The Plague of Tribal Enmity

By James Kelly

As violence increases, whites flee and investors stay away

It was not an auspicious start for the coming year. On New Year's Eve, six people, all but one of them white, were killed in a spree of violence near Bulawayo, Zimbabwe's second largest city. In an especially gruesome incident, the throat of a 71-year-old farmer was slit ear to ear. Only days earlier, a pack of 15 to 20 armed men wearing green camouflage uniforms and animal-skin caps had halted traffic on the Bulawayo-Gweru Highway, spraying buses and cars with gunfire and then torching three of the vehicles. Three blacks died, and 21 were injured.

The latest streak of violence is a disquieting sign that the fragile tribal coalition that turned white-ruled Rhodesia into black-governed Zimbabwe in 1980 is crumbling. On one side are Prime Minister Robert Mugabe and nearly 6 million members of the Shona tribes; opposing them are Joshua Nkomo, the rival nationalist leader, and the 1.5 million-strong Ndebeles. Mugabe supporters blame the holiday terror on diehard members of Nkomo's ZIPRA guerrilla army, which was disbanded after the nation's seven-year civil war had ended. Nkomo stoutly denies any responsibility for the rebel actions, although he does not rule out the possibility that his supporters might have been acting on their own. Nearly three years after taking office, Mugabe now faces his biggest challenge yet, one that threatens to force more whites to flee the country while shaking international confidence in Zimbabwe's future. Says a businessman in the capital city of Harare: "It's tough, tough, tough here."

The tribal rivalries stretch back to the early 19th century, when Ndebele warriors plundered the camps of the Shonas. British settlers combined the hostile tribes into one nation in 1890, but the antipathy remained. During the civil war, the Shonas and Ndebeles split into rival guerrilla camps, with Mugabe's ZANLA forces based in neighboring Mozambique and aided by the Chinese, and Nkomo's ZIPRA army at headquarters in Zambia and helped by the Soviets. The rebels agreed on only the most basic goal: the replacement of Prime Minister Ian Smith's white-dominated regime by an independent black state. The leaders are stylistic opposites: Nkomo, 64, plays the outgoing but wily politico, while Mugabe, 58, is an austere, scholarly man. In Zimbabwe's first elections in 1980, Mugabe trounced Nkomo, but nonetheless initially named his opponent Minister of Home Affairs. The honeymoon ended last February when Mugabe charged Nkomo with plotting to overthrow his government and sacked him.

Meanwhile, the ongoing clashes between the Shonas and the Ndebeles have grown worse, especially within the new national army, which tried to meld both ZANLA and ZIPRA guerrillas into its ranks. Some 1,200 of Nkomo's onetime rebels have deserted the armed forces, returning to Matabeleland, homeland of the Ndebeles. The region has turned into an African version of the wild West, with former ZIPRA guerrillas roaming the countryside in small bands, murdering or kidnaping civilians, ripping up rail and power lines and robbing scores of people.

To try to restore order in Matabeleland, the Mugabe government last August launched Operation Octopus, an offensive by seven army battalions that netted 450 suspects. But in their zeal to root out dissidents, the soldiers roughed up many of the Ndebeles, increasing the tribe's hostility toward the Mugabe government. Last summer saboteurs wrecked 13 planes, about 25% of Zimbabwe's air force, while ZIPRA rebels abducted six tourists (two Americans, two British and two Australians) returning from a trip to Victoria Falls. Nkomo disavowed the crimes and traveled through Matabeleland urging the locals to aid in the hunt for the kidnaped tourists, but to no avail. There have been no negotiations with the abductors, and the fate of the foreigners remains unknown.

The marauding dropped off sharply last fall, making the Mugabe government believe that the guerrillas were running low on ammunition. The latest rash of crimes has led Zimbabwe to point a finger at the white minority government of neighboring South Africa. Emmerson Munangagwa, Minister of State in the Prime Minister's Office for Security, accused South Africa last week of training a "Matabele brigade" with the ultimate aim of destabilizing the Mugabe government. South Africa dismissed the charge as ridiculous, but diplomats in Harare are not sure. Says a Western official: "It's not in South Africa's interest to have an unstable Zimbabwe, but I don't know if Pretoria agrees. They certainly don't like Mugabe, a Marxist who they think is a wolf in sheep's clothing."

Caught in the web of the tribal conflicts are the country's 170,000 whites, less than 3% of the total population of 7.5 million. Zimbabwe depends heavily on its skilled white workers, especially in farming and mining. But 42,000 have emigrated since independence, even though Mugabe has repeatedly assured them that they are wanted in Zimbabwe's multiracial society. Says a white farmer in Matabeleland: "The situation is more worrisome than it was during the war."

News of the violence has hurt Mugabe's efforts to attract foreign investments. Twice in the past month, guerrillas seeking to overthrow the Marxist government of neighboring Mozambique blew up a pipeline that fed essential supplies of oil to Zimbabwe from the Mozambican port city of Beira. As a result, streets and highways in Zimbabwe are now largely deserted, many workers stay home, and motorists who insist on filling up must wait for as long as 24 hours for a turn at the pump. Even nature seems to have conspired against the country: much of Zimbabwe is parched from the worst drought in a decade, crippling agriculture, which accounts for 16% of the country's gross national product and provides income to 70% of the population.

Mugabe met with Nkomo secretly last month to explore ways to defuse the volatile situation, but the results of the session are not known. Low-level officials of both parties are working on a political compromise that would give Nkomo and his followers a larger role in the government. But because tribal enmity is so deeply rooted in Zimbabwe's history, any settlement may prove fleeting.

--By James Kelly. Reported by Marsh Clark/Harare

With reporting by Marsh Clark This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.