Rising Racial Tensions

By Russ Hoyle

Mugabe takes a hard line against dissidents and saboteurs

Since Prime Minister Robert Mugabe's black majority government took office in 1980, Zimbabwe has been haunted by the prospect of renewed racial strife between the dominant blacks and the whites, who make up less than 3% of the population but who still play a leading role in the country's economy. In recent months, whites have claimed that they were gradually being discriminated against by the government. Mugabe has increased the tension by charging that some of Zimbabwe's 180,000 whites are plotting against his administration. He has also announced harsh new measures to deal with suspected political dissidents and saboteurs, a move that led many whites to fear a new wave of racial repression.

The immediate cause of Mugabe's crackdown was the explosion on Dec. 18 that ripped through the downtown Salisbury headquarters of his ruling Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-P.F.). Incredibly, no one in the office building was killed by the bomb, but seven bystanders died, and some 120 people were injured.

Salisbury police have been unable to determine who planted the explosive. While not directly accusing whites, Mugabe blamed the "destabilization" in the country on the acts of those who had served the white government of former Prime Minister Ian Smith as it fought to prevent blacks from taking over what was then known as Rhodesia. Mugabe claimed that some of these counterinsurgency and sabotage specialists were still in the army and the police force. Said he: "We will take action against them. We are justified now." On New Year's Eve, three white police officers were arrested for allegedly maintaining arms caches in their homes.

Mugabe will enforce his new hard line by extending emergency regulations to allow the government to confiscate without a trial the property or assets of suspected dissidents. The tactic was immediately criticized by white lawyers. Said one Salisbury attorney: "There is no real right of appeal. The regulations can be used to punish anyone the government doesn't like." Added a white government official who is planning to leave the country: "The government keeps accusing whites of being responsible for acts of sabotage, but has so far produced not a scrap of public evidence. They'll probably resort to taking away people's property just to prove they are on top of things."

Mugabe has also vowed to impose a code of good conduct that would ban government officials and party leaders, most of whom are black, from owning farms or businesses. Still, his new crackdown has further alienated whites, who are already resentful of reforms aimed at improving the lot of the country's 7 million blacks. White Zimbabweans have endured heavy taxes to finance those reforms and watched as bastions of white privilege--notably the health-care and educational systems--were expanded to benefit blacks.

Whites have also been angered and alarmed by some of the Prime Minister's recent actions. Invoking the emergency powers once used against insurgent blacks, Mugabe has jailed Wally Stuttaford, 64, a grandfatherly Member of Parliament, on suspicion of having plotted a coup against the government. A 24-year-old Dutch-born auto mechanic was detained in Salisbury and later deported simply for drawing mustaches and horns on posters of Mugabe and Zimbabwe's President, the Reverend Canaan Banana. In addition, whites complain that groups of tourists have been roughed up by soldiers--in one instance, for stumbling into an area reserved for North Korean advisers, who were imported by Mugabe to train Zimbabwean security forces.

As a result of Mugabe's policies, Zimbabwe's skilled whites, who are crucial to the survival of the country's agricultural and business sectors, continue to emigrate in record numbers. Some 18,000 are estimated to have left in 1981. Although Zimbabwe's rate of real growth for 1981 is expected to be as high as 8% (compared with less than 1% for the U.S.), the economy has serious problems. Inflation, currently running at 15%, has been worsened by the government's new minimum-wage level, which hiked the lowest pay for mostly black farm and domestic workers by 66% and increased wages for commercial and industrial employees by 23.5%. A year-end dry spell may cost the country as much as 30% of its current maize crop. A shortage of gasoline has been exacerbated by hoarding and by disruptions of pipe lines and rail shipments by the raids of antigovernment guerrillas who operate from neighboring Mozambique and are reportedly aided by South Africa.

The country's rail system suffers from other problems besides guerrillas. Last week railwaymen began returning to work after a seven-day strike that cost the country $14.8 million in export earnings. Zimbabwe also lacks locomotives, although that problem should ease some what in the months ahead. South Africa began returning 26 of its engines that it withdrew from the country last year, and 60 more new locomotives, bought from the U.S. and elsewhere, are due in March.

Mugabe reportedly has been forced by worsening economic conditions to seek a renewal of Zimbabwe's valuable preferential trade agreement with the apartheid regime in Pretoria. Financial aid is also coming from the U.S. Despite the increasingly repressive atmosphere in Salisbury, the U.S. Congress in December approved $75 million in economic assistance for Zimbabwe. That is the first installment of $225 million the Reagan Administration pledged at a multinational aid conference last March in Salisbury. Mugabe has also received a much needed vote of confidence from the Administration. In a letter sent Dec. 17 to the Senate and House committees on foreign relations, President Reagan praised Zimbabwe as one of Africa's best credit risks, an optimistic assessment that depends on Mugabe's ability to preserve political stability in a volatile situation.

-- By Russ Hoyle. Reported by Marsh Clark/Salisbury

With reporting by Marsh Clark

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.