Terror & 5 Brigade

Before Independence, colonial rule had given most of the land in Zimbabwe to white farmers. Instead of paying for the land, leaders simply displaced the black populations living there. Therefore, when Mugabe took office, one of his key goals was to reverse the land distribution problem. His rule was—and is—characterized by terror. Any land that Mugabe wanted, he took, forcing the white farmers to either leave the country or die with their farms. But Mugabe did not give the land to the majority of the black population. Instead, he gave the land to people in his inner circle, determined to sway them into doing his bidding. Or the land was left unoccupied.

In fact, as part of his land redistribution program, even more blacks lost land, as well as their lives. In Matabeleland, Mugabe accused the people of wanting to overthrow the government. As a response, he sent a new army, called 5 Brigade, trained by North Koreans. The new brigade was called Gukurahundi, a Shona word meaning “the rain that blows away the chaff before the spring rains.” But in Matabeleland, it grew to mean, “the sweeping away of rubbish.” “From the moment it was deployed in Matabeleland North at the end of Jaunary 1983, 5 Brigade waged a campaign of beatings, arson, and mass murder deliberately targeted at the civilian population. Villagers were rounded up and marched long distances to a central location, such as a school, where they were harangued and beaten for hours on end. The beatings were often followed by public executions. The main targets initially were former Zipra soldiers or Zapu officials whose names were read out from lists, but often victims were chosen at random and included women. Villagers were then forced to sing songs in the Shona language praising Zanu-PF while dancing on the mass graves of their families and fellow villagers killed and buried minutes earlier."

These atrocities were not just limited to Matabeleland North, but spread through other parts of Zimbabwe—to any people group thought to be a dissenter. This included newspaper journalists and radio and television broadcasters. The perpetrators of the violence were always given presidential pardons for their activity.

In a ceremony on December 30, 1987, Mugabe was declared executive president by parliament…with powers to dissolve parliament and declare martial law and the right to run for an unlimited number of terms of office. Throughout the years, threats and violence continued, especially around election time. In the 1990 elections, television ads left no doubt: “One television advertisement , watched by many viewers with astonishment and disbelief, featured the screech of tyres and the crushing of glass and metal in a car accident, followed by a voice warning coldly: ‘This is one way to die. Another is to vote ZUM. Don’t commit suicide, vote Zanu-PF and live.’ Another advertisement showed a coffin being lowered into a grave followed by the warning: ‘AIDS kills. So does ZUM. Vote Zanu-PF.”

Elections in the years following have seen similar circumstances. Threats and violence precede the years and months leading up to both parliamentary and presidential elections. But the Zimbabweans have been brave and resilient. They have risked their lives to go to the polls in order to vote out the dictator who has caused them great suffering. However, this has been to no avail. Knowing he faced a loss, Mugabe ensured that he won all subsequent elections by changing voting regulations, by setting up blockades so that only Zanu-PF members could vote, by adding to and deleting from the voter registration list, and by stuffing the ballot boxes in almost every district.