Mugabe's Regime Tightens Screws on

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JIM FARNHAM looks at the developments in Zimbabwe since Robert Mugabe's landslide

Zimbahwe's unemploved have made few ECENTLY, Prime Minister bert Mugabe of Zimbabi has found it necessary to jon a rally tour of parts of nbabwe to try to recover • failing support for his rernment and ZANU rty.

These rallies have given gabe the chance to use Min the same radical itoric which won him such te electoral support from ¡ oppressed masses.

He speaks to them in ona, the language of the gority of those who voted • him. Previously, when agabe and others of his misters have spoken in ona, they have won assive support for defiant ¡tements and promises of indamental improvements the living standards of the iss of black working pople.

More than once such fiant and militant stateents have been followed ! official government stateents in English, assuring is whites and the bosses ai the government did not ally intend to take all the nd from the rich landiners, that workers in the ctories would not immedlely get a living wage.

Rhetoric We do not know whether ich 'corrections' have also sen made in Shona to the asses. It seems less than tely. But whatever the #toric of Mugabe and his •ernment, it is precisely cause the promises are not bing translated into reality hat it is now necessary for im. not so long after his formous electoral victory, • have to tour those regions there he could once rely on most total support.

Each day the balancing it on which he tries to maintain his position is comif under greater and greater hallenge. A government rhich claims on the one and to be there to meet all he needs of the masses, and in the other, promises to rotect the property and rofits of the capitalists is Mays attempting to achieve n impossible balance.

When capitalist property emains more or less intact. s is the case in Zimbabwe, then the capitalists have ¿heir own representatives sitting in the cabinet, when the forces of the state are used to proect private property, then the government, whatever if says or promises, is a bosses' government.

That always was the case With Mugabe's bosses' government. It is now coming to be seen to be the case. Workers and peasants are seeing before them a government which sends out the police if they strike, the army if they try to occupy land. And at the same tune, their daily standard of living is continuing at the same appalling level without any sign of the improvements which Mugabe and ZANU promised.

Mugabe tries to attract investment through creating and maintaining conditions of productivity. He uses the resources of his government to show the capitalists watching that the capitalists already investing inside Zimbabwe are reaping profits from their investments.

And the profits of any capitalist come only from the exploitation of workers -particularly in a situation such as Zimbabwe where technology is limited and concentrated in a few areas of production, capitalist profits must mean cheap • That is what Mugabe has really set as his task when he talks about attracting investment and search for IMI loans.

Restricted

In these circumstances, the reforms which Mugabe undertakes have to be severely restricted and make no real impact on the standards of living of the masses.

Inflation is rising-presently at more than 20%. The unemployment under Smith remains more or less unchanged -The redistribution of 1he iand. ablutely central 10 Mutabes appeal to the mass • gaze without land or :05: •he is being praded up and 25whether unused or even some land used by big landowners-and defy the attempts of Mugabe's government to move them.

For thousands who fought against Smith, for millions . who listened to Mugabe's promises of radical change, the fact that their own daily poverty and hardship continues creates a climate of growing confusion and dissatisfaction.

Crawl

This climate makes it possible in turn for the rejected reactionaries and opportunists of yesterday to crawl out of their holes and try to pose as the champions of the masses against Mugabe's government today.

Muzorewa and Sithole, who joined Smith's government, have both been greatly increasing their political activity over the last few months.

But for the moment, at least, Nkomo, with his ZAPU party holding a minority of cabinet seats and himself owning enormous amounts of land is probably too wedded to both to take the great risks of any real attempt to build the growing opposition against Mugabe.

The bosses sitting in Mugabe's government and controlling the economy view the developing political instability with a great deal of irepidation. Mugabe has never been the first choice of the imperialists and the capitalists.

His election, over their • avoured slooges. was a *is blow io their direct gains out of Mugabe's election control. He still remains in their eyes, far too easily able to mobilise a mass base against them again.

They will try to keep their options open. At the moment, there is at this stage no real alternative for the imperialists to promote.

But in a sense there is no need for them to try to promote any alternative. For, since he has come to power, Mugabe has been able to do what Smith and Muzorewa could never do for the capitalists. He has disarmed the guerrillas.

He has renewed the state of emergency imposed by Smith. He has banned all demonstrations and marches without the permission of his government and the police. He has made sure that some of Smith's cabinet ministers are still sitting in the cabinet today.

He has appointed one of Smith's generals to head the army. His ministers have warned workers that strikes will not be tolerated. And over the last week, it has been Mugabe who has sent Smith's old police to arrest hundreds of strikers.

