The Hard Road to Reform

Description

The defeat of ZANU-PF in the 2008 parliamentary election marked the end of one-party rule in Zimbabwe. The Global Political Agreement signed later that resulted in a Government of National Unity, and the former ruling party was, for the first time, faced with the reality of sharing power. The Hard Road to Reform presents a penetrating analysis of developments since the GNU was established, reviewing recent political history from a range of perspectives - political, economic, social and historical, and featuring the best work of Zimbabwe's young scholars. As Brian Raftopolos writes in his introduction: 'the book is an attempt to analyse and assess both the hopes and frustrations of the last four years and to confront the harsh challenges that lie ahead.'

Informations

• Publié par: Weaver Press
• Date de parution: 17 février 2013
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• EAN13: 9781779222268
• Langue: English

Extrait

T HE H ARD R OAD TO R EFORM
The Politics of Zimbabwe s Global Political Agreement
T HE H ARD R OAD TO R EFORM
The Politics of Zimbabwe s Global Political Agreement
edited by B RIAN R AFTOPOULOS
Published by Weaver Press, Box A1922, Avondale, Harare. 2013 < www.weaverpresszimbabwe.com > in association with the Solidarity Peace Trust, Port Shepstone. 2013 < www.solidaritypeacetrust.org >
Each individual chapter the author. This collection, Brian Raftopoulos, 2013
Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi for photographs on , , , , Shari Eppel for photographs on ,
Typeset by Weaver Press Cover Design: Danes Design, Harare Printed by: Sable Press, Harare
The authors, editor and publishers would like to express their gratitude to OSISA for their support in the development of this text. < www.osisa.org >
All rights reserved. No part of the publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form by any means - electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise - without the express written permission of the publisher.
ISBN: 978-1-77922-216-0
Contents
Introduction : Brian Raftopoulos
Chapter 1 : Brian Raftopoulos - An Overview of the GPA: National Conflict, Regional Agony and International Dilemma .
Chapter 2 : James Muzondidya - The Opposition Dilemma in Zimbabwe: A Critical Review of the Politics of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) Parties under the GPA Transitional Framework 2009-2012 .
Chapter 3 : Gerald Mazarire - ZANU-PF and the Government of National Unity
Chapter 4 : Bertha Chiroro - Responses of Civil Society to the Inclusive Government: The Challenges of turning Confrontation into Engagement .
Chapter 5 : Sabelo J. Ndlovu-Gatsheni - Politics Behind Politics: African Union, SADC and the GPA in Zimbabwe .
Chapter 6 : Munyaradzi Nyakudya - Sanctioning the Government of National Unity: A Review of Zimbabwe s Relations with the West in the Framework of the GPA .
Chapter 7 : Shari Eppel - Repairing a Fractured Nation: Challenges and Opportunities in Post-GPA Zimbabwe .
Select Bibliography
C ONTRIBUTORS
Bertha Chiroro is a research specialist at the Africa Institute of South Africa, in Pretoria. She has an M.Phil. in Political Science from the University of Durham, UK. She has done research and published on a range of issues on democracy and governance, gender and elections. Her research interests range from Civil Society mobilisation for Sustainable Development to Elections and Political Processes in Africa.
Shari Eppel is a Zimbabwean, and director of Solidarity Peace Trust. She has worked with victims of torture for nearly twenty years, and is now studying for an MA in Forensic Anthropology. Once qualified, she intends to resume the work done by Amani Trust in the 1990s in Matabeleland involving healing the dead , a process whereby human remains are exhumed and returned to families for decent and customary reburials. Eppel has worked in the field of transitional justice for more than a decade and was the primary author of the CCJP/LRF history: Breaking the Silence, Building True Peace: A Report on the Disturbances in Matabeleland and the Midlands 1980-1987 , which remains the definitive history of the Gukurahundi period in Zimbabwe.
Gerald Chikozho Mazarire is the former head of the History Department of the University of Zimbabwe where he served for ten years before moving to the Midlands State University as a Senior Lecturer in History. He is currently a Post-Doctoral Fellow at the University of Stellenbosch in South Africa.
James Muzondidya is a Research Manager at the Zimbabwe Institute - a political think tank based in Harare. He conducts research on politics and history, citizenship and identity.
Sabelo J. Ndlovu-Gatsheni is a professor in the Department of Development Studies at the University of South Africa and Head of the Archie Mafeje Research Institute based at the same university. He previously taught History and Development Studies at Midlands State University (2000-2004); International Studies at Monash University (2005-2007); African Studies at the Ferguson Centre for African and Asian Studies at the Open University (2008-2009) and held the position of Senior Researcher at the South Africa Institute of International Affairs in 2010. He has published widely on Zimbabwean, South African and African history and politics. His recent major publications include The Ndebele Nation: Reflections on Hegemony, Memory and Historiography; Do Zimbabweans Exist? Trajectories of Nationalism, National Identity Formation and Crisis in a Postcolonial State; Grotesque or Redemptive Nationalism? Rethinking Contemporary Politics in Zimbabwe; Coloniality of Power in Postcolonial Africa: Myths of Decolonization; and Empire, Global Coloniality and African Subjectivity .
