the majority or they are going to chicken out?

If the events of the politburo meeting are to go by as reported in the Zimbabwe Independent of the 7^th of February 2020, somehow easily point to who might be backing the suspended youth leaders. The newspaper reported that during the politburo meeting Mnangagwa, Chiwenga, Shiri and others wanted Tsenengamu and Matutu to be expelled whilst Mutsvangwa, the ZANU (PF) National Chairperson Oppah Muchinguri and others were supporting their actions and were against harsh punishments for the two. Muchinguri was angling to be the vice president on the assumption that Chiwenga was not going to come back alive after that long stay in hospital in China.  While another school of thought argues that Matutu and Tsenengamu's anger was because they were shut out of Jumbo Mine in Mazowe which Tagwirei and Emmerson Mnangagwa Junior are taking over. As such it might be more personal because they were benefitting from small scale activities 

However, Mutsvangwa’s support of the youth was also quoted in The Standard newspaper dated 9 February 2020, when he said: “There is the outrage of ZANU PF youths and their stolen prospects of a better future, jealous of peer global fuel traders.’’ Mutsvangwa is also bitter after his deal of a second fuel pipeline from Beira to Harare was foiled and he accuses Tagwirei of being the behind because he wants to enjoy the monopoly in fuel. However, whilst Mutsvangwa backed the youth league leaders, what will be interesting to know is whether he was representing the war veterans or that was his personal viewpoint. If he was representing ZANU PF what then does it mean in the balance of forces in ZANU PF and the state.  The military’s hand is also written all over the mess, even the exiled former Minister of Information and political scientist Jonathan Moyo also seem to support this thesis as he posted on his verified Twitter handle; “It is unwise to call the forces behind Tsenengamu and Matutu chancers. No institution in the Zimbabwe political landscape plans better than the military. They’re no chancers. Often the problem is the poor content and objectives of their plans, not their lack of planning.” Considering, for example, how the military efficiently removed the feared long term leader Mugabe and its long active but controversial participation in politics one cannot rule out the possibility that the army continues to be key actors in the unfolding events.

Faction leaders? War veterans leader Mutsvangwa and ZANU PF National Chairperson Oppah Muchinguri

In 2017, the military claimed that they are the stockholders in ZANU PF. The military’s interference in ZANU (PF) dates back to the liberation struggle. For example, it has been instrumental in issuing the Mgagao declaration that led to the ascendency of Robert Mugabe as leader of ZANU. The military was also accused of having a hand in ousting the former Vice President Joice Mujuru from office. Most recently the military booted out Mugabe from power and ‘put’ Mnangagwa in office in November 2017.

The question now is whether Mnangagwa, the former Generals Chiwenga, Shiri and others are still representing the interests of the stockholders especially with regards to removing the criminals surrounding the leadership? The army and war veterans like the general population are not immune to the destructive actions of the people who are being accused of having captured the Zimbabwe State.

It is important to note that in what can be viewed as panic, an unsettled Mnangagwa, who narrowly escaped from an assassination attempt in Bulawayo in 2018 and the people behind that assassination attempt still to be arrested, continues to reshuffle the army commanders, with the latest happening a fortnight ago. This follows last year’s retiring of four commanders namely, Major Generals Martin Chedondo, Douglas Nyikayaramba, Anselem Sanyatwe and Air Vice Marshal Shebba Shumbayaonda and appointed them ambassadors a move seen at that time as an attempt to dismantle the military base which orchestrated the coup. It was said that they even resisted the retirements but eventually succumbed to take up their new roles.  Some pundits assert that Mnangagwa is fearing another military coup as he fears that some senior army commanders who were pro-Mugabe might regroup to oust him. Arguably, the current economic decay and continued flourishing of corruption are discrediting the justification for removing Mugabe. As the economy continues to sink with the leadership appearing to be clueless throwing the general population, the business sector and ZANU (PF) leaders as evidenced by Matutu and Tsenegamu’s statements into a state of despair, many people who fervently marched and welcomed the removal of Mugabe are now regarding Mnangagwa’s as worse than Mugabe.

Another important point is how in the first few months after the coup, soldiers took over the presidential close security tasks from the Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO), while the Zimbabwe Republic Police were relegated to peripheral roles. However, reports suggest that the CIO now under the leadership of Moyo a close ally of Mnangagwa is now back in charge of Mnangagwa’s close security with privileges it enjoyed under the old Mugabe order being restored.

Considering the widespread and high state of suffering across Zimbabwe reports of disgruntlement of soldiers cannot be ignored, an article by the Zimbabwe Independent “Hungry soldiers spark govt fears” dated 8 November 2019 quoted military who revealed disgruntlement was at an all-time high in the armed service, particularly within the junior ranks. In a nutshell, we cannot overlook the military’s disappointment by the Mnangagwa leadership which has dismally failed to turn around the economy and tackle corruption. Thus it cannot be ruled out that the soldiers feel let down by Mnangagwa. Tsenengamu also fired a salvo to Mnangagwa warning that power is temporary and it can disappear any time another warning that something is cooking and that those who orchestrated his ascendancy don’t see him as invincible.

