Zimbabwe And The Steep Road To Vindication: Acceptable And Imposed Imperial Narrative
23 December 2010By Netfa Freeman
When Zimbabwe initiated fast track land redistribution
in 2000 it was big news for corporate media to echo
several patented denunciations, characterizing the
process as rife with corruption, violence, and
inefficiency and doomed to fail. More than eager to
join the fray was the liberal left whose pseudo
analysis reiterated the same line accompanied by an
aversion to anything that seemed even remotely
favorable to Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe and
his ZANU PF party.
Given all that media fanfare, it would be easy to
assume an independent study examining results from the
last ten years of land reform would get the same
attention. Not likely. In fact we can be sure more
attention will be given to the dispatches from the
U.S. Embassy in Zimbabwe publicized by WikiLeaks. One
cable by former U.S. Ambassador to Zimbabwe,
Christopher Dell reveals nothing unexpected or
compelling except Dell's aptitude for writing
subjective diatribes that are able to pass for
concrete information to the politically uncritical
eye. Ambassador Dell's publicized cable exposes the
lack of confidence he has for many of the leaders in
their neo-colonial pawn party, Movement for Democratic
Change (MDC) that he and the U.S. brazenly support
along with the rest of the Western powers.
A friend of mine had this to say about the cable
"I think it's funny that they've been predicting his [Mugabe's]
imminent demise for so long. I've always said that the
biggest Achilles' heel of the imperialists is that
they actually believe their own horse****, especially
since the aforementioned [the Dell cable]
self-delusional horse**** is oftentimes the basis for
their actions."
Dell dispatched the cable in 2007 and at this point
most if not all of the assertions in it have been
disproved over time, bringing us to the real meat of
this article – meat that will be overshadowed in
Western press by the recent WikiLeaks release. Not
that they would endeavor to report this at all even in
the absence of WikiLeaks.
You see, the major study of 10 years of land reform in
Zimbabwe actually exists and was released in mid
November. As we said, if one assumed it would get big
media coverage they would assume wrongly since such a
study doesn't conform with the acceptable and imposed
imperial narrative. It appears the study, released by
Institute for Development Studies fellow Ian Scoones
at Britain's University of Sussex and detailed in the
book Zimbabwe's Land Reform Myths & Realities, was
able to lure the usual Mugabe and ZANU PF detractors
into resuming their typical propaganda pot-shots,
indicating that something unfavorable to them is
afoot. An article by staunch Mugabe critic Patrick
Bond in the online magazine Counterpunch, "A New
Tyranny: Will Zimbabwe Regress Again?" was published
just as the new study evaluating the land
redistribution program in Zimbabwe was released. It
almost seemed that Bond's article was meant to serve
as damage control from the revelations of the study.
Before assuming the land study is the topic of Bond's
article, revealingly not one mention of the study was
in the article. While this was interesting it was not
surprising, given that the study contradicts a
collection of major narrative myths Bond has been
complicit in popularizing. The study "challenges five
myths through the examination of the field data from
Masvingo province:
"Myth 1 Zimbabwean land reform has been a total
failure
"Myth 2 The beneficiaries of Zimbabwean land reform
have been largely political `cronies' (specifically,
cronies of Robert Mugabe)
"Myth 3 There is no investment in the new
resettlements
"Myth 4 Agriculture is in complete ruins creating
chronic food insecurity
"Myth 5 The rural economy has collapsed
"By challenging these myths, and suggesting
alternative policy narratives, this book presents the
story as it has been observed on the ground: warts and
all."
Over the past year or so things had been relatively
quiet on the ZANU PF-Mugabe vilifying front, leaving
one to wonder about the timing between the land
redistribution study and any new ZANU PF-Mugabe
vilification resurrecting its ugly head. Even more
deafening is the silence over the study by Western
media and the Western beholden civil society
organizations, right wing or "progressive." While Bond
does deal quite a bit in his article with land
redistribution it is mostly to continue the notion
that it was a disingenuous exercise that was largely a
failure. Just like Ambassador Dell's cable to the US
State Department, Bond backs none of this up with the
type of information that can be either proven or
disproved.