Munyaradzi Nyakudya is a lecturer in History at the University of Zimbabwe, with a special interest in African colonial and post-colonial history. His most recent studies have focused on governance issues, the education sector and peace and security studies. He is the founding chairman of the Zimbabwe Peace and Security Education and Training (ZIPSET) Network.
Brian Raftopoulos is a leading Zimbabwean scholar and activist. Formally a Professor of Development Studies at the University of Zimbabwe, he moved to Cape Town at the end of March 2006 and is currently the Director of Research and Advocacy in the Solidarity Peace Trust, an NGO dealing with human rights issues in Zimbabwe. He has published widely on Zimbabwean history, historiography, and politics and is a regular contributor to public debates in Zimbabwe. At present, Professor Raftopoulos is also Mellon Senior Research Mentor at the Centre for Humanities Research at the University of the Western Cape. He is on the Advisory Editorial Board of the Journal of Southern African Studies and an Editor of Kronos a journal of Southern African histories, based at the University of the Western Cape. As an activist he was a founder member of the National Constitutional Assembly in 1998, the first Chair of the Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition in 2001, and continues to work closely with the labour movement in Zimbabwe as a board member of the Labour and Development Institute of Zimbabwe.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank the organisations and individuals who made this publication possible. Firstly, thanks must go to OSISA for funding the project and to Solidarity Peace Trust for organising and providing the administrative support for the book. Secondly, thanks to the authors for their continued commitment to advancing the cause of scholarship in Zimbabwe; many of them participated in the Becoming Zimbabwe project in 2009, and it has been a great pleasure to work with this group of scholars once again. In addition, would like to thank the Centre for Humanities Research, University of the Western Cape for its continued hospitality and support. Thirdly, thanks are due to Sana Raftopoulos for her original ideas in developing the book cover; her work has been well incorporated into the final product. Fourthly, I am grateful to David Moore for our ongoing discussions on the GPA and to Tyrone Savage for his editorial comments on one of the chapters at a very difficult stage. Last but by no means least the authors would like to thank Irene Staunton and Murray McCartney from Weaver Press for their excellent editorial work and continued efforts in keeping the publishing industry alive in Zimbabwe.
Brian Raftopoulos January, 2013
Introduction B RIAN R AFTOPOULOS
Since the signing of the Global Political Agreement (GPA) in September 2008 the outcome of the process has been fiercely contested, and by the end of 2012 remained in the balance. The Agreement, which set out to prepare the political process for a generally acceptable election after the debacle of 2008, has been marked by severe ebbs and flows. This is all too characteristic of the battle for the state that has constituted the politics of the GPA. At almost every stage of the mediation from 2007 and the implementation of the GPA from February 2009, intense conflicts over the interpretation of the accord have left their debris on the political terrain. At the heart of this contestation has been the struggle over the meaning of sovereignty .
Around its conceptions of sovereignty ZANU-PF has woven dense layers of political discourse combined with its continued monopolisation of state violence and coercion. As many observers 1 have noted, the naming of enemies and outsiders by the Mugabe state in the context of a selective script around liberation and national community has been a key dimension of the state s performance of its stateness . 2 This politics of sovereignty, heightened in Zimbabwe since the late 1990s, was perceptively and starkly described by Eric Worby a decade ago. He noted that it was less about who is included under the rubric of citizenship, than about who decides who is included, and who decides who lives and who dies. 3
Moreover, in the framework of a highly contested political framework like the GPA, the deployment of security, and intimidation and punishment, have remained key resources in ZANU-PF s battle to retain state power. Within the politics of the Inclusive Government the major aim of this strategy has been to manipulate and stall the reform provisions of the GPA. This has been done with the intention of regrouping and consolidating after plunging to the nadir of its legitimacy in the 2008 electoral defeat. ZANU-PF has not only relied on violence and coercion to claw back political space within this period. A combination of the uneven effects of the changes on the land over the last decade, the abuse of income from the Marange diamond mines to extend its patronag