Background

Genocide is a scary word. It is something that the mind shies away from,
something that people are afraid to contemplate even in the abstract,
because it is so horrific that we will not believe it. And it is perhaps for
this reason that the genocide of Jews in WWII was carried out for so long
before it was fully comprehended, and why the Interahamwe managed to kill
800 000 Tutsis in Rwanda in 1994 before the international community reacted.
The truth is that at least the latter could have been prevented, and that
all the indicators were there for the international community to see what
was happening. But they did not react, partly because they just could not
believe that it was happening, or could happen.

When reports of killings and mass human rights violations reach the
international community, the first response is always cautious. The first
demand is for verification, whilst the second is usually conservative
under-reaction. The machinery for dealing with mass human rights violations
is inherently conservative, and this inevitably produces a significant time
lag in responding to such situations. There seems to be a reluctance to
accept that people can really be slaughtering one another without
provocation and that civilians are being subjected to a steady and
relentless elimination process.

But the sad truth is that people are indeed capable of mass slaughter, and
hence it is all the more necessary to be ready to respond quickly where the
indicators are present in order to prevent excessive deaths. And Zimbabwe,
recently assessed as one of the most oppressive states in the world, seems
primed for just such a situation. This may seem a ridiculous claim when
there have been comparatively few deaths so far from the conflict of the
past three years, but, as will be seen below, it is less the deaths to date
than the insidious pattern of organised violence and torture that leads to
the concern about a potential genocide.

Genocide

The crime of genocide is defined in international law in the Convention on
the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide. The Genocide Convention was
adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on 9 December 1948. The
Convention entered into force on 12 January 1951. More than 130 nations have
ratified the Genocide Convention and over 70 nations have made provisions
for the punishment of genocide in domestic criminal law. The text of Article
II of the Genocide Convention was included as a crime in Article 6 of the
1998 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. Zimbabwe is a
signatory to this Convention.

There are two salient articles in the Convention:

Article II: In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following
acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national,
ethnical,
racial or religious group, as such:

Killing members of the group;
Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring
about its physical destruction in whole or in part;

Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

Article III: The following acts shall be punishable:

Genocide;
Conspiracy to commit genocide;
Direct and public incitement to commit genocide;
Attempt to commit genocide;
Complicity in genocide.

The following are acts of genocide when committed as part of a policy to
destroy a group's existence:

Killing members of the group includes direct killing and actions causing
death.

Causing serious bodily or mental harm includes inflicting trauma on members
of the group through widespread torture, rape, sexual violence, forced or
coerced use of drugs, and mutilation.

Deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to destroy a group
includes the deliberate deprivation of resources needed for the group's
physical survival, such as clean water, food, clothing, shelter or medical
services.

Deprivation of the means to sustain life can be imposed through confiscation
of harvests, blockade of foodstuffs, detention in camps, forcible relocation
or expulsion into deserts.

Prevention of births includes involuntary sterilization, forced abortion,
prohibition of marriage, and long-term separation of men and women intended
to prevent procreation.

Forcible transfer of children may be imposed by direct force or by through
fear of violence, duress, detention, psychological oppression or other
methods of
coercion. The Convention on the Rights of the Child defines children as
persons under the age of 14 years.

As can be seen, acts of genocide need not kill or cause the death of members
of a group: torture, political rape, displacement, deprivation, and various
other actions, short of killing, also are included in the definition.
Furthermore, it is a crime to plan or incite genocide, even before killing
starts, and to aid or abet genocide. The criminal acts described in the
Convention include conspiracy, direct and public incitement, attempts to
commit genocide, and complicity in genocide.

Stages in genocide

Genocide clearly is not a spontaneous occurrence, and the killing of masses
of people, or the harming of large numbers, must take place over time and
involve planning. There are usually a series of stages in the development of
a genocide or politicide, and there is compelling evidence that many of
these stages have already taken place in contemporary Zimbabwe.

The following is taken from the 8 stages in genocide identified by Genocide
Watch, and then applied to the Zimbabwe situation. As will be seen later,
Genocide Watch themselves argue that stage 6 has been reached in Zimbabwe.

1. Classification

Classification is a normal human process, and all societies make
classifications about their composition. This is generally not problematic,
but can become very dangerous when a society is racially or ethnically
divided, and is very serious when these divisions have resulted in racial or
ethnic clashes and conflict in the past.

