US embassy cable - 05HARARE1004

C O N F I D E N T I A L  HARARE 001004 
 
SIPDIS 
 
 
DEPT FOR U/S BURNS, AF A/S NEWMAN/DAS WOODS; OVP FOR 
NULAND; NSC FOR ABRAMS, COURVILLE; AID FOR PIERSON, COPSON 
DEPARTMENT PASS EU MEMBER STATES COLLECTIVE 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 07/22/2015 
TAGS: PGOV, PREL, PHUM, ZI, Restore Order/Murambatsvina, ZANU-PF 
SUBJECT: ZIMBABWEQS WINTER OF DISCONTENT 
 
 
Classified By: Classified by CDA Eric Schultz, reasons 1.4 (b) (d) 
 
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Overview 
-------- 
 
1. (C) The winter of Murambatsvina (Operation Restore 
Order) seems to have changed everything in Zimbabwe and 
nothing.  Robert Mugabe is still president and likely to 
remain so for as long as he wants Q which could be until 
the day he dies.  ZANU-PF is still firmly in control.  The 
economy is still deteriorating.  The people are still 
passive and essentially leaderless in the face of 
government repression as the MDC focuses inward.  But the 
GOZ, under new day-to-day management, has dropped all 
pretense and revealed itself as a brutal Q and callous Q 
dictatorship.  Since taking the reins of the government 
MugabeQs would-be heirs, the Mujurus, have shown themselves 
to be not only mean-spirited and corrupt but, from a ZANU 
perspective, much worse - incompetent.  With the steepening 
decline of the economy has come the steady erosion of the 
regimeQs extensive patronage system that once bought off 
losers and kept party members loyal.  In its absence 
repression, a la Murambatsvina, looms large as the regimeQs 
alternative means of control. 
 
2. (C) The turn to repression has cost the regime support 
internationally, regionally, and domestically.  The 
Europeans have stiffened their resolve and even the region 
may finally have had enough if recent signals from South 
Africa are to be believed.  ZANU itself is riven with 
dissension, exacerbated by the succession struggle and the 
decline of patronage, waiting only for MugabeQs passing or 
incapacitation to burst forth.  For its part, the MDC bides 
its time, convinced that the regime will implode and that 
it will pick up the pieces.  The countryQs future remains 
unpredictable but one thing seems clear after this winter, 
the restoration of democracy and prosperity in Zimbabwe 
will be more difficult, especially as what remains of the 
educated populace, black, white, or Indian, appears 
increasingly ready to throw in the towel and emigrate.  The 
remainder of the population, psychologically scarred but 
unable to leave, is hunkering down and trying to survive 
what could be a very bad next few years. 
 
---------------------------- 
MurambatsvinaQs Winter Chill 
---------------------------- 
 
3. (C) ZimbabweQs normally mild winter has been cloudy and 
cold this year.  The nights have been especially bitter. 
The weather mirrors the national mood as Zimbabweans come 
to terms with the countryQs bleak reality following 
Operation QMurambatsvinaQ or Restore Order as it has been 
translated into English.  In its first two months, the 
operation has left hundreds of thousands of Zimbabweans, by 
some estimates more than a million, homeless and 
destitute.  Many of these people, who were the poorest of 
the poor, are now sleeping in the open, enduring 
temperatures near freezing.  The operation has also 
destroyed most of the countryQs informal economy, which may 
have amounted to as much as 40 percent of GDP, and was 
critical to the strategies of many Zimbabweans, rich and 
poor alike, for coping with economic decline. 
 
4. (C) Beyond the economic and social damage it has caused, 
it is also apparent that the operation has taken a 
psychological toll, in part because of its indiscriminate 
nature.  For instance, it not only targeted MDC strongholds 
but ZANU-PF neighborhoods as well and in addition to 
African traders, the traditionally pro-ZANU-PF Indian 
community was hit hard.  Most Zimbabweans seem angry about 
what has happened but feel powerless to do anything about 
it.  Long-time observers of the country cannot recall a 
time when people were less hopeful about the countryQs 
future.  Inevitably, that means that many, especially the 
educated, are looking to leave.  In the past few weeks, we 
have had an upsurge of long-term American residents of 
Zimbabwe seeking to renew American passports.  In the words 
of one seventy-year old it is time to Qgive up.Q  Many 
Embassy officers have reported similar discussions with 
friends and contacts in the countryQs educated black middle 
 
class as well as among its small white and Indian ethnic 
minorities. 
 
