You are currently browsing the category archive for the ‘Zimbabwe’ category.
I am sure no-one has failed to notice the flood of South African high achievers passing through the United Kingdom over the last week or so.
A golfer was there recently, some swimmers, a group of cricketers … and, oh yes, Julius Malema.
Julius told BBC and Sky News that he was in London working hard and meeting investors behind closed doors – to explain the ‘economic freedom campaign’ – and to give nuances on the nationalisation call.
He – charmingly – defended the racial make-up of the South African Olympic team: “we are proud of our athletes”, he said; and he came clean on his support for Kgalema Motlanthe to succeed Jacob Zuma at Mangaung in December.
This is his Mangaung prediction:
“I am coming back to the ANC in December; once we have removed president Jacob Zuma – because we are going to remove him successfully in December … and then I will walk into that conference, shake his hand and proceed to occupy my rightful seat.” (Catch that BBC clip here.)
It is difficult not to admire the audacity … and delight in the anxiety that those who conducted the Polokwane Putsch must be feeling.
But to my mind things swerve away from the comic and towards the dark when I think about this a little more.
It is a series of small things that worry me.
Surprise! (From New Zimbabwe, August 1 2012)
He pitched up at the Chingford Rugby Club and joined a group of Zimbabweans for a braai – and was apparently welcomed with open arms. He dined with Lenox Lewis
With Lenox Lewis in London – (from New Zimbabwe August 1 2012)
and spoke to a group called the Pan African Congress (not our PAC – but it has some similarities) and was covered in a spooky online journal called The Zimdiaspora under the headline “We are inspired by Mugabe – Malema” as follows:
Turning to … Zimbabwe and its politics of land and mineral wealth redistribution, Malema had glowing praise for the president of Zimbabwe Robert Gabriel Mugabe for confiscating land from the whites and giving it to blacks. He stated they found inspiration from the actions of Mugabe as an African leader and were grateful to see him standing up against whites and their economic enslavement of blacks.
Glowing praise for president of Zimbabwe Robert Gabriel Mugabe? Sounds like a writer constrained by the diktats of belonging to a government department, something like, say … hmm … the Zimbabwe Central Intelligence Organisation?
What would covert aspects of the Zimbabwean state get from promoting the increasingly virulently, anti-Zuma Malema in London ? (I am not unaware that there is a wild leap in that last sentence … but still am going to just take it and move along.)
It’s a tenuous link but my nose is twitching: Zanu-PF’s preparation to hold off the MDC challenge is multifaceted and very sophisticated. A significant part of the pressure on Zanu-PF to meet its obligations under the Global Political Agreement and move towards democratic elections is coming from the SADC facilitation under the leadership of Jacob Zuma.
The next Zimbabwean election is going to be won or lost on the precise wording of the laws and constitution that set the conditions for elections – including how the security apparatuses will be controlled.
That wording is being finalised as I write this …. as Julius Malema takes his campaign against Zuma to the world stage, during the Olympics … no expenses spared.
I realise I have to be cautious; it is not as if the Malema ANC Youth League faction is not brilliant at self-promotion and has an almost preternatural ability to play into the current media obsessions.
Malema was quoted in the Zimbabwe Sunday Mail in June saying that Jacob Zuma was not the right person to be the SADC mediator in Zimbabwe because ‘he hates Robert Mugabe.’
I think that the possibility that Malema is acting as an asset for a (partially) hostile foreign power will play against him in the ANC’s internecine strife … or at least his enemies will try and make that case to his detriment. (Note added on 03/08/2012: I am not suggesting that there is necessarily any intention on Malema’s part … the point is rather that in effect he might be fulfilling Bob’s/Zanu-PF’s agenda as opposed to ‘the national interest’ as embodied – supposedly – by the South African president … or even more narrowly that the possibility of this being true will probably been used against Malema by the incumbents he is campaigning against.)
