Just shy of a week ago, Zimbabwe’s military took power in the capital and detained Mugabe in his home. Since then, the military and the ruling ZANU-PF party steadily increased pressure on the longtime ruler to leave office until it seems he finally relented. But while Zimbabweans express their joy and relief over what appears to be the end of Mugabe’s 37-year authoritarian rule, the nature of his downfall and the ruthless past of his successor are troubling signs for a country that has seen years of repression.
‘These People Were Mugabe’s Enforcers’
The military and ZANU-PF will soon install Mugabe’s former deputy, Emmerson Mnangagwa, as Zimbabwe’s new president. The development has human rights groups deeply worried, as both Mnangagwa and the military that backs him have been key players in the country’s past abuses. “These people were Mugabe’s enforcers for the last 37 years,” said Dewa Mavhinga, the Southern Africa director at Human Rights Watch. In the 1980s, Mnangagwa served as national security minister and controlled the Central Intelligence Organization under Mugabe. Mnangagwa has long-standing ties to the army as a result, including sharing culpability for some of the government’s worst atrocities. “The military has been implicated in some of the most serious human rights abuses in Zimbabwe’s past,” Mavhinga said.
Emmerson Mnangagwa, seen here during elections in 2008, is poised to become Zimbabwe's new leader.
Mnangagwa was security minister at the time of Mugabe’s “Gukurahundi” campaign that, from 1983 to 1987, saw security forces kill thousands of people whom the ruling government perceived as political opponents or accused of fostering dissent. In 2008, the military launched yet another crackdown in which armed forces killed or disappeared at least 200 opposition supporters during the country’s election. Mnangagwa is reported to have been a key go-between for the military and ZANU-PF in orchestrating those attacks. There has been no accountability for these abuses, according to Mavhinga, and since many of the officials active or complicit in carrying them out now stand to rule Zimbabwe, it seems extremely unlikely that they will answer for their actions anytime soon. “It’s a change in leadership of individuals, but the authoritarian system remains intact,” Mavhinga said.
Fears For The Future Of Zimbabwe
The army’s takeover has so far seen a reshuffling of the country’s elite power brokers, but massive reforms are needed to change a political system with an entrenched history of human rights abuses and authoritarianism. Rights groups fear that there’s no guarantee the military coup will lead to much-needed transition toward free and fair elections, and could instead further deteriorate democracy and the rule of law in the country. The ruling ZANU-PF party’s chief whip, Lovemore Matuke, said on Tuesday that Mnangagwa would stay on as leader until elections in 2018, but it remains to be seen whether that vote is conducted fairly and without a crackdown on political opposition as there has been in the past. “Zimbabwean elections for many years have relied on limiting the number of people who are allowed to participate,” said Piers Pigou, senior consultant for Southern Africa for the International Crisis Group think tank.
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