Bitter Harvest

by Ian Smith

  In spite of that setback, we still beat the government candidate, who had the total support of the mass communications media and large financial backing. I suppose it was not surprising that the following day the editorial in the Herald, the country’s leading paper, recommended that Ian Smith be imprisoned. This went a bit further than their normal campaign against Smith and the Rhodesian Front — not surprising, though, as we were the only impediment to their plan for a one-party state, and must therefore be eliminated.

  Then in late November Janet and I went to the opening of an art exhibition by an up and coming artist whom we had never previously met. We arrived at 5.30 p.m. We were introduced and were looking around at about 5.45 p.m. when we were informed that the place was surrounded by police and that nobody was to leave. The invitation stated that I was to be the guest of honour, so clearly this was just another chapter in the campaign of intimidation. I went to the main entrance and questioned the police. ‘We know nothing, we are acting on orders from above,’ was the courteous reply. We decided simply to get on and view the paintings. However, by 7 p.m. there were a few people who wished to leave, so I went to the door and called for the policeman in charge. I told him that I had an appointment — was he telling me that I could not depart?

  ‘No, Mr Smith, you may leave if you wish.’

  ‘What about the others?’ I asked.

  ‘They may not leave.’

  I made it clear that I would be the last to depart. After a long discussion with those in charge of the operation, some in uniform, some in plain clothes, it was openly conceded that they were taking their instructions direct from the minister! Soon afterwards we were told we were to be taken to police headquarters for sworn statements. We were taken underground where all the drunks and prostitutes congregated. I was the first one in for interview and asked the man behind the desk what he wanted. He replied that while we were supposed to be attending an exhibition of art, the police had received information that we were actually talking politics. I told him the time scale proved his story was impossible. Our function started at 5.30 p.m., so if someone had started talking politics, by the time the message had got out, reached the police, had been referred to higher authority for a decision, and the operation planned, even with an efficient organisation it would have taken a couple of hours. Did he seriously expect me to believe that they could have done all this in fifteen minutes? He did not know where to look or what to say, and after a long pause gave me the truth: ‘We were acting on instruction from above.’

  I thanked him for giving me the facts, of which I had already been well aware, and then gave him the true story. My presence at the function was well known because of the invitation, and this was the sole cause of their action. Moreover, everyone knew I was a politician; I spoke politics every day. Could he give me chapter and verse of the law which made it a crime in our country for a politician to talk politics? It would have been unfair of me to continue rubbing it in. He quietly said: ‘I do not think it is necessary for me to detain you any more.’ I asked if that implied that the rest of our party could also go. ‘No,’ he replied, ‘our instructions are to take statements from everyone.’ It was 2 a.m. before the operation was completed.

  It was on the farm just before 6 a.m. on Saturday 4 December 1982, and I was outside talking to the manager about the day’s work, when three cars pulled in and a bunch of people got out, one man and two women in police uniform and the rest in plain clothes, twelve in all. The policeman said they had come to search my premises — I told him to get on with it. He said the two women would deal with my wife — I handed them over to Janet. They went through everything with a fine toothcomb, through drawers and wardrobes, under mattresses, under the floor, under pots and pans, through outside storerooms and barns. They even asked our old vegetable gardener if I had ever dug a hole and buried something and then asked him to plant vegetables on top! Anything more childishly vindictive it would be difficult to imagine. After about five hours they departed, and no matter how careful and considerate they had been, they left a disorganised mess behind. It was an unpleasant feeling, watching them fingering through our personal possessions and correspondence. As they left I asked if they were happy with what they had done. Once again the reply was simple and honest: ‘We just carry out instructions.’

  Mid-morning on Monday 6 December, two police cars arrived and the senior plain clothes man who was here for the previous event on the Saturday said they had come to take us to Salisbury for a search of our house there. I indicated that this was inconvenient, as I had my annual stud-bull sale in Gwelo the next day and therefore requested a delay until the following day. He went to his vehicle and radioed Salisbury — the answer was negative, as they wanted me there ‘today’. He gave an undertaking to have me back in good time for the next morning. We made our plans, had a snack lunch and briefed a few of our friends on what was taking place. The trip to Salisbury was uneventful until we drove into the centre of the city, when a car with TV camera drew up alongside us. This caused great consternation. They tried to wave the driver away, shielded us with a newspaper, reported the car number over the radio. Instead of going straight to our house, they made a bee-line to the main police camp. After a few minutes the driver returned with instructions to go to the house. Because of their panic action, the press had time to get there first and when we arrived there were about a dozen cars and forty press men waiting. Our driver did an immediate U-turn and roared back to the police station, where we remained until a detachment was sent to clear the ‘mob’ away from our house! When we eventually returned, there were still a few press men there arguing with the police. I went out and talked to them, and one commented that, if they had simply driven into our house the first time, the story would have been one inch on an inside page, but because of their circus it would now become front page with yards of TV coverage. The search was much the same as at the farm, and took about four hours. In addition, they took away all my diaries and private writing. But knowing where I lived these days, it was better not to get worked up over these things. After the police left, the media people were on the spot and about a dozen of them came in for a chat and a few photographs. It was after midnight by the time they left, and we were due to rise at 5 a.m.