And even with the wholly inadequate coverage the land
study has gotten, like that of the BBC, coverage tries
to divert attention to a "process which these farms
were seized off white farmers, often very, very
violently," as remarked by the host of BBC News
Worldwide while interviewing Ian Scoones. Lacking the
sensitivities that come from identifying with the
indigenous African's from which the land was brutally
stolen in the first place using methods exponentially
more violent than any used to reclaim it by the
African descendants who have the only rightful claim
to it, Scoones could not articulate the more fitting
come-back for such Euro-centrically biased
questioning.
The imperialists, along with their pseudo-progressive
civil society organizations, must believe that if they
just keep repeating the same lies and
misrepresentations over and over they will transform
them into truths. Like the facts of the 2008 elections
whose depiction is another obstacle in Zimbabwe's road
to vindication. In his article Bond repeats the
refutable claim that "Since paramilitary violence
forced Tsvangirai to pull out of the mid-2008 run-off
presidential election (after winning the first round –
but, claimed Mugabe's vote-counters, with less than
50%),…" When one's purpose is only to generate
unsubstantiated assertions it's easy to pack a lot of
misinformation into a single sentence.
The devil, or shall we say the real truth is in the
details. While Bond's assertion follows the standard
imperialist propaganda line, facts reveal that the
results of that election were not under the control of
"Mugabe's vote-counters" but instead a Zimbabwe
Electoral Commission (ZEC) that included
representatives, ballot counters, and poll watchers
from all the political parties of the country who each
had to sign off on the results during each stage of
tallying. Bond also claims his imperialist-backed MDC
presidential candidate Morgan Tsvangirai was the
winner even though the country's constitution dictates
that there is only a winner when a candidate receives
over 50% of the vote. Instead of a claim by "Mugabe's
vote-counters" as Bond put it, it was even according
to the figures peddled by the MDC at the time a run
off was warranted. Unlike Bond, an April 4, 2008
article in the Zimbabwe Guardian clarified this fairly
recent history with more concrete and verifiable
information, saying:
"Morgan Tsvangirai might aspire to be president of
Zimbabwe, but he has difficulty with simple
mathematics. Yesterday, he claimed to have won 50.3
per cent of the vote in Zimbabwe's election. This
figure is vital because it puts him just above the
crucial 50 per cent threshold needed to avoid a second
round against Robert Mugabe.
"But anyone with a calculator can work out that
someone got their sums wrong. According to the MDC,
Tsvangirai took 1,169,860 votes against Mugabe's
1,043,451 and Simba Makoni's 169,636.
"These figures appear in an official statement carried
on the MDC's website today, along with the claim that
"President Tsvangirai has 50.3 percent of the total
Presidential vote and he has won the election with no
need for a run-off."
Get out your calculator and check the percentages. In
fact, the MDC's voting figures show Tsvangirai with
49.1 per cent, Mugabe with 43.8 per cent and Makoni
winning 7.1 per cent."
So on the MDC's own figures, a second round is needed.
These weren't the only shenanigans the MDC attempted
during the first round of voting and conveniently
overlooked by Bond. Some may recall the long time it
took for the results of the first round of voting to
be released, emboldening the opposition and Western
forces to claim ZANU PF was stalling in order to put
in the fix. And the pitiful Christopher Dell cable
released by WikiLeaks actually adds to misleading the
public about the real context of that time. For
example, that some ZEC officials were "arrested on
allegations of tampering with election results and
prejudicing ZANU-PF presidential candidate President
Mugabe of 4,993 votes cast in four constituencies in
the just-ended harmonized elections" as reported in an
April 8th 2008 article in Zimbabwe's The Herald. The
article went on to detail that investigations around
the same improprieties where taking place in "two
other constituencies in Manicaland where the Zanu-PF
presidential candidate was also allegedly prejudiced
of 1,392 votes.
"In Mashonaland Central, it is alleged, the same
candidate was prejudiced of 773 votes while
investigations also revealed that the same candidate
lost 1,000 votes in two Matabeleland North
constituencies and 1,828 votes in Masvingo…
"…The anomalies were detected following a close
scrutiny of V11 and V23 forms.
"A V11 form is an original document carrying results
at polling stations and is signed by all agents of
contesting parties.
After the signing of the V11 form, information is then
recorded on the V23 forms that collate polling station
results within a ward.
"These forms also show the results of the council
elections.
