Vol. 72/No. 28      July 14, 2008

Five days before the election Tsvangirai dropped out and took refuge in the Dutch embassy. The MDC said that more that 80 of its activists had been killed by supporters of Mugabe, candidate of the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) party.

On June 26 former South African president Nelson Mandela called the situation in Zimbabwe a “tragic failure of leadership.” Mandela’s statement was the latest among a growing number by officials of African governments critical of the election—some even calling for a “peacekeeping” military intervention.  
 
Sanctions
U.S. president George Bush June 28 ordered additional sanctions on top of existing travel bans and bank account freezes on central members of Zimbabwe’s government. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the U.S. government would introduce a resolution at the UN Security Council to impose tougher sanctions. The U.S. government currently holds the rotating chair of the Security Council.

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office of the British government is lobbying countries in Southern Africa to “create an economic blockade” against Zimbabwe, reported the London Times. Among other measures the British government is considering are: widening British and U.S. travel bans against Zimbabwe government officials, preventing their children from studying in Britain or the United States, completely banning the purchase of goods, imposing sanctions against companies operating in Zimbabwe, and pressuring Beijing to break relations with Harare.

The Australian government announced June 22 that it is seeking to “lift the level of sanctions against Zimbabwe,” reported Reuters. The United States, United Kingdom, European Union, and the International Monetary Fund have imposed a wide range of sanctions against the Mugabe government  
 
Military intervention
“Why not send in the troops?” asked a feature in the June 26 Economist. “It would be glorious if he [Mugabe] were removed by any method at all.”

“A very good argument could be made for having an international force to restore peace,” said South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu, reported the Daily Express.

The same newspaper reported Britain’s foreign office minister as saying, “What you cannot accept is the status quo continuing—President Mugabe has to go.”

Zambian president Levy Mwanawasa, who is also chairman of the Southern Africa Development Community, called for postponing the election; Angolan president José Eduardo dos Santos urged Mugabe to “embrace a spirit of tolerance”; and South African president Thabo Mbeki met separately with Mugabe and Tsvangirai in an attempt to broker an agreement.

Tsvangirai had been arrested and severely beaten during the campaign. MDC rallies have been repeatedly banned or broken up by ZANU-PF supporters. A week before the election the wife of the MDC elected mayor of Harare was beaten to death after being abducted along with her four-year-old son. The child was freed.

The imperialists have taken advantage of such acts to campaign for sanctions and military action against Zimbabwe.  
 
Deepening social crisis
In addition to Mugabe’s second place showing in the March election, ZANU-PF lost its majority in the legislature. The results registered the widespread discontent among working people in Zimbabwe with the deepening social crisis in the country.

Unemployment is estimated at 80 percent. Inflation is a mind-staggering 100,000 percent. A single cigarette costs Z$500,000, a loaf of bread Z$1 million, and a newspaper Z$2 million. The average wage is Z$20 million a month. (On July 1 Z$10.7million was equal to US$1).

Even though the rate of HIV infection has declined, Zimbabwe’s rate remains among the highest in Southern Africa at around one in every five adults. Life expectancy at birth is just over 39 years and infant mortality is 75 per 1,000 live births.  
 
Land reform
A decades-long struggle brought an end to white-minority rule in 1978 in Zimbabwe, then called Rhodesia after the British colonialist Cecil Rhodes. Zimbabwe became independent following British-supervised elections in 1980 that were won overwhelmingly by Mugabe’s ZANU.

As part of the election deal, known as the Lancaster House Agreement, the British government forced Zimbabwe to agree that there would be no seizure of land, owned mainly by white settlers, for 10 years. Britain promised funds to help purchase land of white farmers willing to sell.

In 2000 the Zimbabwean government organized the seizure of settler farms. The action was popular with the country’s landless rural farmers but it was not carried out through mobilizing the toilers, but rather by rallying veterans of the independence war.

Much of the land taken went to supporters of the government and its top officials.

The MDC was formed with the backing of officials of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions in 1999 after a series of economic strikes against the government’s attempt to increase taxes. Tsvangirai is a former official of ZANU-PF. He was a plant foreman at the Bindura nickel mine but later worked his way up the union hierarchy and was elected secretary-general of ZCTU in 1998.  
 
 
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