----------------- 
Economic Meltdown 
----------------- 
 
5. (C) It is not only Murambatsvina that is driving 
Zimbabweans to despair.  The country is facing economic 
turmoil on a scale not seen even in 2002, the last major 
crisis.  The country is desperately short of food, fuel, 
and the foreign exchange needed to buy them.  With no 
access to balance of payments support, the country is 
caught in a vicious circle of declining exports leading to 
less foreign exchange leading to further declines in 
exports.  Exporters have access to less and less of the 
foreign currency they generate which they need to pay for 
the imports needed to finish their products.  Instead, the 
foreign currency coming into the country must pay for 
massive food and fuel imports Q with a certain amount also 
being siphoned off to feed official corruption. 
 
6. (C) Food insecurity is arguably the most serious 
shortage facing the country, especially in rural areas. 
The shortfall has never been worse.  The governmentQs fast 
track land reform and this yearQs drought combined to 
produce a record low maize harvest.  The country needs to 
import 1.2 million metric tons of maize, fully 75 percent 
of its needs.  The IMF team that visited last month 
concluded that Zimbabwe probably had enough foreign 
currency to pay for food imports but that this would 
inevitably cause shortages elsewhere.  Over the past two 
months, the GOZ has increased the pace of food imports, to 
nearly 100,000 MTs a month, but in the process has proven 
the IMFQs point as a massive fuel shortage has erupted. 
 
7. (C) For the urban population, it is the fuel situation 
that has come to symbolize the countryQs accelerating 
decline.  The country is all but bereft of fuel.  The price 
on the black market is up to Z$70,000 a litre, which works 
out to roughly U.S. $10 a gallon, and even at that price is 
almost impossible to find.  Economic activity is grinding 
to a halt as a result of the fuel shortages.  The only 
people who can routinely get fuel are those who work for 
companies or organizations, like the Embassy, that import 
their own.  Or who work for the government.  But even that 
source is apparently drying up.  The police and 
intelligence officers are said to have had their allotments 
cut in half, and even mid-ranking ZANU-PF officials and 
their families are feeling the pinch. 
 
----------------------- 
A Stronger Police State 
----------------------- 
 
8. (C) To the average Zimbabwean, white or black, rich or 
poor, the governmentQs obsession with Murambatsvina while 
the economy is melting down seemed inexplicable.  The 
consensus view among most of our regular contacts following 
the March parliamentary elections, especially in the 
business sector, was that a more secure ZANU-PF, its 
two-thirds majority restored, would adopt more moderate and 
sensible economic and social policies and would seek to 
regain the good graces of the international community. 
Instead, the opposite has happened.  The new Cabinet, 
largely dominated by the Mujuru clan, victors in the 
internal ZANU-PF power struggle at last yearQs party 
congress, has turned to repression as its primary means of 
retaining power. 
 
9. (C) There has been much speculation about the regimeQs 
true motives and about the role of President Mugabe in 
authorizing the operation.  But of one thing we can be 
sure, the party leadershipQs intent was to increase their 
hold over the country, politically, economically, and 
socially.  The overriding objective for the MujuruQs is to 
ensure that the Vice President, Joyce Mujuru, succeeds 
Mugabe, by whatever means necessary.  As to Mugabe, the 
most telling comment was one the UN Special Envoy, Anna 
Tibaijuka, offered at dinner with the visiting staffdel the 
night of July 25.  She recounted how in her youth then 
President Nyerere had launched a similar operation in 
 
Tanzania only to stop it three days later when he saw it 
getting out of control.  As Tibaijuka somberly noted, 
Mugabe made no effort to stop the operation, even after it 
was clear that it was causing massive human suffering. 
Whether he couldnQt or whether he didnQt care she left to 
her listeners to decide. 
 
10. (C) The ruling clique probably believes the operation 
to have been a success.  The raw demonstration of the 
regimeQs authority has gone largely unchallenged within 
Zimbabwe either by the opposition or by the people 
themselves.  Much is made of the cultural passivity of the 
Shona people and perhaps that is part of the reason why the 
operation has largely gone unchallenged.  But a more 
telling factor is simply fear.  The regime retains a 
monopoly on the use of force and Zimbabweans of all stripes 
know it will not hesitate to deploy the police, or even the 
military if need be. 
 
11. (C) On the surface the regime appears to be more in 
control of the country than ever before.  However, that 
control has never been as naked before either and the 
regimeQs power base has essentially narrowed to the police, 
the security services, and the military.  Even the party 
has become less reliable as economic decline has reduced 
the reach of the once extensive patronage system that kept 
party members loyal.  The GOZ now rules almost entirely by 
intimidation and repression; for all intents and purposes 
it has become a police state. 
 