We must guard against paranoia and the instinct to see everything we can’t quite explain as evidence of the hidden hand of spies, aliens or the Elders of Zion – but equally we would have to be very naive to believe that the hundreds of billions of real dollars spent each years on espionage and dirty tricks just disappears into the ether, leaving no imprint on the world.
Right.
I have got to find a way of continuing to populate this website. The reasons posts are becoming infrequent and irregular is that almost every day I produce bespoke and paid for research. I have less time every week to write specifically for nicborain.wordpress.com … except the occasional philosophical musings, which probably have a … very specific? … readership.
I am going to continue the philosophical and theoretical musings. I am finishing the last few chapters of Jared Diamond’s extraordinary “Collapse – How Societies Choose to Fail or Survive” - Penguin 2005. As background reading to my professional work trying to make sense of politics and economics in the sub-continent (or anywhere in the world for that matter) it is seminal … I cannot recommend it highly enough.
So I will review it here. And I will keep raising issues associated with the epistemology of what I do – and other obscure matters of concern to me.
However, I will also start posting summaries of my recent views, interviews and perspectives … the first set of these below:
Iran, MTN and US secret power
The big issue of the week – in a lot of universes, but particularly the financial market’s – was the $4.2-billion lawsuit launched against MTN last week by Turkcell in the United States District Court of Columbia in Washington DC. The Mail & Guardian had way the best coverage – see here for a good backgrounder.
MTN investors took a serious bath on the news. The basic allegation of Turkcell is that MTN’s ‘Project Snooker’, driven by then CEO Phuthuma Nhleko (with some help) was a successful attempt to ‘buy’ (with cash, arms and South African diplomatic support) a preferential operating licence in Iran.
For me the link between this issue, the fact that the South African government had appeared to fold to US sanctions demands on oil imports from Iran (or at least to flip-flop confusingly) and the leaked documentation from close to Kgalema Motlanthe seeming to prove attempts to get government support for Bell Helicopter deliveries to Iran – potentially hurting his (Motlanthe’s) presidential ambitions – was a series of stories that raised the spectre of US secret power working it’s powerful and implacable will.
It looks like the Bell Helicopter with SA government support stuff was established:
Through access to recordings and confidential documents – understood to have also been obtained and analysed by US intelligence agencies
according to the Sunday Times, but the documents that informed the Turkcell case appear to have been leaked by a disgruntled former MTN manager and South Africa’s flip-flop on oil could be based purely on the extreme nature of proposed US punishment for those who break sanctions against Iran.
So the sexy story of US spies fiddling in our politics doesn’t have a good evidential basis (although I have no doubt that US secret power is exercised every day throughout the world … perhaps not always with German-like efficiency and certainly with lots of unintended consequences.)
The MTN story … and South African oil imports … still has a way to run, so watch this space.
Malema summarily suspeded, Top Six unity press conference, Cyril for president and the interminable Mangaung contest.
I don’t know about you, but I am royally gatvol of press reports about ANC internecine struggles … during the course of the week this is what I had to say about various strands of this interminable story:
First I looked at City Press going out on a limb with contending ANC factional lists for Mangaung… most interestingly putting Cyril Ramaphosa on both the pro-Zuma and the pro-Motlanthe lists … to become president of South Africa in 2014!
“You read right. Not ANC president, and not in 2012 … the Mangaung conference looks sewn up in favour of President Zuma, but even his supporters are starting to point to Ramaphosa as president, saying the billionaire businessman will do a better job of running the country” (from City Press).
I can’t assess the probability of a Ramaphosa presidency … but we can only hope.
I also had to comment to journalists over last weekend about a potential run by Mathews Phosa, essentially as a stalking horse and test marketing campaign for Kgalema Motlanthe. He (Phosa) has no prospects of slipping in himself, but both he and Motlanthe have been seen to be standing firm with their ANC Youth League allies over the last week and it is not inconceivable that they will have worked out a tag-team strategy between them.
