The landslide election victory of Robert Mugabe and the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) is a big step forward for the people of Zimbabwe and a serious blow against imperialism and the apartheid regime in South Africa.
The leader of the white settlers, Ian Smith, had boasted many times that there would never be majority rule in his lifetime. The Western bourgeois media had waged an uninterrupted offensive against the Zimbabwean guerrillas. Imperialist politicians had proclaimed that the guerrillas were "terrorists" who had no support inside Zimbabwe itself.
The British Conservative government had hoped that the election results would be inconclusive and that Joshua Nkomo could therefore be maneuvered into office at the head of a coalition. The Rhodesian security forces sought to ensure that the ZANU campaign was disrupted by a well-orchestrated process of slanders, terror, and intimidation. In the period leading up to the elections there were:
• two assassination attempts against Robert Mugabe;
• a series of rocket and firebomb attacks on the homes of ZANU officials and their families;
• 10,000 ZANU members and supporters were arrested and, in some cases, subjected to brutality at the hands of the white security forces;
• ZANU was banned from campaigning in one constituency;
• two sets of bombings were carried out by the notorious Selous Scouts, who tried to pin the blame on ZANU;
• major obstacles were put in the path of returning Zimbabwean refugees in order to prevent their votes from being cast.
Despite these obstacles the election rallies of ZANU represented the largest mobilizations of the urban and rural masses seen in the history of Zimbabwe. This process was reflected inside the polling booths itself. Despite the racist terror; despite the presence of South African troops, stationed provocatively at Beitbridge; despite the random violence of Bishop Muzorewa's lumpen thugs ("auxiliaries"); despite the declaration of martial law by the white Rhodesian army in parts of the country; despite Lord Soames's decision to renew the State of Emergency with all that it entailed-censorship, forced labor, curfews, powers of arrest and detention without trial, thousands of nationalist prisoners, etc.—and despite the constant attacks by the racist media, the imperialists and white settlers failed miserably.
The Zimbabwean masses flocked to the polling booths to take advantage of the first opportunity ever to express their opinion on the organizations that had waged an unremitting armed struggle against the hated settler regime. ZANU obtained more than 60 percent of the vote and the Zimbabwe African People's Union (ZAPU), headed by Nkomo won 24.1 percent. The joint votes obtained by these chimurenga (war of liberation) parties amounted to 87 percent. They won 77 seats out of the 80 set aside for Blacks.
The size of ZANU's election victory can be directly attributed to the fact that ZANU was the most combative, the best implanted, and the most uncompromising exponent of the liberation war against the white settler regime and its imperialist allies.
Mugabe was constantly denounced as a Marxist, who would "inflict communism" on Zimbabwe. This was the daily ideological diet imposed on the masses by the Rhodesian propaganda machine. In voting for Mugabe, they indicated that they were willing to go all the way. Their expectations were aroused by the promises of ZANU, and their determination was hardened by the racist propaganda of the settlers. The ZANU victory was seen by the Black masses throughout southern Africa as their triumph.
While the white rulers in Pretoria could not suppress their anger and made military threats the day after the election, the Black masses in Soweto enthusiastically expressed their jubilation. Thus the impact of the victory was felt far beyond the borders of Zimbabwe. The guerrillas in the Namibian bush greeted ZANU's victory as their own.
But the mobilizations and the expectations of the Black masses in Zimbabwe, especially those deprived of their land by the Land Apportionment Act and other white racist devices, pose the biggest threat to imperialist and white settler interests in the region.
But it should be noted simultaneously that despite ZANU's election victory and its large echo among the masses everywhere in southern Africa, the institutions of the white-settler capitalist state remain largely intact in Zimbabwe.
After the break-up of the Portuguese empire in Angola and Mozambique in 1974-75, and after the Soweto uprising in South Africa, imperialism had to find a quick solution in order to preserve its overall interests in the whole of southern Africa.
The incapacity of the white settler minority to inflict a decisive military defeat on the liberation forces in Zimbabwe, indeed the strenghening of the armed struggle during the last three years, made it even more urgent for imperialism and its local allies to find a political solution. They needed a solution that would permit the formation of a regime in which the role given to the leadership of the Patriotic Front would not imply any fundamental questioning of the economic positions of imperialism and the privileges of the white settlers. The experience of the government headed by Bishop Abel Muzorewa had demonstrated how precarious any arrangement was that did not include Patriotic Front forces. Another formula was necessary.