 Therefore, what is happening in ZANU PF is a re-emergence of the factions and a reconfiguration of forces. The question to ask is; are we headed for a repeat of the Simba Makoni situation?  Whereby Simba Makoni was encouraged and promised support by some party gurus that if he takes on the ZANU PF leadership and expresses his ambitions they will join him. Simba Makoni went on to challenge Mugabe but the party gurus developed cold feet and left Simba in cold. Only one party stalwart the late Dumiso Dabengwa joined and the Mavambo project collapsed like a deck of cards. If indeed Mutsvangwa and Muchinguri and the disgruntled military cabal are the power behind Tsenegamu and Matutu, are they not going to chicken out and leave the two in deep trouble and isolated? 

In this section, I have looked at the implications of the actions of the youth leaders with regards to the factionalism and power struggles in ZANU PF. The follow-up section will delve much into the content of Tsenengamu’s press conference and its implications to ZANU PF.

Youths have lost confidence in ED’S leadership

Here I will try to break down Tsenengamu’s press conference and what it might mean to the developments in ZANU PF but in particular to Mnangagwa’s leadership.  As initially advertised the press conference was supposed to be addressed by both Matutu and Tsenengamu, it is the absence of Matutu at the press conference worth mentioning. Tsenengamu either could not say why his colleague was not part of the conference. Could it be that Matutu is already chickening out after realising that it might be a lone battle or he was advised to keep quiet? It is not surprising that soon he will be making a climbdown and I doubt if he will future in the events planned by Tsenengamu. Only time will tell. However,  listening to Tsenengamu, one can deduce that some youths (within the rank and file of ZANU PF) have lost confidence in Mnangagwa’s leadership in tackling corruption and uniting Zimbabweans.  Tsenengamu expressed his disappointment with his party leadership for doing nothing and not acting on their call after they previously named and shamed corrupt officials within the ZANU PF leadership. He added that after the expose of the corrupt leaders by the Youth league the party only responded by setting up a task force to look into the matter but nothing has been done resulting in the taskforce dying a stillbirth. As a result, Mnangagwa's fight against corruption is being seen as a huge failure by some members of his party echoing the general thinking by ordinary people. A huge blow against ED is that both the ZANU (PF) Youth League and the war veterans who see themselves as the stockholders of Zimbabwe see his government as captured by a corrupt cabal and not having no will to fight corruption as looting of State resources continues unabated and cartels scale-up impoverishing the general population with the tacit support of the government leadership which has arguably been ignoring calls to distance itself of criminals and cartels.

POLAD

The second observation is the party’s stance on the Political Actors Dialogue (POLAD) a dialogue platform for parties whose leaders contested the 2018 presidential elections set up by Mnangagwa. Tsenengamu dismissed the initiative as futile adding that the only way forward for Zimbabwe is a dialogue between the two leading political parties, ZANU PF and the MDC Alliance while also admitting that the country’s problems are as a result of a political crisis which the country cannot afford to ignore. It seems this position is shared by many leaders in ZANU PF, with the likes of Politburo member Retired Col Tshinga Dube who has also openly dismissed thePOLAD initiative. Tsenengamu acknowledged that some hardliners in ZANU PF are not comfortable with a dialogue between Mnangagwa and opposition leader Nelson Chamisa.

The ZANU PF Youth are echoing what the opposition and many other people have said about POLAD: that it is useless and a waste of time and resources. Then what purpose is POLAD serving?

Tsenengamu dared Mnangagwa that he has failed to unite Zimbabweans as the head of state with that responsibility. Tsenengamu went on to give an ultimatum to ED that he should try to unite Zimbabweans by meeting the main opposition party the MDC Alliance. In another salvo, Tsenengamu reminded ED  that his victory was narrow thus he has no justification to act as if he was overwhelmingly elected.  

The third observation is the policy differences within ZANU PF, which Tsenengamu exposes in particular on the issue of sanctions. Tsenengamu shied away from blaming sanctions from Zimbabwe’s woes adding that ZANU PF’s was against sanctions was rather an exercise in futility. In a nutshell, Tsenengamu dismissed  efforts not to take responsibility for current mess but blame sanctions.  Tsenegamu seemed to make the argument that the government’s efforts have been a huge failure in working hard to improve the conditions of living. Tsenengamu argues that the government’s performance has not been satisfactory and thus ED should be worried about that too. Tsenengamu wars that instead of suspending the youth leaders, ED should critically introspect and acknowledge that the lives of the people have further deteriorated during his tenure.  Burying his head in the sand and ignoring the devastating actions by cartels and corrupt business people will only serve to threaten to further destabilise Zimbabwe and his dream to that “2030 ndinenge ndichipo” into a pipedream.

Blessing “Vuvuzela” Vava writes from Chipinge and can be contacted on blessingvava@gmail.com