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Zimbabwe: Mugabe Held at Gunpoint, Says Exiled Writer

Charles Cobb, Jr

7 May 2008

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interview

In Chenjerai Hove's novels and poetry one finds deep passion for ordinary people under the lash of oppression and struggling against poverty. That very passion has forced him into exile from Zimbabwe, where as both newspaper columnist and novelist he butted heads with the government of President Robert Mugabe.

In a wide-ranging conversation with AllAfrica's Charles Cobb Jr., Hove, now a visiting fellow at the Watson Institute for International Studies at Brown University in the United States, discussed the failure of regional leaders to respond meaningfully to Zimbabwe's ongoing turmoil, as well as his thoughts on why the 84-year-old Mugabe clings to office. Excerpts:

Tell us a little about your background. You're a native Zimbabwean. You grew up there?

I started as a teacher, a high school teacher during the liberation war, in the countryside in 1977.

Where in the countryside?

In the southern parts near Masvingo, in an area called Bikita. We didn't teach much because that was the height of the war and so we were always in the mountains, taking food or carrying messages from this guerrilla group to another one and that sort of thing. When the school was closed in 1978 I got a job teaching in the Lowveld in the sugar cane plantations, in a school owned by the [sugar] company, and of course the war was there also. So it didn't quite stop. Then after independence I decided to leave teaching because when we went on strike to ask for equal pay...

The teachers went on strike?

Yes, black teachers went on strike because there was a teacher's college for whites, coloureds [people of mixed race] and Asians, and a teacher's college for blacks who were studying the same curriculum – education, English, languages and all that – and then when we went to teach, the white teachers would get four times our salaries. So we wanted Mugabe to regularize these salaries in 1981. The transitional government of [Abel] Muzorewa in 1978 had done a little to try to improve the situation but didn't go the whole way.

So when we went on strike to demand that these salaries also acknowledge our years of experience where we were underpaid – we went on strike the same time as black nurses – Mugabe came out on television and radio and said these teachers and nurses contributed nothing to the liberation movement.

Now when I was teaching in the countryside, there was a month for example, when I remained with 23 cents because my whole salary had gone to buying shoes, shirts, trousers for the fighters – some of them wanted sunglasses and things like that too. And then the man stands up and says we contributed nothing! I was so annoyed, I decided to leave teaching.

So I got a job as editor at Mambo Press in the Midlands in the town of Gweru. I worked there as a senior editor until 1985 when I went to Zimbabwe Publishing House. We had political differences with the owners so I left and became a journalist, because at Mambo Press I had also been editing the magazine called Moto, which was a monthly.

After Mambo, in 1985 I went to Zimbabwe Publishing House as senior editor in charge of literature, education and training of younger editors. Then because of ideological differences – the owners relied and depended on the patronage of the Minister of Information – I refused to continue because when the minister, Nathan Shamuyarira, was removed to be foreign minister we were concerned about our books because he was the one pushing the books, especially political books.

So I left and became a journalist for Inter Press Service. I was the regional editor for Southern Africa in charge of culture. From there I was appointed writer-in- residence at the University of Zimbabwe from 1991 to 1994, after which I went as visiting professor at Lewis and Clark College [in Oregon in the U.S.]. Then later on I went to teach at Leeds University [in Britain] and I was also a guest writer for the whole of the Yorkshire region. When [Prime Minister Margaret] Thatcher closed the coal mines, [trying] to weaken the trade union movement, there was a lot of unemployment. People were just sitting there so I would go and try to help them [use] their potential skills in writing poetry or short stories or essays and things like that.

Would it be correct to say you're in exile from Zimbabwe or can you go back?

I'm in exile but I have not been sent out. I left on my own. I had a column in the newspaper called The [Zimbabwe] Standard and after the parliamentary elections of 2000 [amidst] the violence which was happening, I was writing, satirising the political system and how some people like President Mugabe were so power hungry that they didn't care whether people were being butchered.

Then we were heating up [ahead of] the presidential elections in March 2002, I was continuing to write [and] began to be informed by friends who were in the secret police that there was no way they could arrest me because that would draw a lot of international public attention. They could only find a way, like an accident.