The situation was made more difficult by the growing influence of the Patriotic Front among the Black population and the eroding base of the Smith-Muzorewa regime. It was thus necessary for imperialism to get the assistance of the regimes in the neighboring countries of Zambia, Mozambique, Tanzania, Botswana, and Angola to put pressure on the leadership of the Patriotic Front.
British and American imperialism and the racist regime in South Africa significantly increased their pressure on these states to make them get the Patriotic Front forces to see "reason." They utilized the deep economic crisis these countries are experiencing and the considerable need some of them have for food imports to get them to fall into line. The South African government was especially adroit in using the economic links that it has with them. Zambia, for example, largely depends on Pretoria for investment in copper mines. Mozambique benefits greatly from South African exports that pass through on the railway to its port of Beira, and it also exports part of its labor force to South Africa. In addition, a social and political crisis was deepening in Mozambique.
Furthermore, each time a delicate phase was reached in the negotiations, the Rhodesian army launched murderous raids into the territory of these states in order to intimidate them. It was in these neighboring countries that the liberation movements had established the center of their operations both for supplies and the training of their troops. Their governments therefore have held an important influence over ZANU and ZAPU. By squeezing these governments and by relying on them, the imperialist powers have been able to wrest concessions more easily from the nationalist movements and to get the signature of the latter on an agreement in December 1979 that they had refused to accept some months before. This was the Lancaster House accords.
The civil war in Rhodesia constituted a dangerous abscess to the South African regime, which has been looking toward establishing closer economic links with the relatively more stable neocolonial countries in the region. It seeks important new markets and opportunities for investment for the development of its own economy.
British and U.S. imperialism, in order to protect their strategic and economic interests in South Africa, have a big stake in trying to "pacify" southern Africa. South Africa and the neocolonial regimes also sought, in their own way and for their own interests, an end to the conflict in Rhodesia. Imperialism had at its disposal effective means of pressure that it could exert on both the Patriotic Forces and the white settlers in order to achieve the Lancaster House accords.
A Neocolonial Agreement Forced on the Masses
The document the Patriotic Front signed at Lancaster House was a neocolonial agreement forced upon the Zimbabwean masses. The transition itself involved Britain reassuming colonial power and sending in a governor backed by 1,200 Commonwealth troops, most of them British. The guerrillas were to surrender themselves to assembly areas where they would be lightly armed and at the mercy of the Rhodesian air force.
The constitution agreed to at Lancaster House maintains many of the features of the internal settlement previously rejected so vehemently by the nationalist leaders. The Lancaster House accords by and large fell short of the demands put forward for many years by the Patriotic Front forces.
The constitution involves the reservation of 20 percent of the parliamentary seats for the white settlers, while they are only a little more than 2 percent of the total voters (200,000 out of a population of about 7 million). It also keeps intact the army, police, judiciary, and other features of the state apparatus dominated by the white settler minority, and rejects agrarian reform for the next whole period.
Mugabe has so far committed himself to implement these accords. He asked the reactionary General Peter Walls, the commander of the Rhodesian army who conducted the anti-guerrilla war, to stay in his post. He is to supervise the formation of a "new army" in Zimbabwe that has to integrate the white forces and the two ex-guerrilla armies. The civil service commissions that prevented Muzorewa's government from taking any independent initiatives continue to function. Although some racist judges have been eased out, this just provides cover for the continued functioning of a racist judiciary.
The Mugabe government, swept in by the massive vote for ZANU, has placed itself within the framework of the neocolonial agreement. The majority of the members of the cabinet are members of ZANU (fourteen), four are members of ZAPU. However, two ministers represent the white settlers. One of them, David Smith, a big landowner and member of the Rhodesian Front, is minister of commerce and industry. He participated in the governments of Ian Smith and Muzorewa. The other is Denis Norman, the minister of agriculture. He is a big capitalist farmer and in 1978 was President of the Rhodesian National Union of Farmers.
Will the Masses Respect this Agreement?
The Mugabe government has announced that the land question will be "resolved" by distributing the land that has been left fallow by the white landowners and by organizing cooperatives. However, according to its present statements the essential interests of the white settlers will not be touched.
The ex-guerrillas will enter the ranks of the army and police, and to ensure their integration, many of the old guerrilla army's intermediary cadre will be promoted to officer status.
Mugabe shows no intention of challenging the interests and prerogatives of the British, American, and South African firms that control nearly 65 percent of industrial investment.