Zimbabwe has two major ethnic divisions - Shona and Ndebele - and a number
of racial divisions. These divisions have played a major part in the
violence of previous decades, and, in the past three years, there has been
increasing recourse by the Mugabe regime to attribute the problems in
Zimbabwe to racial and ethnic problems. It is important here to note that
the violence in the 1980s would easily conform to the definition of
genocide, and of course the fundamental basis for the Liberation War of the
1970s was the racist policies of the illegal Smith regime. Currently, there
has been a continuous emphasis by the Mugabe regime on the role that whites
and their followers - who tend to be all who do not support Zanu PF - are
playing in destabilising the country.

2. Symbolization

Essentially, here we are talking about stereotyping of people and groups of
people, and the processes aimed at dividing up societies that are always
composed of diverse groups into "in" and "out" groups. In Zimbabwe, this has
occurred in the past with the Ndebele being vilified in the 1980s[1], and
today has revolved around the framing of the Zimbabwe crisis as due to the
recalcitrant white commercial farmers, and the support of the whites and
their international allies for the MDC. There are endless statements along
these lines[2].

The key organising issue has been the so-called land problem and its use in
dealing with the matter of maintaining political power in the hands of Zanu
PF. The land issue, despite the government having failed to produce any
significant land reform in nearly 20 years of power, is used by the Mugabe
regime to symbolically aim the problems of the nation at the whites, their
international allies, and those whom the whites support. The acceptance of
white support by any Zimbabwean group or political party becomes the basis
for including them as enemies, with the blunt references to the Liberation
War of the 1970s. There is a very simple metonymic process: problems of
whatever kind are due to white, colonial powers, oppressors, enemies, white
sympathisers, etc. The contrasting pole of this construct is inordinately
simple: Zanu PF are the liberators, good, etc, and you can know Zanu PF from
the others simply by which colour they are or which party card they carry.
This stereotyping is extraordinarily effective because it links the past to
the present in a very straightforward manner, and uses race as the
organising device.

3. Dehumanization

This can take many forms and does not need to conform to the crude approach
of the Nazis to the Jews. It is essentially building upon the stereotyping
process by attributing the problems in the society to the "out" group,
focusing hate and dislike against this group, and encouraging actions
against this group.

In Zimbabwe, there has been and continues to be a basic undercurrent of
racial and ethnic hate. This has escalated in the past three years, and, as
indicated above, takes the form mostly of stereotyping whites as exploiting
and racist, with all black "out" groups portrayed as willing dupes of the
whites. The rhetoric revolves around a plot to return the nation to colonial
domination, with frequent references to slavery and the like. In common with
the Nazi rhetoric, the "out" groups are seen to be involved in a plot to
overthrow the nation or maintain economic and political power over the "in"
group.

Here the power of the press and media in escalating polarisation and
dehumanisation is crucial. The Mugabe regime has enormous control of the
press and the media, and especially the radio which is the primary source of
information for most rural Zimbabweans. The outpourings of invective, hate
speech, and blunt misinformation are very significant in developing the
attitudes of Zimbabweans, and here the vilification of the MDC is crucial.

An additionally relevant fact for the development of dehumanisation has been
the partisan attitude of the Zimbabwe Republic Police. Since the beginning
of the farm invasions there has been a deplorable tendency for the police to
refuse to take action in many situations of violence and degradation on the
grounds that the matter was "political". This has had the effect of removing
protection from many groups in Zimbabwe, and encouraging an attitude that
the violence was deserved or condoned. Here the partisan statements of the
Commissioner of Police, Augustine Chihuri, are especially sinister[3].

4. Organization

As Genocide Watch points out, genocide is always organized, usually by the
state. Special army units or militias are often trained and armed, and plans
are made for genocidal killings. These plans may not aim primarily at
killing, and, as was seen from the definitions above, genocide can include
campaigns of systematic torture, displacement of groups, and deprivation of
food and resources. There is good evidence for all of these latter forms of
genocide being perpetrated in Zimbabwe, a fact which does not appear to have
been properly understood by much of the international community, and is
particularly misunderstood, possibly deliberately, by most African
governments. This is amply demonstrated by the outrageous reports of African
states on the various elections that have taken place over the past three
years.

In the past three years, there has been a proliferation of militia groups in
Zimbabwe. The first onslaught, after the Constitutional Referendum in
February 2000, was spearheaded by so-called "war veterans", but very
evidently assisted by military and CIO personnel[4]. This was facilitated by
the apparent passivity of the Zimbabwe Republic Police in the face of
blatant criminal acts being perpetrated on commercial farmers, commercial
farm workers, and finally on ordinary citizens. The violence, which was
extreme and revolved mainly around torture[5], was never formally repudiated
by the political leaders of Zimbabwe.

