Decomposing Trees

Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the Movement for Democratic Change has been touring Australia this week and spoke at an event at the Lowy Institute that I attended yesterday evening.

It was the first time I’ve been to a Lowy Institute event and was somewhat surprised that the event itself was held in such a small room that fit about 100 people. No surprises that it booked out in the space of 5 minutes.

He spoke for about half an hour, talking about the problems in Zimbabwe and about his hopes about the prospect of the future. He touched on four main topics: political reform, the economic, land and social services.

He argued (to an already converted crowd) that political reforms were necessary and spoke about the need for the rule of law and an independent judiciary but also the need for transitional arrangement to democracy and to avoid violence.

While political reforms were important he emphasised that institutional reform would not be enough and spoke about the need for Zimbabwean’s to have a sense of ownership of democracy.

Briefly touched on was social services and how health and education had gone backwards in the last decade whereas there had been significant improvement post-liberation.

The economy was one thing Mugabe could not intimidate he said and ambitiously he stated that he thought Zimbabwe could turn around within three years, given international support.

His most interesting response was on the issue of land, a contentious issue in Zimbabwe. He spoke of using subsistence communal land and developing it for agricultural use. Whether it was an alternative to land redistribution or adding to the overall stock of land, I’m not sure.

He also touched on the topic of race and land and how Mugabe has used it to stir up emotion, particularly given the history of colonialism.

Overall he was somewhat vague on details other than devolution and ensuring separation of powers. Then again with a broad opposition movement, there will be some different political views to reconcile if the MDC does get into power.

After his speech there were a number of questions from the floor. His responses were in some respects more interesting than his actual speech.

There was a question about internal divisions within the MDC, one about the footage of Mr Tsvangirai talking about assassinating Mugabe and a number about international responses.

One person asked whether he was disappointed at the public support shown to Mugabe by fellow African leaders.

His response was that his experience from his meetings with other African leaders, it was a public posturing whereas privately they’ve been mounting pressure on Zimbabwe to come to the negotiating table. There also was a specific mention about South African President Mbeke and his changing tact on the issue particularly with his term ending soon.He gave a perspective on the relationship between South Africa’s and Zimbabwe’s governments I haven’t heard before, stating that there had been a sense of solidarity between the ruling parties that overthrew white minority rule in South Africa and Zimbabwe and particularly in South Africa there was uncertainty of how to react towards a strong post-liberation party such as the Movement for Democratic Change.

He also made a number of comments about the nature of the regime. He spoke of how the culture of violence and warfare of Zanu PF had been transferred from the war of liberation into power creating a crony, militarised state. Interestingly he stated that with the militarization of the State could lead to a situation where the army is in control and they could depose Mugabe.

Finally, in response to a question of what could be done he stated that he did not support general economic sanctions against Zimbabwe but instead targeted sanctions and that the Zimbabwean people had to free themselves and there should not be direct foreign intervention. Rather what was needed was solidarity from the international community to keep Zimbabwe as an issue.

Who knows what will happen to Zimbabwe in the future and whether it is all rhetoric from Tsvangirai that we want to hear but even the pessimist within me doubts Tsvangirai could be worse than Mugabe.