This body was tasked with reviewing national policies on security, defence, and law and order; reviewing national, regional and international security, political and defence developments; considering and approving proposals relating to the nation’s strategic security and defence requirements; receiving and considering national security reports and giving general or specific directives to the security services; and, ensuring that the operations of the security services comply with the Constitution and any other law.
But, thanks to lack of political will and the security service chiefs’ undisguised disdain for non-Zanu (PF) elements on the NSC, the body has not fulfilled any of its major functions, especially that of ‘ensuring that the operations of the security services comply with the Constitution and any other law’. And the JOC remains actively engaged in party political work.
An analysis of successful reform or transformation in other parts of Africa – such as in South Africa – shows that the process was always premised on a broad consensus on the un-sustainability of the status quo. Reform is as much a technical process as it is a political negotiation. It is critical therefore that the reasons why the security sector has run amok be fully understood and become part of the proposed solutions.
Selfish reasons
Reforming the security sector should be seen and done within the context of broader political and economic reforms. The entry of the security sector into politics has been driven largely by the desire to maintain the hegemony of Zanu (PF) for selfish reasons. Contrary to the propaganda in the state-controlled media, the offensive has not been driven by altruistic or nationalistic intentions.
It is about the retention of political power and the related fear of losing not only political power but economic influence and wealth, most of it ill-gotten. As the army’s plunder of diamond deposits shows, unless transparency and accountability are entrenched in all sectors, the appetite of the security sector to remain permanently embedded in the political economy of the country will remain.
However, at another level, it is important to note that the security sector is not a monolithic, single-minded body. Socio-economic and political privileges associated with the land, diamond and minerals economy have accrued only to a small but very powerful minority of politicians, senior public officials and securocrats.
Disillusioned
The majority of low level military, police and intelligence personnel are professionals and patriots who are obviously disillusioned with low salaries, politicisation of the security services and related non-merit based promotions that normally accompany partisan organisations – as well as the resultant loss of respect from the public.
The loss of opportunities to participate in international peace-keeping operations must weigh heavily on junior soldiers and their counterparts in the police since both services were involved in numerous missions prior to 2002.
It is equally significant to note that most of the senior securocrats who purport to defend the ‘objectives of the liberation struggle’ are now old by military standards – in their mid to late fifties – and in the minority. Although they have all passed the retirement date of either 20 years of service or 50 years of age as set out in their terms of office, their contracts continue to be renewed.
But below them the ranks must surely now be dominated by born-frees given that it is 31 years since independence and considering the regular recruitment of born-frees, and natural and war-related attrition and retirements. While the senior figures benefit from the current crisis, the majority of born-free personnel would surely stand to gain from a quick return to normalcy.
Return to barracks
Returning the troops to the barracks and making the security sector professional will require the guarantors of the GPA – SADC and the AU – to tackle the security sector through peer-to-peer engagement with sister security services in the sub-region.
It is disheartening that the SA/SADC mediation has not so far – at least publicly – acknowledged that the crisis in Zimbabwe refuses to go away – not simply because of political principals but also because of the intransigence of men and women in uniform, and their friends from the secret service.
Could this be an indication that SADC is unwilling or does not yet have the know-how to deal with intra-state security matters? What is clear is that the Zimbabwe crisis will not be resolved as long as SADC leaders stick to the organisation’s fawning respect for Article 4 (a) of the SADC Treaty on ‘sovereign equality of all Member States’ at the expense of Article 4 (c) on ‘human rights, democracy and the rule of law’ as principles governing the actions of SADC and its member states
But the fact that security forces in the majority of SADC countries are not partisan and are not involved in, and do not interfere with, elections and other democratic processes provides a window of opportunity for mediation at the level of securocrats.
Dogged refusal
Significantly, the unwitting complicity of South Africa under former President Thabo Mbeki and subsequently under President Jacob Zuma in the unlawful involvement of the security establishment in Zimbabwe’s politics is evident in their dogged refusal to make public the report by six retired generals, who probed the orgy of violence that rocked the 2008 elections, and another by Judges Dikgang Moseneke and Sisi Khampepe on the 2002 electoral process.