Assassinate you? Accidentally!

So there was a lot pressure from my friends, like Wole Soyinka. Wole would say "Listen, why are still sitting there? Do you want to be another Ken Saro Wiwa? Do you want to be a dead hero? Get out of that place." And I remember they sent me a ticket, and said, "Okay, this is an open ticket, don't give us the excuse that you didn't have any means."

So when things were bad I called Wole Soyinka and [American writer] Russell Banks and I said, "Listen I am now going to leave. Where should I go?" They said, "We've found a place for you in France. There's a town there just outside Paris which wants a guest writer." So when I left, of course I left on a 10-day ticket... but I knew I was not going to go back. I can't go back. It would be suicidal.

I wrote an article in which I said the president has ruled the country through the use of fear and force, now the tragedy is that he fears even himself because he has frightened others so much that he fears himself. If you look at his motorcade, there's is no president I have seen with such a motorcade. It's such a performance – over 45 cars, motorcycles, now it includes a mobile clinic.

He [Mugabe] responded. He said, "There's a writer who says I am afraid of myself. I don't hear anybody. That writer is the one who is afraid. He's outside the country." I wouldn't go back.

As somebody who is native to Zimbabwe, who joined the war for liberation, who was among those celebrating independence of Zimbabwe, is the way things have turned out today surprising to you? Could you have imagined this in 1981?

I could have, yes, especially because I was in the countryside at the height of the war in 1977-78. And I saw, you realised, you know, [guerrillas] murdering people. They used either to say you are a sell-out, or you are a witch, and then they would get villagers and say okay get sticks and bash their heads. Or just take bayonets and kill...

For what reason?

They would say you are a sell-out, giving information to the Rhodesians. A lot of people died... That's why Mugabe didn't want to have some kind of truth and reconciliation commission. And of course at the same time I also saw the brutality of the Rhodesian Army, just coming to a village at night where the guerrillas had been and burning down the whole village with people inside. I saw all that.

Then I got worried about the behaviour of the guerrillas and also the intimidation. In the 1980 elections the people who were actually put in the transition camps [in terms of the agreement which governed the independence election] were not the real fighters. They took villagers, girls and boys, and said you just go in there. The real fighters remained in the villages and said to villagers, "If you vote for Bishop Muzorewa" – who was put there by the Rhodesians – "if you vote for him, we are going to kill you." So people in 1980 did not vote because they liked Mugabe or Joshua Nkomo – especially Mugabe. They voted to stop being killed, to stop the war. They wanted somebody who could stop the war.

[In 1980] we didn't worry about the programme of action too much. We didn't. We just said: "We are fed up." People in the villages had no chickens left, no goats left, one or two cows left, because the guerrillas did not eat vegetables. They ate chicken, they ate meat, so the villages now had nothing. They didn't have oxen to pull the plough and work the fields. They couldn't. When the elections came and then they took power, I got very worried, I hoped they were going to move from the mentality of the bush.

But Mugabe was speaking of reconciliation in those first days?

He spoke of reconciliation at gunpoint... what is happening now.

The Joint Operations Command (JoC), which is now in charge, was formed by... the head of the [Rhodesian] secret police. It was all the commanders of the armed forces, intelligence, police services, there were four or five of them, they were running the country, keeping close control.

This is exactly what is happening now. The same Joint Operations Command, which Mugabe did not dismantle, is now saying to him, "You cannot go because we ourselves will be vulnerable if you go."

For war crimes, I guess?

For war crimes – some of them were in charge of the operations in Matabeleland [in the early 1980s, in which Mugabe's forces crushed opposition in the province, killing thousands]. They are known and the cases are there, and witnesses. Human rights organisations have compiled this information.

So Mugabe made that reconciliation speech because there was a lot of movement of diplomats negotiating with the [Rhodesian] generals... They were ready to kill Mugabe and take over and so diplomats were busy negotiating with them. And the generals said, "Okay, we can only accept him [Mugabe] if he promises reconciliation."

