By Norm Dixon
Late last year, a worried President Robert Mugabe consulted Zimbabwe's most revered spirit medium. Through the medium, the spirit of Mbuya Nehanda — the woman executed in 1896 by the British after she led an anti-colonial rebellion — warned Mugabe that he would be removed from power "if he did not change his leadership style", reported the Zimbabwe Standard. Mugabe should have heeded her advice.
Mugabe's regime is increasingly unpopular with Zimbabwe's working class and poor. Last December, workers staged the largest general strike and mass rallies in the country's history in protest at sales tax hikes and a 5% levy to pay for compensation for war veterans. Mugabe was forced to drop the levy.
On January 19, a massive spontaneous three-day rebellion erupted in the poor suburbs of the capital, Harare, after the price of mealie meal — corn flour, the staple food for most Zimbabweans — increased by 21%, the third rise since October. The government quickly cancelled the increase.
Mugabe has also been forced into an embarrassing back-down over his announcement that some 5 million hectares of mainly white-owned land would be redistributed to poor black families. The plan, an attempt to defuse popular anger and win back some support, has been quietly dropped after western governments, the International Monetary Fund and Zimbabwean big business objected.
On March 3 and 4, Zimbabwe was again brought to standstill when the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions defied the government and called out its members on a general strike. The ZCTU estimates that more than 80% of the work force heeded its call. The strikers demanded that the government scrap a 2.5% increase in sales tax and bring down prices of basic goods.
Mugabe issued thinly veiled threats of repression: "Let them try again [to strike] and they will see what happens". Government ministers threatened to prosecute public servants who did not show up for work, penalise school principals and managers of state enterprises, and withdraw state contracts from private employers who did not open their doors during the strike.
Riot police and military helicopters patrolled Harare's deserted streets. The ZCTU's action was opposed by the Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries.
ZCTU secretary-general Morgan Tsvangirai brushed aside government threats. "We are not answerable to the president. We are answerable to our members", he said.
To avoid violent confrontation with the police, the ZCTU urged its members to stay home during the stoppage. During the December strike, police banned a mass rally in Harare, and attacked with batons and tear gas the thousands of workers who turned up. Workers fought back, and running battles continued throughout the day.
In Bulawayo, Zimbabwe's second largest city, the ZCTU office was attacked by unknown arsonists and burned down on March 4.
The attack parallels that on Tsvangirai, who was beaten unconscious by thugs at his Harare office soon after the December general strike. "No amount of threats, intimidation and provocation will drive a wedge between genuine workers' demands and their authentic leadership", responded ZCTU president Gibson Sibanda.
Tertiary students began a week-long class boycott on March 2 to demand a 250% increase in government student allowances. At the same time, 200 people who were political prisoners under the white-minority regime defeated by Mugabe's forces in 1980 are camped in front the offices of the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front demanding pensions and recognition of their role in the struggle for majority rule.
A lecturer at the University of Zimbabwe's Department of Political Science and Administrative Studies, John Makumbe, provided a more scientific version of Mbuya Nehanda's advice to Mugabe: "Zimbabwe is experiencing the end of the period of independence euphoria".