CHAPTER 2: NON-VIOLENCE, THE HISTORY OF VIOLENCE AND THE ROLE OF THE CHURCH IN ZIMBABWE
2.3 History of violence in post-independence Zimbabwe
2.3.3 Elections and politically motivated violence
In Zimbabwe, the period of elections have become synonymous with violence of extreme proportions, the worst being the inconclusive 2008 elections that only stopped when the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and the African Union (AU) intervened.
Political violence was one of the defining characteristics of, although not exclusive to, the development of nationalism in Zimbabwe (Sachikonye, 2011; CCJP, 2000). Politically-motivated violence refers to any form of violence that seeks to achieve certain desired political objectives by enhancing the political fortunes of the perpetrator and for negating those of the opponent.
The history of election-related violence in independent Zimbabwe can be traced to the first general election held in 1985 that was accompanied by widespread intimidation of the opposition candidates and their supporters. The violence included mob beatings, arson and
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murders. As alluded to in the CCJP and LRF report (1997), this violence had less to do with the pursuit of dissidents than it had to do with crushing of ZAPU as an opposition party.
According to the CCJP and LRF report (1997, p62), much of the election-related violence and intimidation was at the hands of the ZANU-PF youth brigades. These were a party-organised mob of young men who would bully or destroy with virtual impunity. The ZANU-PF youth were modeled along the Chinese Red Guard and were supposed to promote national ‘development’.
In practice this meant primarily coercing people into buying ZANU-PF cards, forcing thousands of people to attend ZANU-PF rallies, and beating anyone who stood in their way. The ZANU-PF youth were identifiable by their uniforms of khaki trousers and bright red and green shirts.
Little effort was ever made by the police or army to prevent or intervene in ZANU-PF youth activities who seemed to have the tacit approval of the national government for their actions (CCJP and LRF, 1997). This modus operandi was also captured in another report by CCJP (2001), when violence intensified after the ruling ZANU-PF lost to the newly formed opposition MDC in a constitutional referendum of February 2000, and nearly lost in the highly contested and disputed parliamentary elections that followed in June of the same year. Among the most common forms of violence were assault, murder, kidnapping, arson, rape, looting, extortion, torture, bombing, bodily mutilation, destruction of property and illegal possession of fire arms (CCJP, 2001). The heavy electoral loses that ZANU-PF suffered in the plebiscites of 2000 triggered government-supported land invasions targeting the 4000 white commercial farmers who were accused of supporting the newly formed political opposition, dubbed the Fast-Track Land Reform Programme. It was also christened the Third Chimurenga to give it status of the unfinished business of the Second Chimurenga, Zimbabwe’s liberation struggle.
After the plebiscites of 2000, political violence increased both cumulatively and exponentially with the mounting challenges to governmental authority by the opposition. Much of the political violence during this period, particularly that related to land invasions, was perpetrated by war veterans acting either on their own or in common purpose with other ZANU-PF supporters, and certainly with the connivance of the army and the police. In fact, during this period, war veterans as a group rose to prominence in national politics to the point of being
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above the law (CCJP, 2001). Their role in spearheading violence was supplemented by the youth militia graduating from the National Youth Service (NYS) training centres dotted around the country.
The creation of the Zimbabwean National Youth Service programme is credited to the late Mr.
Border Gezi who was appointed Minister of Youth, Gender and Employment Creation after the 2000 parliamentary elections. As such, NYS training centres are often referred to as ‘Border Gezi Training Centres’. Early government pronouncements on the conceptualization of the compulsory NYS argued for a need to train the nation’s youth, referred to as those aged between 10 and 30 years of age. The government promised that graduates would come out with a sense of national pride and history, as well as skills suitable for employment. The intention was described as to instill a ‘sense of nationalism and patriotism’, to make youths
‘proud of their culture, history and country’. The training would include ‘skills training, survival skills and military training’. Contrary to these ideals and claims that the training of the youth militia would be politically non-partisan, there was overwhelming evidence that the youth militia camps were aimed at forcing a ZANU-PF view of Zimbabwean history and the present on all school leavers. All training materials in the camps consisted exclusively of ZANU-PF campaign materials and political speeches. The material was crudely racist, and vilified the major opposition party the MDC (Solidarity Peace Trust, 2003, p20; Ndlovu, 2012, p271).
