Zimbabwe: Rising Racial Tensions

Mugabe takes a hard line against dissidents and saboteurs

Since Prime Minister Robert Mugabe's black majority government took office in 1980, Zimbabwe has been haunted by the prospect of renewed racial strife between the dominant blacks and the whites, who make up less than 3% of the population but who still play a leading role in the country's economy. In recent months, whites have claimed that they were gradually being discriminated against by the government. Mugabe has increased the tension by charging that some of Zimbabwe's 180,000 whites are plotting against his administration. He has also announced harsh new measures to deal with suspected political dissidents and saboteurs, a move that led many whites to fear a new wave of racial repression.

The immediate cause of Mugabe's crackdown was the explosion on Dec. 18 that ripped through the downtown Salisbury headquarters of his ruling Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-P.F.). Incredibly, no one in the office building was killed by the bomb, but seven bystanders died, and some 120 people were injured.

Salisbury police have been unable to determine who planted the explosive. While not directly accusing whites, Mugabe blamed the "destabilization" in the country on the acts of those who had served the white government of former Prime Minister Ian Smith as it fought to prevent blacks from taking over what was then known as Rhodesia. Mugabe claimed that some of these counterinsurgency and sabotage specialists were still in the army and the police force. Said he: "We will take action against them. We are justified now." On New Year's Eve, three white police officers were arrested for allegedly maintaining arms caches in their homes.

Mugabe will enforce his new hard line by extending emergency regulations to allow the government to confiscate without a trial the property or assets of suspected dissidents. The tactic was immediately criticized by white lawyers. Said one Salisbury attorney: "There is no real right of appeal. The regulations can be used to punish anyone the government doesn't like." Added a white government official who is planning to leave the country: "The government keeps accusing whites of being responsible for acts of sabotage, but has so far produced not a scrap of public evidence. They'll probably resort to taking away people's property just to prove they are on top of things."

Mugabe has also vowed to impose a code of good conduct that would ban government officials and party leaders, most of whom are black, from owning farms or businesses. Still, his new crackdown has further alienated whites, who are already resentful of reforms aimed at improving the lot of the country's 7 million blacks. White Zimbabweans have endured heavy taxes to finance those reforms and watched as bastions of white privilege—notably the health-care and educational systems—were expanded to benefit blacks.