Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum Special Report Enforcing the Rule of Law in Zimbabwe CHAPTER 5 ENFORCING THE RULE OF LAW: NON-STATE ACTORS Zimbabwe’s political history is littered with rather shadowy, ‘third force’-type militias. From the nationalist parties’ ‘youth wings’ of the 1960s, through the unarmed majiba (couriers and spies) and armed pfumo revanhu (‘spear of the people’) of the 1970s, the ‘dissidents’ of the 1980s to the contemporary ‘war vets’ and (again) party youth, the privatised use of violence has always threatened the State and the rule of law. Indeed, it was in the forceful politics of the early 1960s that the Law and Order (Maintenance) Act originated, equating the rule of law with the forceful and undemocratic maintenance of public order. This statute has been used ever since to stifle dissent that is always seen as potentially if not actually armed. Perhaps no other State is so afraid of armed citizens, particularly if they are thought to support opposition parties, as Zimbabwe in its first two decades of Independence. Although war-lording has not yet emerged, to judge by its proposed Public Order and Security Act the State clearly fears this possibility as the economy crumbles. After Independence, civilians were disarmed. While the State insisted on farmers handing in their weapons and communication equipment, however, the cross-border gun trade was later resurrected by desperate Mocambiquean refugees selling AK47s cheaply, often in exchange for food. As South African apartheid-era destabilisation rearmed southern parts of Zimbabwe, so commercial farmers also reinstated, with State approval and licences, their private, armed security systems as well as their shotguns used for hunting. More recently, there have been more sinister reports of defence force personnel colluding in armed farm invasions and providing arms as well as logistic support to farm occupiers. Indeed, the State has attempted to incorporate as a semi-official ‘reserve force’ those with arms sympathetic to Zanu-PF. We are on a parallel, again, with the transitional Government of Bishop Muzorewa clandestinely arming pfumo revanhu. Militias Part if not all of the Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans Association (ZNLWVA) has appeared, in the past two years, to have become a private militia operating on behalf of (certain elements within) Zanu-PF. Although the political responsibility for proven1 war veterans was initially located in the Office of the President and Cabinet, in 2000 responsibility for ZNLWVA as a mobilisable reserve army was transferred to the Ministry of Defence. And yet within ZNLWVA ‘Many are too young to qualify as war veterans; they are either hired thugs or unemployed youths who see the invasions as an economic opportunity. Television footage of cash payments to young men after they had forced people out of their farms and homes leaves no doubt about the motives of some of these “veterans.” The police have been ordered not to intervene in the invasions, a fact which underlines the essentially political nature of their thrust. The common sight of policemen standing on the sidelines while young men beat and harass people has become one of the defining images of Zimbabwe in recent months. Far from constituting a legitimate group of genuine war veterans, the invaders are the basis for rudimentary militia groups which have targeted Zimbabweans seen as critical of President Mugabe’s policies and his government. Their activities and the political patronage they enjoy 1 Those who were registered in 1997 to receive their Z$50 000 payouts and monthly pensions. 47