From Rhodes to Rowland

Geoffrey Wheatcroft

Almost a hundred years ago Cecil Rhodes came here. His 'Pioneers' had already trecked to Mashonaland in the north where near a native kraal called Harari they pitched camp and named it Fort Salisbury, after the prime minister. The Mashona (whom pedants now say we should call the Shona) were as they are, the more numerous of the two peoples living between Zambesi to the north and Limpopo to the south, in what was sometimes called Zambesia, then became Southern Rhodesia, then Rhodesia, and is now Zim- babwe. To subjugate the Mashona was a comparatively easy task despite their numbers because they were subjugated already by their less numerous neighbours, the Matabele or Ndebele, a branch of the Zulus, who dominated Zambesia by fierce military strength.

Both peoples rose up against their white conquerors and were brutally suppressed. The conquest by force and fraud of the Matabele and of their great king Lobengula was a grand and tragic episode. Rhodes was a businessman who thought he knew how to handle Africans — not quite the last such. His dealings with Lobengula were, as even Rhodes's most doting biographers admit, not ones in which any pride could be taken. At all events, after the Matabele rising of 1893 had been first provoked and then crushed Rhodes came to Bulawayo, the site of one of the king's kraals, and built a house here. Lobengula vanished. Bulawayo became and until quite recently remained the commercial capital of Rhodesia, as well as the main city for the Matabele people. Rhodes is buried south of the town in the Matopos hills on an eminence with an ex- traordinary view, an ancient and revered burial site of Matabele kings.

Twenty-five years ago Evelyn Waugh came here and wrote one of the sharpest- eyed descriptions there are of Rhodesia. He saw the poignancy of Lobengula's story, he deplored Rhodes and the men, 'mostly scoundrels', whom he employed as his empire-builders, he gave the best answer in anticipation to those who talked of the superiority of white rule to what might suc- ceed it: 'Tribal wars and slavery were endemic before [whites] came; no doub

they will break out again h Meantime, under European rule in the first 40 years of this century there have been three long wars in Africa on a far larger scale than anything perpetrated larger scale spearmen, waged by white men against white; and a generation which has seen the Nazi regime in the heart of Europe had best stand silent when civilised and un- civilised nations are contrasted.' Four years ago Mr Denis Hills came here, he of The White Pumpkin, Amin's hostage. At Grey's Inn, a pleasant, battered old hotel, he met a friend. 'He predicted shooting ("it might come to civil war") bet- ween Nkomo's and Mugabe's soldiers. "The Ndebele call the Shona 'dogs'. They might try to secede. But",' this friend sen- sibly added, "'I'll stay on till the beer runs out."' Two years ago I came here and found that although civil war had not yet begun relations between the two peoples, Matabele, led by Mr Joshua Nkomo with his party Zapu and its former guerilla armY Zipra, and Mashona, led by Mr Robert Mugabe with his party Zanu (PF) and its

; '– former guerilla army Zanla, were on the

ch point of violence. This was just after the discovery of apparently secret arms caes, the sacking of Mr Nkomo from the cabinet and the announcement that he would he tried for treason, just before the arrest and trial of his lieutenants Mr Duni° Debengwa and Mr Lookout Maseru. At the time I reported on these events 1" an article (Spectator 6 March 1982) Publish- ed under the title, which I should not have chosen, 'The ruthless Mugabe', almost the only piece I have ever written which ha" any serious repercussions. It was, as they, say, brought to Mr Mugabe's attention and fliiicsndltiyspflnerastuhrnes;eitwchanusweedrecotanksiednertanbbleedrnney sources; I have been reminded of it more than once in the last few weeks by people who disapproved of what I wrote. sided ans the senseugseennosethhatthaltsmawy piiiercemwuagsaV,i foes — I dined with one of those about to be arrested, I remember, on Ash Wedne,s day of that year — rather than his friena as I said at the time. But rereading it I Of that it was surprisingly, depressingly 36: curate. It would have been better to styes es that there was wrong on both sides. The' are dissidents in Matabeleland. They range across a wide spectrum. Some never c. cepted the outcome of the elections twhhnisceh zMa pr uMmu geanb we ncanmbee tl ioe vpeo power (there aye wonderhat example of the conspiracy theory — _d Lord Soames and the British Army lotted the election result). Others subsequen _ , drifted out of the army from disaffecZ tion° or went into the bush unable to make a ga. of life after being demobbed from iPr Some dissidents are authentic political op- ponents of the regime, many are comm. theycriminals. There were arms caches; tn were not in fact particularly secret. But my main theme, that the 'revolutio c Volution,

had been followed by a falling-out on n pattern of Stalin and Trotsky, or Stalin and Tito, and that the consequences might be bloody, was all too near the mark. Since then Debengwa and Maseru were tried and acquitted but reimprisoned. Mr Nkomo is in noisy political exile. And a series of hor- rible campaigns against dissidents has been waged in Matabeleland. These campaigns are partly 'political' but they are also what is here much the same — tribal. One village which was recently being terrorised by the army was told that they had 'taken our women' — that is, in Lobengula's time.

