Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum Special Report Enforcing the Rule of Law in Zimbabwe There may also be a class dimension involving political patronage in the relationship between the police and the ruling party, and more specifically the State President. The ZRP Commissioner was reported to have consulted President Mugabe about cabinet members implicated in various corruption scandals being investigated by the police, including Vice-President Simon Muzenda and Phillip Chiyangwa who were implicated in the NOCZANU-PFM scandals. In contrast, as ‘war veterans’ invaded urban companies, over 20 ‘small fish’ were charged with kidnapping and extortion.1 Government’s failure to target Zanu-PF office-bearers was reportedly condemned by Mike Moyo who was released without charge after spending the best part of a week in illegal police detention.2 There have been other inferences of corruption involving the State President, including in the tender for Harare’s new international airport terminal. Most recently, it was reported that the three prefabricated houses which President Mugabe commissioned in Kambuzuma on 22 August 2001, had been constructed without city council planning approval. Nor were they connected to the sewer and water reticulation networks.3 Government did not address those allegations in a blustering reply which appeared to be predicated on the assumption that everything Government does is by definition legal. ‘“The housing project commissioned by President Mugabe was done legally on Government land. How can the construction of structures by the Government on Government property be considered to be illegal?”’4 The Cabinet In the Rural District Councils Act, there are apparently ‘at least 258 instances where the Minister and/or the President can intervene in the running of the RDCS’.5 As Appendix 5 shows, the President has intervened 131 times in rural local government. In at least one case of ministerial instruction to urban councils, the appointed Harare interim administration was reportedly told by Ignatius Chombo: ‘“You have to provide 30 000 stands to people on the housing waiting list before the end of the year [2001]. If the Council does not have any land, Government will be happy to provide it… We are all under a lot of pressure to deliver. Government is under pressure from the general population.”’6 He was further reported to have ‘urged the commissioners to make the stands available before the end of the year to avoid being accused of campaigning for next year’s Presidential elections’, presumably in order to avoid any more accusations of illegal vote-buying. The composition of Zimbabwe’s cabinet in September 2001 is shown in Table 3.3. There was some speculation that these funds might replenish Zanu-PF’s depleted coffers (The Financial Gazette 19.7.01; The Herald 19.5.01). Hunzvi’s followers intervened in hundreds of labour disputes, apparently targetting successful exporters, and reportedly extorted seven-figure sums on which the recipients paid variable commissions to the ‘war vets’. Farmers were reported to have been fleeced of half a billion dollars as protection fees to prevent their properties from being occupied, or to have them delisted. 2 The Zimbabwe Independent 24.5.01. 3 The Daily News 4.9.01. 4 The Herald 5.9.01. 5 Parliamentary Debates 27,63:6692. 6 The Herald 5.9.01. 1 24