The next phase in the use of the militia has revolved around "youth militia"
, the so-called "green bombers". The initial intakes, as was openly admitted
by the regime, were composed of the young men who had been associated with
the "war veteran" militia. This was clearly a reward for loyalty, but, from
the perspective of preventing genocide, unfortunately involved further
training of young men who had already been involved in violence and human
rights violations.

As the reports of all human rights observer groups show, an alarmingly high
proportion of the human rights violations documented have been perpetrated
by the youth militia, whilst the pattern of torture seen clearly supports
the notion that torture techniques are being taught[6]. The youth militia,
when deployed, followed a very clear pattern in the development of tolerance
to the presence of youth militia. They re-established the bases seen in the
Parliamentary Elections, went on a strong recruiting drive - mostly using
compulsion - of the local youth, and then employed an in-service training
programme with these youths. Much of this training again resulted in the
local youths becoming involved in violence and torture.

The last phase to date has seen the increasing involvement of the Zimbabwe
Republic Police in torture and harassment of "out" groups. This has followed
massive staff changes in the police ranks, with all new appointments being
based on a "loyalty" basis. Subsequently, the reports of observers show a
marked increase in the number of cases in which the police, and especially
the ordinary uniformed branch, have perpetrated torture. This was
dramatically seen in Buhera, where the endless press reports and statements
of the MDC arguing that a pogrom was taking place, were amply supported by
the cases seen by human rights groups[7].

Significantly, the army is not frequently mentioned in human rights reports,
but, given the massively effective use of the militia in winning elections,
they have not been needed to date. Here it should not be forgotten that the
bald statement of political support for the Mugabe regime given by the
defence chiefs in 2001 has never been repudiated. However, it is important
here to note that the Zimbabwe National Army is mentioned in many other
reports as benefiting from the favours of the regime[8].

Finally, the use by the regime of statutes of impunity adds to the problem
in a very significant manner, and this has drawn frequent comment from local
and international observers[9]. Impunity, both formal and practical, is
additionally supported by the subversion of the judical process[10].

5. Polarization

Here the process requires that groups are driven apart, and the press and
media are particularly important in forcing and maintaining the
polarisation.

In Zimbabwe, the government-controlled press, television and radio now
operate in a flagrant manner with all pretence at impartiality gone. Any
cursory examination will show this to be so, but anecdote is more than
adequately supported by the reporting of independent press monitoring
groups. Additionally, virtually all foreign press people have been expelled,
a relatively large number of local journalists have been tortured,
assaulted, falsely charged and imprisoned, harassed, and threatened with
removal of their licences. Increasingly, all independent voices are becoming
self-censoring. Even independent monitoring organisations have come under
attack, with the arrest in August of the Medical Director of the Amani Trust
for allegedly making a "false statement" about political rape being a good
illustration of the attempt by the regime to silence all critical voices.

The wide spread use of hate speech and racist commentary continues unabated.
The interesting aspect to the attempt to force polarisation is the pairing
of "white interest" with "MDC dupes", and, whilst this might seem an
improbable pairing for use in building towards genocide, it is easily
reinforced through the current violence. Only loyalty to Zanu PF counts, and
if a person is unable to demonstrate active support for Zanu PF - a party
card or attendance at party-approved meetings- then the presumption is that
he or she is MDC. Being MDC implies being a dupe of the whites, and
membership in the "out" group is assured. This can be avoided, and the final
defence is of course a conversion to Zanu PF, which will obviously involve
some form of loyalty test. This loyalty test is now being applied to the
distribution of drought relief, where many independent reports show that
those who are not able to demonstrate allegiance to Zanu PF are excluded
from food relief[11].

The polarisation has made a slow and steady process over the past three
years, and it now permeates all aspects of Zimbabwean life. Most
significantly it now revolves around the access to food, but this is merely
another aspect of the process in which all people in Zimbabwe must make
active and open declaration for Zanu PF in order not to be a target of some
form of discrimination.

6. Preparation

It is at this point that Zimbabwe is currently argued to be by Genocide
Watch. Here the "out" group is visibly distinguished by the perpetrators. It
is the final point at which preventive action can be taken by the
international community. As Genocide Watch comments:

At this stage, a Genocide Alert must be called. If the political will of the
U.S., NATO, and the U.N. Security Council can be mobilized, armed
international intervention should be prepared,
or heavy assistance to the victim group in preparing for its self-defense.
Otherwise, at least humanitarian assistance should beorganized by the U.N.
and private relief groups for the
inevitable tide of refugees.