Later in the week came the summary suspension of Julius Malema about which I said:
Julius Malema was yesterday suspended with immediate effect from the ANC and from participating in any way in the organisation’s activities or the activities of the Youth League. While this particular suspension is temporary, several different strands of disciplinary action against Malema make the implementation of a full suspension (lasting at least 3 years) inevitable.In preparation for the Malema suspension the ‘Top Six’ of the ANC held a joint press conference to present a united front to condemn “bickering and negative lobbying” in the ruling party. Of particular concern was the recent incident in which Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe was invited to address and ANCYL rally where he found himself “in compromising situations of being implicated in statements where ANC leadership is denigrated and insulted” (that all comes from official ANC press statements.)Behind the show of unity are two broad camps, with President Jacob Zuma, Secretary General Gwede Mantashe and National Chairperson Baleka Mbete broadly backing Zuma’s re-election at Mangaumg in December; and Treasurer General Mathews Phosa, Deputy Secretary General Thandi Modise and Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe having consistently been much closer to Julius Malema and long assumed to back a leadership slate that would be headed by Kgalema Motlanthe and might include Tokyo Sexwale.I do not expect the noise generated by the internecine struggle to die down until Mangaung itself. At this stage the Zuma camp is in an extremely strong position and this is the light in which the suspension of Malema needs to be seen.
I did a whole lot more radio interviews and bits and pieces about all of this … but I am becoming unspeakably bored with the whole issue. I think the ANC Top Six press conference was an attempt to get the focus onto the policy discussion documents and away from the draining and fracturing internecine squabbles. Can’t help but feel that might be a good idea.
Zimbabwe and Eddie Cross
The most interesting story of my week came about as a result of the consulting work I do for Religare Noah Capital Markets (Pty) Ltd, which is a member of the JSE and an authorised Financial Services Provider. Religare Noah brings Eddie Cross (Zimbabwe member of parliament for Bulawayo South, economist and Movement for Democratic Change Policy Coordinator General) to speak to, especially, mining and metals investors about once a year and I had a chance to listen in on his input.
Basically Eddie Cross reckons that by October this year Zimbabwe will have undergone a fundamental transformation and that our northern neighbour will be well on the path to recovery – politically and economically – by then.
It is a huge story, but obviously the details are bespoke to Noah Religare and its clients. From my perspective I have known Eddie Cross to err on the side of being too positive and upbeat about Zimbabwe (as I have been … consistently calling the bottom for almost ten years … embarrassing, I know) but I was convinced that a combination of SADC unanimity and strong G8 backing … and the fact that Zanu-PF is out of options and fatally riven with factions, means that change is more likely than it has been in years. An endless stalemate is still a possiblity and more catastrophic scenarios, with the continued assasination of central players (like that of General Solomon Majuru) are options … but there are grounds for cautioius optimism.
I hope you have a restful long weekend … and a really good Friday …
I don’t really have time for this, but the moment seems to insist. So:
I awoke this morning to a world framed as if by an immortal hand or eye.
The bludgeoning to death of Eugène Terre’Blanche together with the Zimbabwe public display by Julius Malema feels like a tableau arranged by a naughty god with idle hands.
Here’s the shape of it:
- Malema, on a Zanu-PF platform, admires the seizure of white owned farmland and sings “kill the boer” – catch his words here. This is on a Zanu-PF platform. That party spent much of the 1980′s ransacking the liberation pantry. Just as the last few goodies were being looted and eaten by the engorged Zanu-PF fat cats popular discontent started to escalate and began focusing itself on the ruling party. With no wealth left to buy off the masses, the Zanu-PF cronies turned to what was left of the productive economy: the commercial farming sector. The land was largely white owned. Zanu-PF orchestrated the forceful invasion and seizure of the farms and commercial agriculture and foreign earnings collapsed.