He made the reconciliation speech before the results were announced. When the British [transitional governor] Lord Soames saw that the results were leaning towards Mugabe's victory, and the army – the white generals – were prepared to take over that night, he told them, "You guys have to work under this guy." They said, "No, we don't work under a communist. We are going to take over."

So he had to go to Mugabe and say, "Hey listen, you have to make a statement [on reconciliation] even if the results are not out..." ... So [Mugabe] made it at gunpoint.

So you don't find this to be a new Mugabe at all? Now that he's out from under the gun we're seeing the real Mugabe – is that what you are saying?

Yes. That's why he didn't fire the head of the secret police, the generals of the army – he asked them to stay on, all the white generals. Then he just made the Zipra and Zanla [guerrilla leaders] deputies because he knew that they might re-group. If he's nasty with them, they might re-group and remove him from power. So he made that statement at gunpoint and now he's at gunpoint again with his own people.

His own military people?

His own military people are saying, "No, we won't allow you to leave." I suspect that [after the March 29 elections this year] he must have negotiated his own exit package, then the army discovered it and said, "You are going to leave and negotiate your own package. How about us? Because you sent us to do a lot of things when you were prime minister and minister of defence." So he is a hostage really.

The latest news reports say two things. One, that the Movement for Democratic Change will retain a majority of the actual vote count. And that the police and military are engaging in an ever-intensifying crackdown –raids on MDC offices, raids all across the country, particularly in Manicaland and some other places. Is this going to accelerate? Does this mean that the Mugabe government will not accept the vote? And we don't really know yet about the presidential race. Who is President of Zimbabwe?

Of course we have the President… Before another one is sworn in, he remains president. But we don't have Parliament…. I understand that he has re-instated some ministers... who lost constituencies. None of the opposition MPs [or] his own MPs and senators … have been sworn in. So we have no MPs. We have MPs-elect. So they are powerless because they know that they are not members of Parliament. Even if they won the elections – some of them won [their constituencies] – they have not been sworn in so they can't qualify to be ministers.

Are we looking at the beginning of real civil war?

Now, some army and police officers just go to a region and declare a state of emergency in the district. And then they torture people and nobody arrests the torturers. The sad thing is that the opposition is saying, "No, we cannot have this anymore," because they have their own youth as well who fight back.

So we're almost on the verge of a civil war; civil war which will be totally chaotic in the sense that if you suspect that your neighbor is Zanu-PF, you just take a stick and try to hit him, and he or she tries to take a stick to hit your head and crush it.

So it's not a civil war where you are going to have one side coming from over the other side... It's just chaos, probably even worse than what happened in Kenya. So the next few weeks are very dangerous for the country.

Do you have any expectation or hope that African nations – particularly those in the region that would have a direct interest in stability in Zimbabwe – will act in any way to ameliorate this conflict or to assure fairness?

No, in fact I met the former President of Botswana. Festus Mogae, and he said to me in a joking manner, "Your President has some sort of mystical power. You go there thinking that you are going to challenge him and then when you get there you get so weak."

Speaking of himself? Or other African leaders?

Of other African leaders, because he said, "We call each other and say, okay this time we have to tell him this and that. This can't go on. We agree. And when he appears everybody is congratulating him for non-successes."

The same thing with [Thabo] Mbeki [President of South Africa]. Mbeki is currently trying to resolve the situation and when he goes there, he's mediating. He's seen walking around hand-in-hand with Mugabe and smiling broadly. No negotiator does things like that.

Of course the other issue is... an African problem, that he is the oldest, probably the oldest African leader and definitely the oldest and the longest-serving in the whole of Southern Africa.... So they respect him as an elder statesman and do not want to challenge him to say okay this more than enough.

The other side to it also is that some of the leaders know that Zimbabwe's economy is very well balanced normally without this distraction that has happened. Investors who could have been going to Zimbabwe [now] choose neighboring countries. So they [the neighbors] are lukewarm in solving the problem and say, "We'll get the investment. Zimbabwe is not on the agenda as an investment destination." So they have their own economic interests.