Whilst there are no signs of concentration camps, there is quite obvious
"sealing up" of rural districts, quite transparently creating "no go" areas.
This seems likely to split the towns from the country, severing family ties,
and ensuring that rural districts will remain uniformly supporters of Zanu
PF. Here it is instructive to consider the Appendices, especially Appendices
2 and 3. The information in these two reports shows different aspects of the
preparations.

The two final stages, Extermination(7) and Denia(8), do not need to be
described in any detail here, and in any event are stages when the
international community has no preventive options left.

The point of studying genocide, and, more importantly, of actively
monitoring potential situations in which genocide may occur, is to prevent
its occurrence. It is for this reason that continuous reports of gross human
rights violations from a country attract the attention of organisations
monitoring for signs of potential genocide. Genocide Watch, for example, has
three levels of Alerts. A Genocide or Politicide Watch is declared when
early warning signs indicate the danger of genocide or political mass
killing. A Genocide or Politicide Warning is called when genocide or
politicide is imminent, often indicated by massacres. A Genocide Emergency
is declared when genocide is actually underway.

The brink of genocide

If we consider the stages above, Zimbabwe appears to be primed for
massacres, and Genocide Watch (from whom this information was obtained)
considers that Zimbabwe has already reached the stage of preparation (see
below). As indicated above, independent information gathering and a number
of indicators point strongly towards preparations for an ethnic cleansing
operation. The Mugabe regime has already proved that it is capable of such
an action through the Matabeleland massacre in the 1980's, where thousands
were slaughtered, and this episode in Zimbabwe's history would strongly
conform to the definition of genocide.

The campaign of vilifying the opposition has been running since they were
first formed in 1999. Zanu PF, basically a revolutionary party at heart, is
playing the card of colonialism to full effect. Their revolutionary rhetoric
appeals to the downtrodden, and consequently, at least amongst the security
forces, there is something of a feeling that they are doing something
unfortunate but necessary.

This feeling is being carefully nurtured. The lawlessness over the past few
years has forced people to become accustomed to violence, another important
precursor to genocide. Once people are resigned to the occurrence of
violence, the gradual escalation of such to include elimination of enemies
can be carried out with minimal comment. State-sanctioned human rights
violations have been steadily increasing over the last three years, and
torture and beatings at the hands of police (or army) no longer provoke
comment in most sectors of society [12]. At the same time, fear of reprisal
forces people to accept more and more extreme situations without comment.

The greatest concern must be over the role of the newly formed youth
militia, known popularly as the "green bombers". These young men undergo a
rigorous training and political orientation programme under the auspices of
national service. The trainers are generally drawn from the Zimbabwe Defence
Forces or the War Veterans Association - whilst the youths are not fully
trained soldiers, they receive basic military training and discipline is
strongly enforced. Combined with a distinctly skewed version of recent
history that is determinedly taught them throughout the training process,
these young party stalwarts have been turned into a potential instrument of
terror.

There are five main training camps, through which some 9,000 militia have
passed in the last ten months. It appears that the intake is being
increased, however, with the aim of training greater numbers of the
militia[13]. Furthermore, the government is currently establishing a series
of at least two base camps in each district, at which the newly trained
militia are being established. These bases, generally in old army bases,
missions, or resettled farms with sufficient infrastructure, are ideal for
carrying out operations on a nationwide scale.

General Mike Nyambuya recently headed a strong military delegation to China,
where he reportedly secured an assortment of weapons for distribution to the
"green bombers". The first consignment of old WWII rifles has apparently
been received, and more are set to arrive in the next couple of months. The
indications from within the ZDF are that the green bombers will be sent in
to a number of opposition hotspots to exterminate a significant fraction of
the population, before the ZNA is deployed in the area to "stabilise" the
situation. This will significantly reduce the voting population in the
areas, and the extreme terror of the survivors will ensure a safe win in the
event of electoral reruns. Binga is one area that has been singled out for
this treatment, and a number of truckloads of "green bombers" have been seen
moving into the area, armed and dressed as the police support unit.

Many areas of the country are effectively "no-go" areas. People from Mount
Darwin who have been working in the city for the last three months are not
being allowed back into their home areas for fear of information getting in
or out, and in most areas there are roadblocks manned by war veterans about
ten kilometres off the main roads. It is becoming increasingly hard for
anyone to enter these areas, even food distribution programmes, resulting in
isolated pockets of immobile populations. Light aircraft flights are being
carefully monitored, and casual over flight of most abandoned farming areas
or communal areas are now being strongly discouraged.

