A most dangerous time

Asatu sits in the filtered, early morning light, gently sobbing. She is22 and eight months pregnant. She does not know if her boyfriend isdead or alive, and fears that her own life may be over before it hasstarted.

A ward worker for the Movement of Democratic Change during last year’sZimbabwean election, she was dragged from her house by youths wieldingsticks and taken to the local headquarters of the ruling Zanu(PF) party.

There, she was beaten and repeatedly raped. Five men took turns toassault her several times day for a month. The woman, who had donenothing more than to urge voters in her township to place their faithin opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai, had her life systematicallydestroyed.

Not only is she pregnant from the rapes, Asatu along with 15 per centof women in Zimbabwe is HIV positive. "I feel sad. I feel alone. WhenI think back to that time my heart starts beating," she says.

After escaping from her rapists, Asatu went into hiding and prayed forhelp and to be reunited with her 27 year-old boyfriend, who she fearshas been murdered. "I said to God, ‘If these are your plans, I wantnothing to do with them. If you are looking after me, then help in myhard times.’ "

Driving through the streets of Harare, it is hard to imagine the terrorsurrounding the election, an election that, despite the systematicintimidation of opponents mass beatings, murder and disappearances the 85-year-old Robert Mugabe and his Zanu(PF) party lost. The stand-offthat followed eventually ended in the creation of an "inclusivegovernment" in which Morgan Tsvangirai is Prime Minister but Mugaberemains President and keeps control of the army. Today, roadside stallsoffer fresh tomatoes and green vegetables and there seems to be anextraordinary number of imported, luxury cars racing over the pot-holedroads.

For Zimbabwe’s ruling elite, with their fortunes built on illicitmining and diamond deals and milked public funds, life continuesuninterrupted. They live in vast walled mansions protected from theirpeople by electrified fences, security guards and watchdogs. Their onlyinconvenience, it appears, is the international travel bans placed onthe 200 more-notorious citizens and generals.

If there was any doubt about Zimbabwe’s institutionalisation of fear,it is dispelled after just a few days in the capital. On the outskirtsof Harare, at a secret location, I meet a "venerable" member ofMugabe’s Zimbabwe African National Union Patriotic Front. "If I amcaught talking to you, I am a dead man," are his opening words. Theinternational media are banned and foreign reporters face imprisonmentif caught.

Our meeting takes place in a deserted warehouse. "It is a mostdangerous time. The party is divided and there are many who believeMugabe should not be in the inclusive government at all." He describesa bleak political landscape. The party of liberation long ago morphed,in Orwellian style, into the party of greed and self-interest. Buttensions are rising within the Zanu(PF); a mood of desperation grips theinner circle surrounding the President.

"These are the people who have acquired a lot of wealth and don’t wantto lose it they think they can hold on. They worry that if the MDCsucceeds, they will be brought to justice, they will be heldaccountable. Nobody should rule out a coup. They control the army, thepolice and the CIO (Central Intelligence Organisation)," he says.

Mugabe’s problem, the politician says, is that he has indulged hiscabal of supporters for 50 years. "He cannot dump them and he cannotdiscipline them. He should have retired 10 years ago when he had thechance. Now nobody knows where all this is going, especially if Mugaberetires or dies without naming a successor."

The politician describes himself as moderate. He knows Mugabe, knew hisfirst wife ("who would never have let it come to this"), and is wellacquainted with the rival powerbrokers and faction leaders EmersonMnangagwa and Solomon "Rex" Mujuru (and his Vice-President wife,"Avarice" Joyce Mujuru) who, he says, are manoeuvring to replaceMugabe should he resign or stumble. Mnangagwa, often mentioned asMugabe’s heir-apparent, was head of security when the first massacresof political opponents took place in the 1980s.

Zimbabwe may not yet meet the technical criteria of a failed state, butto most observers that is surely academic with 90 per centunemployment, a compromised justice system and a bankrupt economystaggering along on US dollars and South African rand. The UnitedNations estimates 75 per cent of the population still depend on foodaid. And state-sanctioned violence, including the seizure ofwhite-owned farms, continues.