By now it has become clear that progress in the mediation will only occur if:
• The political risks and personal costs of intransigence are raised to a level which the parties to the GPA and securocrats cannot bear;
• South Africa and SADC confront the elephant in the room and require compliance with regional and international best practice in civil security relations; and,
• The mediation process is expanded beyond just South Africa to include an eminent African statesman acting on behalf of and facilitated by SADC.
There is also a need for a coherent security sector strategy from the MDC. The Zimbabwe of today is much like the Zimbabwe of 1979/1980 or the South Africa of the 1990s where the security sector held the key to transformation. For this reason, the MDC must demonstrate more than a pedestrian understanding of the elephant in the room.
Even the ‘edited’ version of the outcome of the March 2008 elections demonstrated the popular mandate that the MDC received from the electorate. For a government-in-waiting and one that fully understands that the security sector is a key obstacle to democratic transition, the MDC’s lack of a known policy position on security sector transformation in the form of draft national security policy, draft defence policy or draft intelligence policy, is cause for concern.
Empty coffers
Whatever the form that security sector transformation may take, the government’s empty coffers, coupled with lack of access to significant international capital presents a major obstacle to reforms. If the political will were to be found and SADC took responsibility for ensuring that the proposed package of political and economic reforms outlined in the GPA were implemented, including security sector transformation, then resources would have to be found to ensure that those who have overstayed their welcome retire into civilian life and give political progress a chance.
However, for that to happen, consensus and regional pressure must be generated on the un-sustainability of the status quo and the inevitability of change. Recent political upheavals in North Africa provide a useful anchor and immediate window of opportunity for such consensus.
Mindful of recent developments in the international justice sphere, which have seen former strongmen such as Charles Taylor and Jean Pierre Bemba end up in the dock, fear of prosecution for the Gukurahundi massacres and other more recent human rights violations must be uppermost in the minds of those in the senior reaches of the state security infrastructure.
These fears have to be politically managed against the legitimate demands for justice and accountability. Victims of state-sanctioned violence and impunity need redress, truth telling, apologies, criminal prosecution of culprits and compensation.
But the longer the security sector remains embedded in the country’s politics and perpetrates more human rights violations, the slimmer the prospects of reconciliation and forgiveness on the part of victims. And the slimmer the chances of credible elections and democratic transition.
It is time for the guarantors of the GPA to provide leadership by tackling and reining in the elephant in the room – the partisan and politicised state security sector – as provided for in SADC’s own statutes and international best practices for civil, military and security relations. If they do, then they will pave the way for real progress towards a new Zimbabwe. If they do not, then the will of the people will continue to be frustrated by the whims of the politico-military elite. – www.osisa.org
Recommendations
• SADC and the AU should appoint a full-time mediator with sufficient political gravitas and establish a permanent African monitoring mechanism to monitor violations of the GPA and accelerate full implementation.
• The international community should increase support for the constitution-making process, including political and institutional reforms, and reform of the criminal justice system.
• The NSC should be pressurised to develop a new National Security Strategy fand promote broader reforms of the security sector and related structures.
• Zimbabwe should enact national policy and legislation governing the intelligence services, including legal and institutional provisions for executive control, and parliamentary and judicial oversight.
• CIO should be de-linked from Office of the President and located in the public service under the political control of a minister, who should be accountable to parliament and the public for policy and budgetary matters.
• Depoliticise and clarify the role of war vets, and provicde socio-economic recognition and opportunities so that they are not manipulated for partisan political purposes.
• International support needed to ensure no arm of the state is beyond parliamentary scrutiny.
• An Elections Trust Fund should be established, administered by UNDP, to contribute to the organisation and management of credible elections under a new constitution and within the framework of regional benchmarks for credible elections.
• Prosecutions under international justice system should be considered as an important line of defence, especially when individual securocrats decide to remain obstacles to democratic processes.
Takawira Musavengana is the Human Rights and Democracy Building Manager at the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa in South Africa. His forthcoming publication is entitled: The Case for a SADC Parliament: Old Wine in New Bottles or an Ideal Whose Time Has Come?
Post published in: Politics