- Terre’Blanche, who infamously, and almost on a whim, beat a black man into permanent brain damage, is an icon of white supremacy – much diminished now and something of a joke; but undoubtedly sanctified by the manner of his death (it appears he was killed by young black labourers over a dispute about money). Already there is noise of a white backlash – although it is too early to say whether this should be taken seriously or not.
I don’t really need to say anything more. This story tells itself and it has its own energy … except perhaps it should be mentioned that Jacob Zuma has just attempted to mediate between the MDC and Zanu-PF – the history of Zanu-PF’s violent attempts to crush the MDC refers. Julius Malema is the President of the ANC Youth League – and I suspect someone more important and threatening than he first appears, as I argue here. Jacob Zuma is the president of the ANC and of the country and the SADC negotiator between the MDC and Zanu-PF … and Julius Malema refused to see the MDC while he was in Zimbabwe.
The local state – its politicians, agenda and bureaucracy, is under popular attack
It is starting to be whispered that there is a “hidden hand” in the service delivery protests*.
The problem (of the protests) is serious and threatening and government is starting to worry about high-profile violence during the World Cup.
These protest share a strong crossover constituency and architecture with the xenophobic violence that occurred May 2008. At that time, Thabo Mbeki’s spooks argued that a hidden hand was at work – in one bizarre version Zimbabwe’s Central Intelligence Organisation was fingered as triggering the violence to punish the Mbeki government for some impenetrably Byzantine set of motivations.
This time around the speculation is that the spreading protests have something to do with Alliance tensions i.e. the conflict (endlessly discussed in these columns) is fueling service delivery protests – I suppose that would mean either the ANCYL or Cosatu/SACP using popular discontent against the sitting council dominated by either the leftists of the nationalists respectively.
To argue that Alliance tensions is the (or even a) main driver is a bit of a stretch. The protesters themselves foreground slow delivery of housing and the whole gamut of services (toilets, sewerage, water, refuse , telecommunications, roads) but also have a sharp focus on corruption, maladministration, nepotism – and therefore, indirectly, on cadre deployment.
From M&G – Modderfontein Road in Ivory Park after service delivery protests
The protests appear to be coordinated. They have similar beginnings: “elders” – or the moral equivalent - meet in a town hall to discuss grievances; they decide to march to the municipal offices in the town centre; they carry placards about Eskom, housing, corrupt council officials; on the way they are joined by youth and the unemployed, and the march swells; somewhere near the edge of the town centre police stop the now more threatening and chaotic march; stones are thrown and rubber bullets fired; the protest breaks into smaller groups and spreads; councilors and council property are targeted and running skirmishes with the police occur over a few days; the ANC sends a SWAT team to the area and this team either moves against the council or stands firm against “anarchic” and “violent” protesters. At any point during this process the attention of the mob can turn to the foreigners – Zimbabweans, Malawians, Somalians , Mozambicans, Angolans, Nigerians and those from the DRC.
It has become something of a legend and commonly accepted “fact” by foreigners living in South African townships that post the World Cup and in the lead-up to the local government elections in 2011 the xenophobic violence will erupt on a scale beyond anything that has happened in the past.
The Davies-J Curve – the real hidden hand behind the violence
One of the reasons the government and the intelligence agencies are suspicious about the violence is that it occurs always in municipalities where there has been a degree of successful service delivery. The violence does not seem to happen in areas that are absolutely poor and unserved and have remained so for some time.
Interestingly this is precisely the situation predicted by US sociologist working in the late 1950′s, James C Davies. His theory is that rising expectations is related to the possibility of armed conflict but only when rising expectations – brought about by, for example, some degree of service delivery – meets a downturn. His theory became known as the Davies J-curve.
What happens is that when material and other conditions are improving, expectations rise faster than the individuals own situation. The system seems to be able to cope with this, except when there is a downturn of some kind – this is the sharply curved “Reality” line in the diagramme above.
This predictive framework (usefully discussed by the Centre for Security Studies here) almost perfectly mirrors what has happened in townships and poor municipalities since 1994. The violence seems to spike in early winter and it seems to be concentrated in areas that have had by-elections. In general it seems to be at its worst after national local government elections.
