Madondo: Canada must protect Zimbabweans

The Conservative government’s recent decision to lift the 10-year temporary suspension of removals for Zimbabwean nationals is as unusual as it is cruel.

I came to Canada as a political refugee from Zimbabwe in 2003. The lifting of the suspension doesn’t affect me personally, but I fear for each of the 300 Zimbabweans who now faces deportation. Canada has a moral duty to protect them. The government must restore the suspension and put the Zimbabweans on the path to citizenship.

Canada would benefit from granting the Zimbabweans citizenship. From January 2015 on, our new immigration system will offer “express entry” to “qualified economic immigrants.” After multiple years in Canada, the Zimbabweans have accumulated the necessary job skills, work experience and language abilities to write yet another immigrant success story in Canada.

The government’s claim that conditions in Zimbabwe “have improved” and that “there is no longer a generalized risk to the entire civilian population” is questionable.

In September, the International Crisis Group described Zimbabwe’s situation as “ever more precarious.” Freedom House, a U.S.-based organization dedicated to political freedoms, says the re-election of President Robert Mugabe, 90, to another 5-year term as the leader of the ruling ZANU-PF party is “troubling for the democratic process.”

Ibbo Mandaza, the head of the Southern African Political and Economic Series Trust think-tank, recently predicted that “things will fall apart” due to Mugabe, who has ruled Zimbabwe for the last 34 years, being re-elected.

Zimbabwe’s complex political crisis transcends state-sponsored violence, targeting democracy and rights activists. All Zimbabweans are captive to a pervasive culture of violence and intimidation. In fact, Zimbabwe currently faces its gravest political crisis since gaining independence from British colonial rule in 1980, exacerbated by ZANU-PF’s ongoing contemplation of life after Mugabe.

Last week, Mugabe fired Vice President Joice Mujuru. According to Freedom House, Mujuru was “a force for moderation.” Her sacking “risks sparking further instability.”

Mujuru’s successor, now Mugabe’s apparent successor, Emmerson Mnangagwa, is a securocrat and carbon copy of the tyrant. Nicknamed “Ngwena” or “Crocodile” for his penchant for violence and ruthlessness political maneuvering, he’s already used the security forces to circumvent democracy.

During Zimbabwe’s disputed 2008 presidential election, opposition candidate Morgan Tsvangirai beat Mugabe in the first round, but failed to garner the required majority to be declared outright winner. Working with the Joint Operations Command, the country’s supreme security body, Mnangagwa unleashed a nation-wide campaign of violence that forced Tsvangirai to quit the race to save lives.

As Mugabe’s national security minister in the 1980s, Mnangagwa directed the Fifth Brigade, a North Korea-trained outfit accused of massacring 20,000 civilians from the Ndebele-speaking ethnic minority.

Mujuru’s ouster witnessed the deployment of the methods of violence normally reserved for external opponents. She was fired after first lady Grace Mugabe accused her of plotting to assassinate Mugabe. Margaret Dongo, who rebelled against ZANU-PF in the 1990s and has lately been deconstructing the first family in the local media, recently received multiple death threats.

The common denominator in Zimbabwean politics is violence. That’s true for both ZANU-PF and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).

Tsvangirai has contributed to Zimbabwe’s culture of violence. Since 2005, his Mugabe-esque leadership has repeatedly fractured the MDC and fuelled ZANU-PF-style violence. He now heads the MDC-T, the largest of the opposition party’s three main factions.

In April, the faction split when former secretary general, Tendai Biti, and scores of elected MPs formed another faction, the MDC Renewal Team. The rebels accused Tsvangirai of the “complete Zanufication” of the MDC.

The Armed Conflict Location and Event Dataset (ACLED), which documents conflicts across Africa, says the MDC factions’ attacks on civilians eclipsed those of the ruling party in 2014.

Deporting Zimbabweans to such an uncertain future would be cruel.

Obert Madondo is an Ottawa-based blogger.