US embassy cable - 05HARARE1008

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 HARARE 001008 
 
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 
SUBJECT: ZIMBABWE,S WINTER OF DISCONTENT 
 
 
Classified By: Classified by CDA Eric Schultz, reasons 1.4 (b) (d) 
 
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Overview 
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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 ) 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 ) and callous ) dictatorship.  Since taking the 
reins of the government Mugabe,s 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 regime,s extensive patronage 
system that once bought off losers and kept party members 
loyal.  In its absence repression, a la Murambatsvina, looms 
large as the regime,s 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 Mugabe,s 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 country,s 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. 
 
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Murambatsvina,s Winter Chill 
---------------------------- 
 
3. (C) Zimbabwe,s 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 country,s bleak reality following Operation 
&Murambatsvina8 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 country,s 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 country,s 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 &give up.8  Many Embassy 
officers have reported similar discussions with friends and 
contacts in the country,s 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 
) 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 government,s fast track land 
reform and this year,s 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 IMF,s 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 country,s 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 government,s 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 year,s party congress, has turned to 
repression as its primary means of retaining power. 
 
9. (C) There has been much speculation about the regime,s 
true motives and about the role of President Mugabe in 
authorizing the operation.  But of one thing we can be sure, 
the party leadership,s intent was to increase their hold 
over the country, politically, economically, and socially. 
The overriding objective for the Mujuru,s 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 couldn,t or whether he 
didn,t 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 regime,s 
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 
regime,s 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 Zimbabwe,s transition to a police state, but we 
would argue that it has not made the regime,s long-term hold 
on the country, and especially that of the Mujuru,s, 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 &ruralization8 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 Zimbabwe,s 
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 Envoy,s visit and her 
apparently negative report (due to be released July 22), 
along with last week,s 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 people,s 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 struggle,s move to a new 
phase at last year,s 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 
&third force8 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 
regime,s 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 
country,s misery and further undermine the regime,s 
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 ) between 
policy changes that will undermine its hold on power or 
further repression that will undermine the regional support 
it needs to survive. 
SCHULTZ