Another thing is that there is this liberation party mentality. Mozambique is the same. There is the liberation war party which led the liberation struggle. Botswana is the same. South Africa is the same. (Zambia changed. Malawi changed.) So they want to make sure that the liberation movements are not disrespected by removing their so-called hero as a villain. So there will be a soft, soft, soft approach.

[Also] the trade union movement and the civil rights movement removed [Hastings] Banda [the founding President] in Malawi. They went on with [former President Frederick] Chiluba to remove [founding President Kenneth Kaunda] in Zambia.

Now the MDC is a movement just like the movement in Zambia. So they are thinking, for example, in South Africa where the government is a marriage between the trade union movement, Cosatu [the Congress of South African Trade Unions], the SA Communist Party and the ANC [African National Congress], if this labour movement continues to take over in these countries—

The strong guy of the trade union movement in South Africa is called Zwelinzima Vavi [general secretary of Cosatu]. He's threatening the... South African Government, the ANC, that this marriage might break up... So the labour movement tradition of taking over from the liberation movements, this is what some of these leaders fear.

And of course there are personal matters, like in Mozambique, [former President Joaquim] Chissano is still very influential. But who is Chissano? Chissano was Mugabe's best man at his wedding. So he cannot go and say, "Hey, my friend, you have to leave office." He can't do that. So he's talking nice conversations with Mugabe.

You said Mugabe was held hostage by his own military people, and that earlier he had been held hostage by white military leaders. Does that mean Mugabe actually wants to leave office and cannot? And why don't people like Mbeki and other leaders of the region have dialogue with those military leaders?

Mugabe wants to leave I think. Because I have been told he has been under immense pressure from his wife, who, I'm told, has already taken the children to Malaysia because they were being divided [from other children] at school to say, "Oh no, it's your father causing us all these problems. We don't get pocket money anymore." So they were taunting them.

So I think he has made enough money, he has built his mansions, [in] his village, with his one in town. I understand there are a lot of properties in Malaysia. So he wants to leave and enjoy his last days, spending money on holidays and all that.

The regional local leaders, I suspect, would not want to negotiate with the army, the military people in Zimbabwe, because they are not supposed to have any direct contact with them. The negotiations will have to be between the opposition... and the military. But the military will say we are not authorised to negotiate.

That's a public position but there's some precedent for back-door, back channel discussions?

My suspicion is that even if they negotiate to have Mugabe leave and they have their own safe package—there are similar experiences, like in Zambia when Chiluba negotiated his own exit... and then they found a warehouse of shoes and bank accounts and properties all over the place... Then [President Levy Mwanawasa], whom Chiluba sort of nominated, made Parliament change the law three months after getting into power and established an anti-corruption commission.

So the [Zimbabwean] army generals don't trust that [anyone] can guarantee their safety. [Opposition leader Morgan] Tsvangarai has a majority in Parliament and almost the same in the Senate.... The generals know that whatever pledges they are given, the first sitting of Parliament just comes and they [can reverse the deal]. So they are afraid and they are wont to say we can't take a risk.

What do you predict as a Zimbabwean looking ahead? What do you see in the immediate future?

In the next year or two I think we going to go through a period of real chaos –  political, economical, social disintegration – before we start rebuilding.

If you look at the institutions which have been personalised... In every institution where [Mugabe] had power to appoint somebody, including the national parks, national railways, the oil companies, there are brigadiers, colonels, lieutenants, military guys. He has militarised all the institutions – prison services, secret police. Everywhere is military. You are looking at the whole structures of these institutions which have to be depersonalised to make them state institutions again.

These guys are not going to allow themselves to be pushed out easily. They're going to fight. And that will take a lot of chaos. Even if they don't get removed they will try to make sure that the new government doesn't function. They can put in another chief executive and sabotage all the work that is supposed to be done. So that might take us quite a little bit of time.

The central bank is now a personal bank. Mugabe just withdraws money whenever he wishes, millions to go to Malaysia on holiday. He takes the airline, it's run by some military guy, he just leaves passengers stranded and he goes on holiday.

So to clean all that up and renovate the whole system and make sure the state institutions are once more state institutions, not personal institutions, will take us quite some time.

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