Diplomatic Show of Strength

Clipping the wings of troublesome Cabinet members

When Robert Mugabe became independent Zimbabwe's first Prime Minister last April, jubilant blacks danced in the streets to celebrate their hard-won triumph over white minority rule. Last week it was the whites who were applauding after Mugabe clipped the wings of two of the most nettlesome personalities within his black majority government. Said a prominent Salisbury businessman: "This is the first sign of his real strength. This is what the people have been waiting for."

The main victim of Mugabe's sudden Cabinet reshuffle was Minister of Manpower, Planning and Development Edgar Tekere. A rambunctious ex-guerrilla, Tekere had defied the Prime Minister's policy of national reconciliation with repeated threats to expropriate white-owned property and liquidate his political enemies in "an overnight military operation." Last August Tekere was arrested, along with seven bodyguards, on charges of killing a white farm manager. Although Tekere admitted to the murder, he was acquitted on a technicality last month; the unrepentant minister resumed his Cabinet duties--and his freewheeling ways.

Mugabe's handling of Tekere was widely viewed as a test of his leadership--and the helmsman played it masterly. He let justice take its course, waited for the dust to settle, then severed the troublesome member with one clean stroke. In announcing Tekere's dismissal, Mugabe denied any connection with the murder trial. Mugabe's tongue-in-cheek reason for the ouster: "I felt he needed a bit of rest so he can recover from the pressures and strains he has had."

Mugabe was no less diplomatic in announcing Joshua Nkomo's shift from the Ministry of Home Affairs to the Ministry of Public Service. This was, in effect, a humiliating demotion, since it stripped Nkomo of his control over the national police. Mugabe said that necessary "transformations" in the Home Affairs department "seemed to lag behind expectations, so most of the criticism of the police became criticism of Comrade Nkomo." This, he said, was "completely unjustified."

The real reason for reducing Nkomo's influence was that his Patriotic Front Party, with its roots in the minority Ndebele tribal region, constituted a permanent menace to the power of Mugabe's Shona-dominated Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU). Armed supporters of the two parties have clashed violently in recent months. Their continuing rivalry threatens the crucial integration of the two guerrilla armies with the former Rhodesian security forces.

While Nkomo may feel resentful over his demotion, he has no constitutional grounds for complaint: having captured a mere 20% of the parliamentary seats in the independence elections that were held last February, his party had only been included in the government by invitation. Nor was that invitation completely withdrawn last week. Still anxious to mollify the Patriotic Front forces, the Prime Minister appointed a Nkomo stalwart, Josiah Chinamano, to head the Ministry of Transport. The Patriotic Front now holds five portfolios in Mugabe's 26-member Cabinet--not a bad deal for an outvoted minority. qed

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