Most of the nation’s factories are in mothballs and, in the capital,constant blackouts interrupt what business there is. Silos that onceheld grain for export are empty. Harare’s public hospital wards arefilled by empty beds, stripped of sheets, pillows and blankets.Zimbabwe’s cholera and AIDS-HIV patients are forced to attend clinicsoperated by non-government organisations or, if they have $A10, get aconsultation in a private hospital.

On the other side of Harare, in a modest building on a street where thetraffic lights wink intermittently, the former union leader, now PrimeMinister, Tsvangirai plays a deadly game of poker with the nation’sfounding President. Tsvangirai and the MDC were dealt an impossible setof cards under the Global Political Agreement brokered by theunsympathetic former South African president Thabo Mbeki, after lastyear’s election stalemate.

Tsvangirai won more votes but has been forced to play a subservientrole to the discredited Mugabe. The lines of demarcation, like so muchin the agreement, are vague and open to interpretation usually thePresident’s. The agreement makes no reference to the Prime Minister’spowers and responsibilities. Recently, Mugabe stripped Nelson Chamisa,an MDC minister, of half his communications portfolio the half thatcontained phone and internet snooping powers.

Chamisa tells me, in a hurried encounter at a union conference, he isconfident of getting his full ministry back. But from all accounts, heis the only minister in the 61-member cabinet who believes it. "This isthe last supper for some," Chamisa says. "Political bacteria andcorruption still threaten the Government, but we are shining a torch onit." Brave words.

MDC insiders say Tsvangirai, still grieving for his wife, who recentlydied in a road crash, and a grandchild who drowned soon after in apool, is asserting himself with fresh determination. He told a rallythis month he was committed to making the inclusive government work.

For weeks, MDC and Zanu(PF) ministers have been haggling over thenitty-gritty of office: the appointment of ambassadors, regionalgovernors and senior public servants, and the ousting of discreditedReserve Bank governor Gideon Gono. Gono trashed the economy by printingworthless currency a $Z100 trillion note can be bought as a keepsakefor $US20 ($A26) and stole money from private bank accounts to keepthe government afloat while amassing a small fortune for himself, thePresident and his cronies.

The cabinet negotiations have been acrimonious, with Zanu(PF) ministerssabotaging progress in the MDC-controlled portfolios of health andeducation. Violence and intimidation by the Zanu(PF)-controlled CentralIntelligence Organisation, the military and the prosecutorial wing ofthe Attorney-General’s Department has prevented an internationalbail-out. In open violation of rule-of-law undertakings, farmers arebeaten, jailed and driven off their land; MDC activists remain missingor imprisoned; and this week journalists were prosecuted for printingpublicly available information.

It is enough to ensure that donor funds remain at a dribble. Thequestion most are asking in Harare is whether the MDC ministers arebeing set up by Mugabe to fail. When the next election is held andnobody really knows when will Mugabe blame the MDC for unfundedschools, empty hospital beds, food shortages and a spike in cholera andAIDS-HIV?

David Coltart is the MDC Education Minister. I find him on the topfloor of the department building, a drab 18-storey edifice in Harare’sCBD. The building’s toilets were unblocked and the water, he says, wasreconnected with funds donated by Australia. A polite and genialminister, Coltart is, when we meet, in the middle of an industrialcrisis, rushing from one meeting to the next. Teachers have threatenedto strike, claiming the $US100 a month they receive is not enough. Asenator and a white minister, Coltart is surprisingly, if cautiously,optimistic, believing the inclusive government was always going to betough.

"The majority of people in all the parties want to make the agreementwork, even though there are hawks out to derail it. We are trying tostop the country from falling into complete chaos.

"I have hundreds of thousands of kids that had no education last year," he says.

