Zimbabwe: Wanted A Revolution

ZIMBABWE

Wanted: Revolution

Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa decided to skip the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, last month.

Ostensibly, he couldn’t leave Zimbabwe while a wave of protests rocked the country, CNN reported. But he was probably also reluctant to attend a conference where billionaires, celebrities and internationally renowned social activists were likely to cite him as the poster child of how not to run a country.

In 2017, when Mnangagwa ousted President Robert Mugabe from power, many celebrated the regime change. But Mnangagwa was always among Mugabe’s inner circle in their political party, the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF).

As the BBC explained, his nickname was the “crocodile” due to his political cunning and the military offensives associated with him that killed thousands after the country’s independence from Britain in 1980. Mnangagwa denies complicity in the massacres.

Still, he’s now reaping a whirlwind he helped create.

After years of neglect, Zimbabwe’s economy has collapsed.

Last month, Mnangagwa triggered protests when he ham-fistedly announced that the cost of fuel would double overnight. Now the price at the pump in the southern African country is the most expensive in the world, according to GlobalPetrolPrices.com. The costs of other goods are also skyrocketing as inflation soars.

Meanwhile, many live on less than a $1 a day.

The country was not always poor. In its heyday, the southwestern city of Bulawayo was like Chicago, “an industrial, farming and railway hub,” wrote the Financial Times. Now, “dormant factories and mothballed cold-storage facilities” that formerly shipped meat to Europe, garnering crucial foreign currency, dot the gutted city’s streets.

Zimbabweans are frustrated. Mugabe ruled for 37 years. As people filled the streets last month to express their anger over gas prices and higher living costs, Mnangagwa had an opportunity to address the nation and bring people together.

Instead, he shut down the Internet. Pictures of security forces cracking down on demonstrators didn’t sit well with the president, NPR reported.

Women are accusing soldiers of rape, the Guardian wrote. One victim spoke to Voice of America, describing her horrific experience at the hands of men who are supposed to be upholding law and order.

Mnangagwa, meanwhile, is blaming foreigners for stirring up the trouble. Clearly, his own people couldn’t be dissatisfied. “We have told the Western countries that they cannot turn around and raise concerns when they are the ones sponsoring the violence,” he told a local newspaper cited in Agence France-Presse.

Writing in the South Africa-based Independent Online, University of Johannesburg foreign policy expert David Monyae argued that Zimbabwe needed root-and-branch reforms that would end the ZANU-PF’s monopoly on power. “The fantasy that one leader or one political party can resolve the crisis is just that,” he wrote.

That would be a revolution that Mnangagwa would certainly oppose. But Zimbabweans deposed one dictator a short time ago. Many think they will do it again.