------------------- 
But a Weaker Regime 
------------------- 
 
12. (C) Murambatsvina and the economic meltdown may have 
accelerated ZimbabweQs transition to a police state, but we 
would argue that it has not made the regimeQs long-term 
hold on the country, and especially that of the MujuruQs, 
more secure.  In that regard, Murambatsvina may well prove 
to have been a critical mistake, one that has given the 
opponents of the current leadership of the regime, both 
within and without ZANU-PF, useful ammunition. 
 
13. (C) The UN Special Envoy and her team came to the 
conclusion that neither enforced QruralizationQ or the 
destruction of the informal economy would last long.  We 
agree.  Growing food insecurity in rural areas and the 
better prospects for making a living in the city will 
likely ensure that many people return and rebuild in urban 
and peri-urban areas.  Many have never left at all.  There 
is every likelihood that by the time the next national 
elections are held, whether in 2008 as scheduled or 2010 as 
rumored, current demographic patterns will have been 
reestablished and the MDC or some other opposition party 
will once more win the urban vote. 
 
14. (C) More importantly, we would argue that Murambatsvina 
has had a number of unintended effects that have clearly 
weakened the regime for the long run and that will fuel 
attacks by its opponents within ZANU-PF and in the 
opposition.  It has significantly increased ZimbabweQs 
international isolation.  Following the elections it was 
clear that France, Italy and other European countries were 
preparing to press for the EU to normalize relations with 
the GOZ.  That effort is now suspended indefinitely, much 
to the relief of our British colleagues.  This development 
also has obvious implications for the IMF vote on expulsion 
in August, the danger of which the regime seems to have 
finally woken to. 
 
15. (C) The operation has also begun to tear at African 
solidarity with Zimbabwe.  It is much harder for the GOZ to 
spin to Africans a crackdown on poor blacks than it was the 
seizure of white farms.  The Special EnvoyQs visit and her 
apparently negative report (due to be released July 22), 
along with last weekQs condemnation of the GOZ by the South 
African Council of Churches (SACC) have apparently put 
intense pressure on South African President Mbeki and other 
African leaders to finally take action on Zimbabwe. 
 
16. (C) Finally, Murambatsvina has also further alienated 
ZANU-PF, ostensibly a peopleQs liberation party, from the 
 
people it is supposed to have liberated.  The current 
ruling clique, the Mujurus and their allies, may not care 
all that much, indeed every sign is that they have evolved 
into a kleptocracy primarily motivated by a desire to stay 
in power.  However, it does seem to matter to many others 
within the party and has added to increasing internal 
dissension, already fueled by the succession struggleQs 
move to a new phase at last yearQs party congress. 
 
17. (C) Emmerson Mnangagwa and his supporters have yet to 
concede defeat and will no doubt use Murambatsvina and the 
continuing economic failures to discredit the current 
leadership, either from within the party or as the core of 
a Qthird forceQ in Zimbabwean politics.  The MDC, assuming 
it survives its own internal dissension and its failure to 
show leadership or even solidarity with the victims of 
Murambatsvina, will also be able to use these failures to 
good effect in discrediting ZANU-PF as a whole in future 
elections. 
 
------------------------- 
Conclusion: Make Them Pay 
------------------------- 
 
18. (C) The current leadership of ZANU-PF, Mugabe, the 
Mujurus, and Didymus Mutasa to name the key players, appear 
to have decided that they cannot reverse economic decline 
without adopting policies that would threaten their hold on 
power.  Continued economic decline will make an unpopular 
regime still more unpopular.  It will also affect the 
regimeQs ability to control its own party through the use 
of patronage.  In this context, Murambatsvina makes perfect 
sense as a warning to the whole of Zimbabwe that the regime 
will do whatever it needs to in order to stay in power. 
Increased repression, however, will only deepen the countryQ 
s misery and further undermine the regimeQs legitimacy, 
domestically, regionally, and internationally. 
 
19. (C) The regime made a bold move with Murambatsvina but 
it is one that already appears to be backfiring on them, as 
evidenced by the apparent pressure the South Africa 
Government is bringing to bear.  We need ensure that the 
GOZ remains faced with its current unpalatable choice Q 
between policy changes that will undermine its hold on 
power or further repression that will undermine the 
regional support it needs to survive. 
SCHULTZ 
 
 
NOTE: NOT PASSED TO ABOVE ADDRESSEE(S) 
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