He has drawn attention to the fact the implementation of the agreement requires considerable financial aid from the imperialist countries, who are ready to oblige. He has emphasized the necessity of an economic agreement with his powerful South African neighbor, for the same reasons.
Imperialism's plans are clear: rapidly try to establish a neocolonial state based on a specific alliance at the political and socioeconomic levels between the leaderships of the nationalist organizations and the white settlers, under the "protection" of imperialism.
One factor can shake up all these plans: a powerful rise of the mass movement. Mugabe's coming to power is seen by the masses as their victory. It was the armed struggle that forced the white racists to grant elections and led to a Black majority parliament. The demands for universal suffrage and equal rights have been a powerful stimulus to the mobilization of the workers and peasants in Zimbabwe. As long as many aspects of national oppression remain, democratic, social, and economic demands will trigger new struggles.
One of the most pressing issues is the land question. Eighty-three percent of the Black population live in the countryside, but the tiny white population owns the best 50 percent of the land. This unequal distribution has resulted in a massive overpopulation in the "tribal trust lands, where the Blacks are condemned to subsistence farming.
The consequence of this is a migrant labor system, similar to that operating in South Africa, where people are forced to work in white-owned mines, farms, factories, and homes for part of the year. Between 60 and 75 percent of all Black households depend on some form of wage labor for their subsistence.
The countryside, particularly the "tribal trust lands," has been devastated by the racist security forces. Health and education programs are in ruins. The Red Cross says that 20 percent of the population is suffering from malnutrition.
There are 750,000 "displaced persons" living in wretched shantytowns, and on the borders there are another 175,000 refugees. To this must be added the estimated 225,000 people living in the so-called "protected" villages, who will wish to return to their own areas.
It is estimated that $100 million will be needed to bring the "trust lands" back to life.
Thousands of semiproletarians have concentrated in the urban centers where unemployment and underemployment are severe problems. Furthermore, there is gigantic discrimination in wage levels, social security allowances, and education.
All of these social and economic conditions facing Blacks in Zimbabwe create a very explosive situation that can only stimulate a challenge to the very content of the accords.
Already in the factories of the main towns and also at the principal gold mine (Dalny), strike action by Black workers has been taken. The response of the bosses was as to be expected: they immediately sacked a large number of workers.
Mugabe's response was to affirm that the workers should use legal procedures—those created by Smith—to advance their demands and that all "illegal action" will be vigorously repressed. Therefore, it's also on the social level that fissures in the Lancaster House agreement will appear.
A Prolonged Instability
The neocolonial content of the Lancaster House agreement and the first moves by Mugabe's government are still far from being sufficient to fully meet the needs of the imperialists. Social and political contradictions remain sharp, and instability continues to reign in the whole region.
Pretoria will have problems trying to divert the Black masses suffering from apartheid in South Africa from the irresistible attraction of majority rule and complete political equality. It will now, especially, redouble its resistance to the independence struggle in occupied Namibia.
The imperialist powers, the racist regime in South Africa, and the white settlers in Zimbabwe will use every means to defend their economic interests and their privileges. They hope Mugabe will firmly confront the workers' and peasants' struggles, and won't hesitate to use economic blackmail and intimidation to pressure him to do so. The South African capitalists especially are brandishing military threats and will continually probe for an opportunity to intervene.
The struggle to win full independence for Zimbabwe is centered around the following objectives: a radical agrarian reform; full democratic rights without restriction or discrimination; the dismantling of the colonial administration, the army, and the police inherited from the colonial state; and the expropriation of foreign-owned firms.
Many nationalist leaders, now promoted to coalition government ministers, will try to subordinate the mass organizations to the government. This means that establishing unions and Black farmer organizations independent of the state is very important. The perspective of independent political organization for the working masses is necessary.
Furthermore, the threat of terrorist attacks from the white settlers and from the South African government sharply poses the question of arming the masses and their organizations.
Reinforce Solidarity
In the coming struggles, the principal weight of solidarity falls on the shoulders of the working class of the imperialist countries, in particular those of Britain and the United States, which have large investments in the area.
It is up to the workers movement to organize solidarity against imperialism's conspiracies in the region, including Namibia. We should defend the Mugabe government against all reactionary plots and maneuvers.
But at the same time we pledge our assistance and aid to the workers and peasants, including their attempts to establish independent mass organizations.
We will carry out this campaign under the slogans:
"End South African Occupation of Namibia!"
"Defend the Zimbabwean Revolution!"
"U.S., Britain, South Africa: Hands Off Zimbabwe!"