"The Sunday Mail reported at the weekend that at Rimbi
Primary School in Manicaland Province, the V11 form
showed that President Mugabe got 612 votes but the V23
form that was forwarded to the National Command Centre
shows that the President received 187 votes.
"This anomaly was detected in a number of
constituencies."
Instead of believing the false, typical and
unsubstantiated claim that paramilitary violence
forced Tsvangirai to withdraw from the 2008 run-off
that followed the first round of voting, a real and
more plausible explanation is detailed here.
So while it is easy to foster confusion with
grandiose, albeit brief, assertions barren of
concretely verifiable information, it often takes
pages of critically assembled information to unravel
it. To properly digest the WikiLeaks released cable of
Dell we can learn from CISPES, Committee In Solidarity
with the People of El Salvador.
In looking at the WikiLeaks cables from the U.S.
Embassy in El Salvador, CISPES has made some very
astute observations. It would be wise for us to
consider that much may be similar regarding Zimbabwe
and El Salvador: "While Wikileaks' release of leaked
diplomatic cables provides an unprecedented
opportunity to reveal the workings and motives of U.S.
foreign policy, the process grants large international
news agencies the decision-making power as to which
cables to release and the opportunity to craft the
first analysis that the public will hear."
CISPES continues: "Considering more than 1,000 cables
about El Salvador were reportedly leaked, we must ask
what criteria were used to select these particular
cables for first publication; cables that right-wing
Salvadoran news sources are now using in a continued
attempt to undermine new government." … "Overall, the
cables reveal an Embassy that is out of touch with the
leading role played by the FMLN in El Salvador's
current political reality."
The IDS land study in Zimbabwe does provide what could
be considered an unbiased account of land reform in
Zimbabwe. However, much of what it reveals had already
been documented by anti-imperialist author Gregory
Elich and in many ways more comprehensively. IDS
fellow Ian Scoones insists that his study focused only
on the results of land reform over time, occasionally
seeming to accept the Western narrative on the means
by which the redistribution took place.
Zimbabwe's land issue is consistently characterized by
unprecedentedly and indiscriminately violent takeovers
from white landowners deliberately instigated by
Mugabe and ZANU PF. Elich refutes this in his
meticulously researched and referenced book Strange
Liberators; Militarism, Mayhem, and the Pursuit of
Profit, showing that farm "invasions" involved
"temporary visits of a few days and sporadic repeat
visits. They [did] not entail the extended stays" and
that the farms targeted tended to be those of
landowners who "had mistreated workers, paid
excessively low wages or exhibited overt racism."
Regarding the use of violence Elich also showed that
"…compared to rural and urban violence in South
Africa, Ireland or Brazil, the level in Zimbabwe has
been quite low." Incidents perpetrated by those who
were legitimately dissatisfied with what had been
inadequate land delivery were curtailed by the ZANU PF
fast track land redistribution program.
The IDS study merely validates Elich's job of
disproving the myth that beneficiaries of the land
reform had been political "cronies" of Mugabe and that
the process was largely corrupt. Elich also pointed
out that land confiscated by the Zimbabwe government
for redistribution was "unused land, underutilized
land, land owned by absentee owners, land owned by a
person possessing multiple farms, land exceeding size
limits (which varied by region), and land contiguous
with communal lands." Rather than Mugabe being in
cahoots with what in reality was a minuscule 0.3
percent of cases where the process was abused (5%
according to the IDS study), Elich demonstrates
something different. The investigation that uncovered
such abuse and corruption in the process by government
and party officials was actually initiated by the
President's Land Resettlement Committee. (Elich, p.
343-344)
While Patrick Bond's writings and WikiLeaks documents
might seem a compelling source of truth, such truth is
unfortunately harder to come by. One "wiki-leaked"
cable indicates that because "many MDC-T local
councilors and parliamentarians elected in 2008 had no
independent income…they were now turning to graft."
Such disclosures don't tell the relevant complicity of
the World Bank in secretly bankrolling MDC-T
officials. While the IDS study on the land reform
pushes Zimbabwe further down the road to vindication
an anti-imperialist and revolutionary perspective of
Zimbabwe's struggles will continue to require a very
scrutinizing and critical approach.
Netfa Freeman is the Director of IPS' Social Action &
Leadership School for Activists and an activist in the
internationalist and Pan-African liberation movements.
He can be reached at
netfa@hotsalsa.org.
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