The education system is a shambles. Coltart says he has no idea howmany teachers are employed even though 90,000 people receive salaries.The bureaucracy has been loaded with so-called "ghost workers", Zanu-PFactivists who collect wages as teachers but who never set foot in aschool. They are the thugs and foot soldiers, deployed to intimidatevoters, carry out abductions and enforce Mugabe’s political will. Theyprobably include the cadres who abducted Asatu.

"We need 140,000 teachers that is the establishment figure but weare not sure how many teachers we have. There is no computer(data)base. Trade unions tell me the real number of actual teachers isonly 60,000." Like other MDC ministers, Coltart has set up an audit toidentify the ghosts.

What Coltart needs most is money. With just $US40,000 a month tooperate 7000 schools, he can’t hire more teachers even if he wants to.While Zanu(PF) ministers continue to breach the Global PoliticalAgreement, the prospect of an injection of UNICEF money and there’splenty available is unlikely: Britain is opposed to releasing thefunds while the farm invasions continue.

Coltart acknowledges there is good reason to believe the MDC has beenset up to fail, but he clings to optimism. He says the agreementallowed the country to break the circle of "viciousness" and hasprovided a way forward. "We are going in the right direction since thattruly awful time in May last year (when Morgan Tsvangirai was admittedto hospital after a beating). We have our good days and our bad days.

"There is a critical mass of people inside the Government (includingZanu(PF) ministers) who want this to work. If we can improve the livesof people and we get a free and fair constitution, the MDC will be ableto take absolute power."

Another minister who supports Coltart’s qualified optimism is JamesonTimba, the MDC’s deputy minister for the media. While there are manyoutstanding issues yet to be settled, Timba says, MDC ministers aremaking significant progress.

He says MDC Finance Minister Tendai Biti has stripped governor Gono ofhis powers, and found other ways of getting international funds withoutthem flowing into the pockets of Zanu(PF) members. Biti also has endedthe currency crisis by adopting the US dollar and paying publicservants.

"We now have a semblance of order," Timba says. There is food on theshelves, prices have gone down, and there is deflation." He saysagreement has been reached, but not yet announced, on many big issues,including the appointment of ambassadors, regional governors andpermanent secretaries.

But he says serious obstacles remain, including the farm invasions strenuously opposed, without success and the antics of the Zanu(PF)hardline Attorney-General Johannes Tomana, who was behind the jailingof MDC politician Roy Bennett and other party activists.

Tsvangirai acknowledged as much this week, when he publicly accusedZanu(PF) hardliners of deliberately violating the Global PoliticalAgreement and blocking access to international funds, therebyendangering the lives of all Zimbabweans.

Otto Saki, a senior lawyer and co-ordinator of the Zimbabwe Lawyers forHuman Rights, which has been monitoring the agreement, says violationshave been many and varied. Comparing the inclusive-government pact to a"forced marriage that nobody wanted", he says the violations can beexpected to continue.

Saki says the Zanu(PF) is split between moderates and hardliners, but hebelieves the hardliners and Mugabe are dominant. "Zanu(PF) is like theMafia, once you are in it, you cannot get out. Accidents do happen andwe have had people killed by non-existent trains and cars that nobodyhas ever seen."

He says the future of the inclusive government is uncertain, possiblyfated to fail. The Prime Minister cannot quit because that would hand a"blank cheque" to the hardliners. There has been speculation thatMugabe may step down when the Zanu(PF) Congress meets at the end of theyear. That could pave the way for a smooth transition or, more likely,a bitter and bloody power struggle between his would-be replacementsEmerson Mnangagwa and Solomon Mujuru.

While politicians haggle over the nation’s future and their own, Asatusays she is resigned to the fate God chooses for her. She would like togo back to school and study a faint hope for a single mother in acountry where the education system barely functions. She would alsolike to reopen her roadside vegetable stall, but has no money for that."I do want justice, but God will decide that," she says.

Asked what name she will give her baby, she says without hesitation: "Struggle. I will call my baby Struggle."

Russell Skelton is a contributing editor.

The Age