Vol. 81/No. 45 December 4, 2017
Army overthrows Mugabe in Zimbabwe ruling party fight
Former Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa took over as party leader. Mnangagwa was fired by Mugabe Nov. 6, a step designed to pave the way for Mugabe’s wife, Grace, to become the next president. A plan by Mugabe to arrest Mnangagwa’s ally, army chief Gen. Constantino Chiwenga, on his return from visiting China was prevented by the army Nov.12.
The Zimbabwe Mail reported Nov. 15 that Mnangagwa had planned to form a transitional government to replace Mugabe in collaboration with the opposition Movement for Democratic Change. It would be backed by the War Veterans Association, former fighters against British colonial rule, and by the Commercial Farmers Union — large capitalist farmers, including some looking to snatch back land taken from them during government-backed land seizures in the 2000s. The new government would seek the lifting of imperialist-imposed sanctions.
Mugabe has ruled Zimbabwe since 1980, when a hard-fought liberation struggle against colonial rule ended the white-minority regime that controlled the country, under colonial tutelage from London and with military backing from apartheid South Africa. The struggle for independence and to recover land stolen from the African majority by the settler-backed regime, was boosted in the mid-1970s when a South African invasion of Angola was pushed back. Angolan forces and hundreds of thousands of revolutionary Cuban volunteers successfully defended Angola’s newly won independence from Pretoria’s intervention.
The effects of the victory included the independence of Namibia and, later, the overthrow of apartheid.
After 1980 London sought to prevent millions of landless Zimbabweans from gaining access to land owned largely by the country’s former colonial masters. At the same time, Mugabe consolidated control of the country with a murderous assault on political opponents and others, particularly the minority Ndebele tribe. Twenty years after independence 4,000 capitalist farmers continued to own 80 percent of the arable land, while 6 million landless peasants eked out a living on the worst patches of ground.
Conditions for working people deteriorated sharply between 2000 and 2008, following land seizures carried out in the name of satisfying black peasants’ deeply felt hunger for land, but that in fact transferred many formerly large capitalist farms into the hands of Zanu-PF party supporters.
The EU and Washington responded by placing sanctions on the Mugabe family and barring member states from trading weapons with Zimbabwe. These sanctions are still in place.
From 1998 to 2008 gross domestic product plummeted nearly in half. The resulting food shortages and rampant inflation were devastating for working people. Government officials gave up measuring inflation in 2008 when it reached nearly 80 billion percent, then abandoned the country’s currency. Up to 3 million people are estimated to have left the country.
Like the toiling majority in many other African nations, working people in Zimbabwe have faced the devastating consequences of capitalist exploitation and imperialist-imposed debt bondage. In July the International Monetary Fund demanded Harare slash public sector wages, reduce payments to farmers and clear arrears on its foreign debt payments.
Still, Mugabe touted capitalism as the road forward. “We want to see our people turned into entrepreneurs,” he told the press in February.
A wave of protests and a general strike hit the country last year. Government workers — the largest section of the formal workforce — went on strike and people in the townships built barricades.
Conditions facing working people are disastrous. Over a quarter of all children suffer from stunted growth, because of poor nutrition.
In September the British Embassy in Harare denied press reports that it was maneuvering to help install a government friendly to London’s interests.
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