Threat

Mugabe argues that the repressive measures he has taken are necessary to guard against the threat of reaction-both from the right wing inside Zimbabwe, and the South African army on the border, and the South African agents operating inside.

He is correct to see a threat from these sources.

African agents have

election victory

just murdered an ANC leader in Zimbabwe. South African troops are terrorising parts of Angola, South African troops occupy Namibia.

The generals who sit in the apartheid regime of the South African bosses are ready to use any measure of brutality and barbarism to protect stability (i.e. capitalist rule) in Southern Africa.

Stretch

But the Southern African rulers are not ready to further stretch their army, which has enough to do already and is faced with the growing development of struggle by black workers inside South Africa.

They would be reluctant to take on the still militant and relatively mobilised Zimbabwean masses.

Of course it remains a real threat, and will become more real the more desperate the South African rulers become.

But there is only one way that this threat can be fought, only one force strong enough to destroy itthe strength of the workers of Zimbabwe, united with the peasants and drawing on the strength of the black workers of South Africa.

Shoot

Mugabe talks about a 'mass militia' of armed workers and peasants. But how does he act to arm against reaction? He sends Smith's army to disarm the guerrillas with the help of British imperialist troops, and gives them the right to shoot on sight any worker or peasant with a weapon.

His actions create exactly the confusion and growing dissatisfaction which make it possible for the reactionaries to start looking for any kind of popular support.

Mugabe is under enormous mass pressure. He can not ignore it if he is to maintain his position.

This makes it possible that he will zig-zag from increased repression to new, limited reforms. But while capitalist property and profits are being protected, the scope for reform is minute.

Marxists will support any progressive measures forced on Mugabe, but at every point promote the independent strength and organisation of workers, necessary to defend any gains and extend them so that human needs are met.

Topple At the moment, the reactionaries have nothing like the strength necessary to try to topple Mugabe. The big to move in that direction in an effort to re-establish their direct control of the government through the Smiths and Muzorewas.

Mugabe and some of his Ministers now speak more and more openly of the possibility (sometimes the 'necessity') of a one-party state. There is no doubt that they will try to present this as a measure to clamp down against the forces of reaction.

In the same way they have already presented their recent moves to clamp down on meetings, demonstrations and rallies as being aimed at the Muzorewa But the reality has already become unmistakably clear. Hardly had new measures of control been announced than they were being used against strikers, with several hundred being arrested.

The nurses and teachers on strike are amongst the most articulate and organised in Zimbabwe. Their strike represents much more than their own anger at the lack of improvements in their living standards under Mugabe's government. It is a sign of the deep under currents of anger and dissatisfaction building up right throughout the working class and amongst the peasants. .

Mugabe's recent measures to tighten control have also included the formation of a new crack police unit, under his direct command.

Poverty The situation not getting better. The nurses and teachers face 1 cd. poverty and hardship, but they are not the most oppressed poverty-stricken people in Zimbabwe by a long way.

There is a real danger that they will be portrayed as the rich and fat of the cities, trying to get more for themselves at the expense of those in the countryside who grOW poorer and poorer.

Through presenting such a distortion of reality, opportunists Ust the current situation to rally support in the countryside, directing it against urban strikers.

It is exactly the condi tions of scarcity and confusion which are developing in Zimbabwe today in which the oppressed and exploited can be turned against each other-those in the countryside against those in towns. Only a bold political campaign the to unite struggle workers and peasants of the rural areas • those in the towns can remove that danger.

If they fight behind a revolutionary programme which will draw the peasants into struggle behind their leadership, the workers of Zimbabwe can move forward to carry their gains already won in struggle through to the struggle for the only solution which can meet the needs of the masses-the defeat of the capitalists and the bosses government under Mugabe, and the building of socialism and a workers and peasants government, as part of the Southern African and world revolutions.

To move in this direction workers need their own revolutionary party, based al every point on the independent strength and interests of the working class.

This means independence from the bosses, to whom Mugabe is trying workers in "participation'style collaboration committees; independence from the petty bourgeois forces who lead ZANU and ZAPU and act to promote their own careers at the expense of workers: independence from the forces of the state which Mugabe presents as defenders of the masses, but uses against workers peasants in struggle; independence from the bureaucrats who are seeking to establish a trade union bureaucracy from above.

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Socialist Organiser, Thursday 5 November 1981 • 84 = 3

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capitalists do not have the political will and confidence