The Battle for Zimbabwe: The Final Countdown (review)

For the journalist Geoff Hill, the battle for Zimbabwe is "an undeclared civil war" that opposes the ruling party, ZANU PF, and its leader, President Mugabe, to the chief opposition party, the MDC, and its president, Morgan Tsvangirai. The ruling party controls coercive state institutions and paramilitary forces—the war veterans and youth militia—and commits most of the abuses. Despite this uneven battle, Hill forecast Mugabe's political demise as imminent in 2003, and a peaceful transition—ideally, regime change—under the MDC.

Hill chronicles key events in postindependence Zimbabwe. In its first decade of rule, ZANU PF was challenged by dissidents whom it alleged were supported by its chief political opponent, ZAPU. After killing ten thousand to twenty thousand innocent Ndebele civilians, ZANU PF absorbed ZAPU in 1987. Constitutional changes then created a powerful executive presidency. Neither the mass atrocities nor the excessive presidential powers received much criticism, domestically or internationally.

The voice of dissent against "fortress ZANU" came first from the marginalized war veterans who won pensions and gratuities in 1997. Led by Morgan Tsvangirai, the workers then organized general strikes to protect their eroding standard of living. In 1999 the workers' movement decided to form a political party, the MDC, to contest the upcoming parliamentary election in 2000.

Despite the MDC's popularity and widespread discontent with the regime, ZANU PF prevailed in the 2000 parliamentary elections and the 2002 presidential elections. Its weapons included violence, repression, patronage (food aid and confiscated land), and electoral manipulation and rigging. Without hope of change, Zimbabwe's youth went in growing numbers into exile, mainly to South Africa but also the U.K. Hill's interviews with exiles are the most compelling and original part of the book.

Had Hill read more widely, he might have produced a better-informed analysis. He ignores valuable research by local nongovernmental organizations and scholars (local and foreign) on pre- and postindependence politics. The publisher who commissioned him to write the book told him that most recent studies of Zimbabwe had been written by outsiders who had largely "cobbled together press reports." Hill seems to have believed this.

Hill understates the extent of dissent in postindependence Zimbabwe and hence fails to understand why ZANU PF relies on violence to build its power. Asserting that veterans were the first to challenge party unity under President Mugabe, he disregards prior university student protests and strikes by workers and public servants. He does not discuss the National Constitutional Assembly, an umbrella group of NGOs and churches, whose organized pressure for a new constitution propelled the government to draft its own new constitution.

The battle for Zimbabwe is not an undeclared civil war between two armed forces but organized regime violence against an unarmed political party. Four years after Hill claimed that Mugabe was no longer relevant for the future of Zimbabwe, President Mugabe has stepped up violence against his opponents to ensure that he will be reelected in 2008. Hill's hope (like that of many others) for a peaceful transition, and preferably regime change, seems utopian. The incentive for the regime to negotiate remains low.

Finally, the text is full of errors. A sample follows. Voter turnout for the referendum in 2000 was not the highest since 1980 (106); it was only 25 percent. In 2000, two opposition activists did not survive a petrol-bomb attack (115). A High Court judge did not threaten to issue a warrant for the arrest of the Minister of Defence if he did not hand over two newspaper men being unlawfully held by the military to the police (122); the judge issued an order to the Minister of Defence to release the journalists.

A study of postindependence politics in Zimbabwe would be a valuable resource. It remains to be written...