Furthermore, in contradiction of claims that the training would not aim at imparting military skills, military drills including training in the use of weapons were major elements of youths training since the first intakes in August 2001. In July 2003, the government acknowledged its hitherto denied policy of weapons training for all trainees in the compulsory service, with the national army declaring itself as a concerned party in the training. The then Minister of Defence, Sidney Sekeramai, defended training in weapons use, arguing that all youth trainees would form a reserve force to defend their nation when the need arose, falling under his command. This also linked with government rhetoric that pronounced that the youth militia must defend the country against imperialists and neo-colonialists. Combined with ZANU-PF’s political pronouncements that Zimbabwe has enemies within, including the perceived neo-
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colonialist opposition party MDC, it was not surprising when those believed to be MDC supporters were the most common targets of youth militia attacks (Solidarity Peace Trust, 2003).
Since January 2002, the youth militia has been one of the most commonly reported violators of human rights in Zimbabwe, with accusations including murder, torture, rape and destruction of property being leveled against them. They have been blatantly used by ZANU-PF as a campaign tool, being given impunity and implicit powers to mount roadblocks, disrupt MDC rallies, intimidate voters and setting up bases (which often became torture centres) to conduct political re-orientation classes for known or suspected supporters of opposition political parties (Solidarity Peace Trust, 2003; Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 2009; Raftopoulos and Mlambo, 2009).
Other activities by the youth militia included politicization of government food handouts and denying basic services such as access to healthcare on politically partisan grounds. The militia had an ambivalent relationship with law enforcing agencies, including the police and the army, but more often worked under the direction of war veterans. Conspicuous with their green uniforms from which the derogative term ‘Green Bombers’ emanated, the youths became a menace in many communities, both urban and rural. Apart from committing crimes against political opponents, the youths became notorious even to family and neighbours (Solidarity Peace Trust, 2003). Political violence perpetrated by the youth militia reached unprecedented levels towards the June 2008 presidential run-off election. After a relatively peaceful election in March 2008 in which the MDC defeated ZANU-PF, a five-week delay in announcing the presidential election result fuelled suspicions of manipulation of the outcome. When the results were finally released, Morgan Tsvangirai of the MDC-T won 47.9 percent of the votes, ZANU- PF’s Robert Mugabe 43.2 percent, Simba Makoni, who stood as an independent, 8.3 percent, and a fourth candidate, Langton Towungana 0.6 percent (EISA, 2008). This outcome entailed a run-off election between Tsvangirai and Mugabe. A wave of politically-motivated violence erupted in several parts of the country and prompted Tsvangirai to withdraw from the June run-off election citing violent ZANU-PF retribution against his supporters. In the run-off election, President Mugabe polled 2,150,269 votes (85.5 percent), while Tsvangirai got 233,000
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votes (9.3 percent) (EISA, 2008b). Election observation teams from SADC and the AU’s Pan African Parliament, however, were unanimous in condemning the June 27 run-off election as not free and not fair (SADC, 2008; Pan African Parliament, 2008).
As mentioned above, inter-party violence reached its peak between 2000 and 2008 when ZANU-PF increasingly utilized state agencies, war veterans and youth militia during campaigns.
Hundreds of opposition party activists and supporters, mainly from the MDC, were killed in the 2000, 2002, 2005 and 2008 elections while thousands were injured and thousands more were displaced (Sachikonye, 2011b). The intensity and ferocity of the violence resulted in the discrediting of the 2008 presidential run-off election. Gutu district did not escape this violence.
Indeed, it became one of the epicenters of the 2008 election violence because four out of the five constituencies in the district were won by the MDC. In Wards 1 and 2, bases were set up by the local youth militia and serious human rights violations were committed. These are the youths that this study targets, and changing their attitudes towards violence was the ultimate objective of training them in non-violent methods of conflict resolution using AVP.