Two weeks ago Mr Donald Trelford came here and saw some of this for himself. His report and its consequences have ap- parently been publicised at home with all the force of Fleet Street narcissism. But it was ironical that Mr Rowland in his Grand Remonstrance should have called the Observer 'a serious paper widely read in Africa'. The Observer may once have been, in Malcolm Muggeridge's phrase, a lot of central Europeans . writing about a lot of central Africans, but far from being widely read in Zimbabwe it is now along with the rest of the foreign press unobtainable here except in samizdat photocopies and in the British Council reading room, where the Observer of 15 April has disintegrated with use. If Mr Rowland had kept his cool, most of Zimbabwe might never have heard of Mr Trelford's report.

There are comical aspects to the Trelford and Rowland saga, not least in the person of Mr Godwin Matatu. He is the Harare- based correspondent who was imposed upon the Observer by Mr Rowland and who seems to have closer connections with Lonrho than with the newspaper. He cer- tainly has a mysterious entrée hither and yon — he turned up on the South African side at the signing of the Nkomati accord with Mozambique recently, a considerable privilege for a black journalist under the odious and humiliating South African dispensation. Beyond that Mr Matatu has been boasting that he was responsible for the `Kidoma declaration' which (and by the way very short-sightedly) forbade corres- pondents based in South Africa to come and report from neighbouring countries like Zimbabwe as they traditionally have. This revelation scarcely endeared Mr Matatu to his confreres and there was some glee at the report that 'when Matatu had gone off on other concerns' late in the even- ing, as one paper put it, Mr Trelford gave him the slip and went to meet the victims of the army's anti-dissident campaign.

Then the story ceases to be at all funny. Mr Rowland called Mr Trelford's report `discourteous', which I suppose it was, and `disingenious' (sic in the Harare Herald), which it may have been, and 'wrong', which it was not. The only dispute here is as to the number of people killed in the recent drive through South Matabeleleland by the notorious 5th Brigade — 'North Korean- trained', the British papers always add but it is also correct to say partly British- trained; that and the all-important question of who ordered the killings and beatings.

Will the government ever come clean and will anyone take the blame?

Probably not. Mr Mugabe is, yes, ruthless, but does not yet deserve to be por- trayed as a bloodthirsty monster. He simply does not know what he is doing, is out of control of events. The Matabele dissidents are a genuine problem but far from his most serious one. The drought has been calamitous especially in the south of the country, including South Matabeleland which is being to some degree starved into submission. The whole country's economy has been grievously affected and the South Africans have a tighter stranglehold than ever.

`Every person who is guilty of corruption lets us down in a big way,' Mr Mugabe declared at last week's independence celebrations. In that case 'we' are being let down awfully badly. Several corruption scandals are breaking or are about to break; one of the worst concerns the embezzlement of funds for drought relief. Recession might have brought more modest economic policies but large, new and fatuous buildings are still being planned for Harare. While people are starving the Chinese are

to build a 60,000-seat national stadium whose (initial, estimated) cost is to be $45 million. Zimbabwe will be home to another white elephant which no other nearby cowl: try wanted and about whose building, it is hinted, another whiff of corruption hang,s' Meanwhile, I wrote two years ago, the white Zimbabweans are watchful onlookers. I rightly suspected — it was easY enough to see — that there might be a rri°re comfortable place in the new Zimbabw' one-party state and all, for some whites than for many Matabele. Whites, in fact' farmers and administrators, are among tle fiercest critics of Zapu and without cluit,e saying so some are enthusiastic for the anti dissident campaigns. They remain at che incurioussame t m ea' the intestine strife among the M—ashinoctiniad; baosuWt naautgivherehmabairtkd, 'morbised1)

inside Zanu, which is also much vexing Mr Mugabe.

There have been several defectors frornf Mr. Smith's Republican Front, sorne ° whom may actually anticipate the one- part,Ye state by joining Zanu soon. Tribal wars at returning to Zambesia, but for the whites the beer has not yet run out.