The euphoria that has accompaniedRobert Mugabe’s resignation as president of Zimbabwe has been unparalleled, and the nation is high on optimism and hope for a fresh start. Zimbabwe’s new leader, Emmerson Mnangagwa, is being called a pragmatist, an economic reformer, and he is saying all the right things about inclusivity in terms of the future governance of the country.
He has called for a “new era” of no toleratance of corruption, incompetence or social decadence, and he will probably bend over backwards to win over international creditors to secure loans and aid. The business community loves him.
But can the 75-year-old former Mugabe loyalist be trusted to take Zimbabwe in the right direction?
While the present is imbued with great expectations, it is also infected by the past. And that past is far from savoury. Mnangagwa cannot run away from the fact that he played a very senior role in the oppressive machinery of Mugabe’s rule.
Perhaps most disturbing is the fact that Mnangagwa was the country’s Minister for State Security from independence in 1980 to 1988. He presided over the feared Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) which, during the mid-1980s, was allegedly directly involved in the brutal torture and oppression of thousands of Ndebele in Matabeleland according to the report Gukurahundi in Zimbabwe: Disturbances in Matabeleland and the Midlands 1980-1988, compiled by the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace in Zimbabwe and the Legal Resources Foundation.
The report is a chilling read about an absolutely brutal period in which the Ndebele people of Matabeleland were all treated as dissidents who needed to be dealt with. According to the report, the CIO worked closely with the Five Brigade in Matabeleland South, and had a reputation for being more lethal in methods of torture than even the Five Brigade itself. The Five Brigade was an elite unit trained by the North Koreans to deal with dissidents and did not fall within the army chain of command, but was directly answerable to Prime Minister Robert Mugabe’s office.
Speeches of the notorious Five Brigade commanders at rallies in 1984 stated the desire of the government to starve all Ndebele to death. A food embargo was imposed in 1984 at a time when there was already starvation due to a three-year drought. According to the report, the government had prevented all movement of food into the area, private food supplies were destroyed, and no people were allowed out to buy food. The Five Brigade punished villagers who shared food with starving neighbours and destroyed bags of maize when they found them.
The report documents how in February 1984 the Five Brigade launched a systematic campaign of mass beatings and detentions in Matabeleland South over several months, and the CIO was allegedly the main perpetrator of torture. The report speaks of the CIO having conducted most of the interrogations at the infamous Bhalangwe and Sun Yet Sen camps, where victims were given electric shocks to their backs, ears and mouths, and endured water torture. There was genital mutilation of men and women, systematic rape, and some victims had their bodies literally “stretched” to breaking point.
The report documents the statements of witnesses who claim to have been tortured by the Five Brigade and then the CIO consecutively, and passed back and forth between the two. The report states that in 1984 all ex-Zipra and Zanu officials were detained, and men, women and children were randomly selected, detained and tortured. It has been estimated that thousands of people were massacred, most of them civilians. It was a time when villages were razed, people burnt and families buried alive.
In an interview with the British New Statesman at the beginning of this year, Mnangagwa absolved himself of any culpability in the Gukurahundi massacres of the mid-1980s, denying any involvement. In the past he has blamed the army and the notorious Five Brigade elite unit for the killings. But, even if the army carried out the mass killings, it would seem that the CIO bears immense culpability for the torture and repression of this period, and it would be hard to imagine that the head of the CIO was oblivious to what his agents were doing.
There was never any accountability, which promoted a culture of impunity both within the army and the CIO. Further abuses were subsequently committed against members of the political opposition in the 1990s and 2000s. In Operation Murambatsvina in 2005 the government deployed the police and army to bulldoze the homes of impoverished people in urban areas to “remove filth”. It was the hotbeds of MDC supporters that were targeted.
Mnangagwa was always at Mugabe’s side - throughout Operation Murambatsvina, the farm invasions, Zanu-PF’s alleged election rigging, and the state terror unleashed to reverse Zanu-PFs electoral defeat in 2008. Mnangagwa was Mugabe’s loyal supporter. The two were so close that when Mnangagwa lost his constituency seat in both the 2000 and 2005 elections, Mugabe appointed him to an unelected seat in parliament.
It is said Mnangagwa headed Mugabe’s presidential campaign in 2008 and played a critical role in Mugabe retaining power by brokering the power-sharing pact with the MDC. It has been argued that as Minister of Defence from 2009 to 2013, Mnangagwa ensured that the security establishment decimated the political opposition. Mugabe appointed Mnangagwa as vice president in 2014. This begs the question - under Mnangagwa’s leadership - will Zimbabweans see the political space closing once again, the political opposition under attack, and the media tightly controlled? It seems that Mnangagwa’s monumental rise has been a masterful stroke for the political fortunes of Zanu-PF. Only time will tell how much of a democrat Mnangagwa portends to be, but his track record leaves much to be desired.