Stronghold to Stranglehold

In the last few days we have seen a televised address by Libya's dictator, Muammar Gaddafi, addressing the population of television and being quite belligerent with the fact that he is not planning on going anywhere.

It wasn't the content of his rambling speech that caught my eye, but the statue/artifact/scupture that he was standing in front of.

It was of a huge fist held aloft in defiance, and held in the fist is a fighter aircraft sporting US Air Force colours.

That got me thinking.

Mugabe, even before he managed to wrest power from the white minority of Rhodesia, was well-known for his holding a clenched fist aloft – signifying his intention, and ability, of getting his own way through force.

Now, after over ten years of living in the shadow of a bloody and vicious bush war, the Zimbabwean people began to rally behind his call for black rule. I, personally, have nothing against black – or indigenous – rule. In fact, I believe it is a natural prerequisite of the country.

However, when the rule of the 'elected' leader is such that the benevolence shown initially was little more of just a facade to satisfy those who looked on from countries in the region and abroad. This assists in the new leadership receiving aid and assistance in huge numbers, whilst accruing riches at the expense of the country and the population.

With the advent of the Gukurahundi, resulting in the signing of a 'peace accord' between the Ndebele leader, Joshua Nkomo, and Mugabe, the Zimbabwean leader began to show his true intentions for the country.

A one party state was the direct result, and it was only in the very late 1990s that Mugabe really became concerned with his stronghold of the political situation in Zimbabwe being threatened with the establishment of a new political party in the land, the Movement for Democratic Change, headed by former ZCTU (Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions) leader, Morgan Tsvangirai.

Then Mugabe took the gloves off.

The stronghold that he and his fractious party had over the population of Zimbabwe began to slip. Mugabe set the veterans of the chimurenga on the commercial farmers of the land – the vast predominance of which, were white – and began forcibly throwing them off the farms, claiming that they were correcting the imbalance of land tenure dating back to the colonial era.

Mugabe even went so far as to say that the land was to be returned to the 'landless' black. Very little of the land seized has ended up in the hands of the 'landless' blacks, and now lies in the hands of the chosen ZANU PF few.

Then came Murambatsvina, an operation which displaced 700000 people from their residences and left them living in holes in the ground on a porrly service open area of land just outside Harare.

This operation also left many people without gainful employment, a problem, which almost six years later, remains unaddressed.

Following the 2008 general election, which Mugabe's ZANU PF lost, the fight was well and truly joined.

Dozens of MDC activists have been killed, incarcerated or have disappeared. MDC MPs and Senators have found themselves at the mercy of the pro-Mugabe courts, dragged into the dock without legal council or substantiation of their crimes.

Mugabe is determined that, in the event of a new election, believed to be planned for later this year, ZANU PF win, and win with a resounding success. He cares not that democracy will lose as a direct consequence, or that the proletariat will lose their mandate, the ability to chose their own leader. He cares not that the peoples' voice has been gagged, the very standard of living in the country at its lowest ebb.

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For me, the clenched fist with the US aircraft in its grasp is not much different from the golden statue that adorns the entrance to the ZANU PF burial society at Warren Hills on the outskirts of Harare. They both represent the same thing – total and utter oppression of the masses.

Robb WJ Ellis

The Bearded Man