We must assume that in the lead up to such elections the ruling party and its councils push service delivery and the promise of service delivery. After the elections delivery collapses.
Thus the expectations are on an ascending path as the reality of delivery veers sharply downwards.
Violence results and often the weakest and poorest are both the victims and perpetrators of that violence.
* Orange Farm, Sedibeng, Siyathemba township in Balfour, Leandra, Lesilie, Oogies, Accornhoek near Bushbuckridge, Chochocho near White River in Mpumalanga, Protea-Glen, Dobsonville-Gardens in Soweto, Ennerdale in Fine Town, Reiger Park in the East Rand, Parys, Diepsloot, Attridgeville and Mamelodi – all names of service delivery protest hotspots culled from recent press reports. While I cannot place all these towns on a map (and am not even sure that some are not colloquial names for the same place) it seems clear that there is an unfolding crisis of governance in many of South Africa’s 283 municipalities , especially in the poorest, semi-rural communities.
Let’s see how that plays…
The Voice of America says US Secretary of State, Hilary Clinton, will, in her meeting with ”senior South African officials” in Pretoria today:
push South Africa to do more to counter embattled President Robert Mugabe’s negative effect on the Zimbabwe reform process.
South Africa under Thabo Mbeki would have bridled and gritted its teeth at the implied imperialist bullying. Word might have gone out that the USA was seeking regime change in South Africa through a delicate and implacable process of setting Thabo Mbeki up for failure, by isolating the South Africans from the African fraternity, by undermining sovereignty …. oh, whatever! It was always impossible to understand Mbeki’s coded warnings about the shenanigans of the imperialists.
The point is, I suppose, Thabo Mbeki’s administration was deeply suspicious of the USA, the UK and of European intentions and actions in Southern Africa. The Movement for Democratic Change in Zimbabwe was constantly hinted to be a front for various combinations of imperialists interests, as were the Kroll trained Scorpions of the National Prosecuting Authority.
It would be naive to imagine that the CIA and MI5 do not have significant interests and intentions in Southern Africa – and some capacity to work towards their objectives. The subject of a later post will be the rise of intelligence services in the post 9/11 world in which the cyberuniverse contains endless information lodes that are both deposited and mined by these intelligence agencies.
But seriously, are we to think of whatever Hilary Clinton says today about South Africa and Zimbabwe and the role of Mad Bob and the MDC as part of a grand imperialist plan for our region?
The first answer is “no” because the USA and their intelligence services have demonstrated that 1.) they have bigger problems to worry about and Southern Africa without oil and without Muslim fundamentalists does not warrant that kind of attention; 2.) their intelligence capacity and ability to manipulate world affairs has been shown to be less formidable than one might have expected – as revealed by that country’s endless bungling in the Middle-East.
The second answer is “yes’ (to the question: does the USA have a plan for this region?). As the world’s policeman the USA is obliged to have an opinion and a strategy about everything. Zimbabwe, while not very high on the list of concerns and objectives of US foreign policy does touch on several strands of US concern in the sub-continent. South Africa represents a major chunk of Africa’s GDP, Angola, with significant US oil interests, has the potential to be drawn into Zimbabwean affairs, Zimbabwe itself sits on the greatest unexploited Platinum reserves and China has a significant and growing interest in, and relationship with, the region. US foreign policy must ultimately focus on the long term and the long term is all about the containment of China.
But at another level it can be unproductive to comb everything that Clinton says today or fails to say for evidence of, and guides to, the deep strategic thinking of the Great Dragon. In diplomacy and the world of the spook the search for hidden meaning and intentions can become self-fulfilling. Clinton is settling into her office and Obama is still carving his role in the world and in Africa. These are not simple or obvious matters and there is undoubtedly a degree of exploration that still needs to take place before “grand strategies” can be unfurled.
I await further reports of her meeting with interest.