Furthermore, ex-military and CIO members are infiltrating much of the local
government structure. The Electoral Supervisory Committee (ESC), Prison
Service, Department of National Parks and Wildlife, GMB, NOCZim, and the
Public Service Commission have all been seconded with ZNA officers. Officers
are also in the process of secondment to key parastatals (ZESA, Air
Zimbabwe, NRZ) to keep an eye on senior management who are suspected of
opposition sympathies. There is reportedly a plan to replace wavering
District Administrators with ex Political Commissars from the military, and
all tribal chiefs, in addition to a massive pay rise this year, have also
been assigned two military "bodyguards". This massive militarisation of
government structure is aimed at creating an unquestioningly loyal
infrastructure that will readily respond to the questionable orders
filtering from the top.

In order to obtain complete power, a regime needs to eliminate all the
potential for an organised resistance. The approach of the Mugabe regime has
been another of the rash of new bills passed by the government. The PVO
(Private Voluntary Organisations Act) requires that all non-governmental
organisations register with a ministry in order to be allowed to operate.
The regime has the right of veto in such situations, and therefore is
effectively able to ban any organisation that it deems awkward. Already a
number of civic groups have been threatened and declared illegal, included
the noted human rights organisation Amani Trust. The attack upon the Amani
Trust has been particularly sustained, and the organisation has been
variously accused of funding the MDC, planning the overthrow of the
government, providing logistical support for militia actions by the MDC, and
a plethora of other minor offences in the eyes of the government. These
threats to NGOs and the threatened closures have sent a ripple through civic
society, reinforcing the message that Zanu PF has been sending the
population - shut up or be shut down.

In February 2002, Genocide Watch issued a Politicide Watch for Zimbabwe,
arguing that there had been significant development of the first six stages
outlined above:

Classification: the population is ethnically classified and ZANU-PF has
become an ethnic party.

Symbolization: Possession of ZANU-PF party membership cards is mandatory to
avoid beatings by the Shona militias.

Dehumanization: President Mugabe refers to his opposition as "weeds," and
has called on ZANU-PF to "go and uproot the weeds from your garden." In
August,

Vice President Msika declared, "Whites are not human beings."

Organization: the ZANU-PF Youth Brigades are militias being systematically
trained and armed, taught Shona songs, and organized like the militias that
participated in the 1982-1983 genocidal massacres.

Polarization: President Mugabe regularly appeals to race and ethnicity, and
refers to his opponents as "traitors" and "terrorists." Police have begun to
arrest moderate leaders, including church leaders.

Preparation: President Mugabe's latest moves to shut off Zimbabwe from
monitoring by human rights groups, election monitors, and the press, and his
new laws to criminalize anyone who criticizes him, are ominous signs that he
is planning at least massive election fraud. Enemy lists have been compiled
by the state and party intelligence services, a sign that political and
possibly ethnic violence and terror are being planned that President Mugabe
wants to hide from outside scrutiny. Movement of a largely Shona Zimbabwe Army
brigade into Matabeleland, and mob attacks on opposition party offices are
ominous harbingers of potential mass violence.

Based on their analysis, Genocide Watch declared the following in February
2002:

Genocide Watch declares a Politicide Watch for Zimbabwe. We call on
governments to protest not only President Mugabe's new restrictions on
civil liberties, but also to demand, in the strongest terms, that ZANU-PF
dismantle and disarm its Youth Brigade militias, and that the Zimbabwe Army
brigade be withdrawn from Matabeleland. President Mugabe must be put on
notice that if political or genocidal massacres are committed by these
militias or by elements of the Zimbabwe armed forces, he will be held
personally responsible. Zimbabwe's leaders should be notified that if such massacres
occur, the U.S. and EU will support armed intervention by a UN-authorized
regional force, and President Mugabe and those who might perpetrate the
crimes would be subject to prosecution.

The situation has deteriorated considerably since February 2002, and it is
imperative that the international community now take notice of this appeal.
Had the international community taken notice of the signs and prepared
themselves for the eventuality, the 1994 slaughter of over 800 000 people in
Rwanda could have been prevented. It is always difficult to believe that
genocide is about to happen or even to believe that it is going on, since it
is such an inhumanly monstrous thing to do. But we must take cognisance of
the fact that it does indeed happen (with frightening frequency), and it is
necessary at all costs to try and prevent it from happening.

Perhaps the final word should be left to those who would attempt genocide.
As former Speaker of Parliament, Didymus Mutasa, has put it:

"We would be better off with only six million people, with our own people
who support the liberation struggle. We don't want all these extra people".

Adolf Hitler could not have put it better!