  The next day, 7 December, we arrived back in Gwelo in good time and the press and TV were at the sale yards. We spent a happy morning among friends and had a successful bull sale. We went back to the farm for a late lunch and we were looking forward to some peace and rest after a few hectic days. But the OC Selukwe police arrived with one of his men to collect my guns. They took the two shotguns we used for crop protection and snakes, a .303 rifle used occasionally to frighten leopards, which killed our calves, and my old air force revolver, a Smith and Wesson, which was easy to carry when I was riding or walking through the bush. Having explained to the policeman that they were necessary for my farming operations, I asked whether they were trying to drive me off the land. He replied: ‘These are my instructions direct from Salisbury.’

  ‘Do they think I am planning a coup?’ He just looked the other way. I felt sorry for him. They were now under the control of a Minister of Home Affairs, by the name of Ushewokunze. His first portfolio had been Health, and he had succeeded in destroying that by driving out doctors and nursing sisters through his arrogant and insulting behaviour. In this new position he found himself restrained by a well-trained disciplined police force which acted within the law. To overcome this problem, he had assumed the duties of Commissioner of Police, with the main objective of eliminating opposition to the government. As a result many members of the police force were resigning. This, however, played into his hands as their positions were filled by ‘loyal comrades’.

  At a party executive meeting on 6 February 1983 in Bulawayo, I found growing concern over the government’s increasingly ruthless methods of intimidation. Because there were clear indications that they were losing their support from the people, they were blatantly embarkin
g on a campaign to subjugate all opposition. A number of white men, and sometimes their wives as well, had been arrested and thrown into prison for a night and day, and sometimes a weekend, before being interrogated on totally fictitious grounds — having been seen, for instance, in conversation with Matabele politicians who were not government supporters!

  I continued to be one of their main targets, and one morning the head of the division dealing with passports, one of our old civil servants, arrived at the front door and, obviously embarrassed, said he had the unpleasant task of asking me to surrender my passport. I smiled and asked him to wait for a minute while I collected it. They were acting in conflict with our declaration of rights and constitution, and against internationally accepted convention, but they knew they could get away with these things.

  A year previously, in August 1982, there had been an attack on our air force base at Gwelo, in the Midlands Province, and a number of aircraft damaged. It was a tragic and senseless action, not in the interests of our country or its people, especially the white community and the air force in particular. The officer commanding, his deputy and four senior officers, were immediately arrested, tortured and incarcerated in our high-security prison. Eventually they were brought to trial and when the High Court acquitted all six, they were immediately re-arrested and imprisoned. The judgment was a dreadful indictment on the police and lower courts. Their barbaric torture, deceit, falsification, incompetence and general inhuman behaviour were all spelt out and underlined. These poor officers were clearly and obviously innocent. Not only were they 300 kilometres distant from the scene of the crime, but no pilot will deliberately destroy the aircraft he loves and lives with. They had been imprisoned for a year and subjected to the most savage cruelty, and then this! The hopes and joys and then anguish of their wives and families! But not one of our free world ‘friends’ raised a finger in protest.

  It would involve tedious repetition if I were to continue quoting cases of the government’s ongoing campaign of intimidation against their political opponents. The economy continued to run down, with the sad result that unemployment was mounting, for the obvious reason that no one was going to invest in a country where the government was openly committed to communism.

  The next item on the top of the government’s agenda was to tighten up the Electoral Act. It remained to be seen how far they would go with legislation which would allow them to rig the election. There seemed little doubt that if the election were free and fair ZANU(PF) (Mugabe) would be out. But — I remember, going back a few years now, speaking to one of the government ministers who had a university degree and clearly was no fool. ‘You are an intelligent person,’ I said. ‘How can you support a failed policy like communism?’ After thinking for a few moments he replied: ‘It has nothing to do with the philosophy of communism, which is foreign to us black people. What appealed to us most over our induction into communism was the firm instruction that: “Once you become the government, you remain the government for ever”.’ I had often been surprised at his forthcoming frankness, but he was at his best with this admission.

  The position was made absolutely clear in the final sitting of Parliament before the general election, which it had been proclaimed would take place on 27 June 1985. The legislation passed was a complete travesty of justice, fair play and the concept of democracy. Finally, in order to ensure absolute power to manipulate anything and everything, the President was given the right to ‘declare anything done illegally to be legal, and anything done legally to be illegal, and if he thinks any election result to be wrong he may declare it null and void’.

  Unfortunately, we had two withdrawals from our candidates’ panel, both for the same reason. They were involved in trade and industry and had received a positive message that if they continued their support for our party they would suffer adverse economic consequences. As the government was nationalising more and more industry and commerce and assuming greater control of the economy, this facilitated its ability to pressurise people. Increasingly we were being confronted by the fact that, in addition to physical intimidation, there was a new force available to totalitarian governments: economic intimidation.

  I had recently heard Bishop Muzorewa in a BBC broadcast complaining that his party was being denied permission to hold meetings and that ZANU(PF) thugs were beating up his supporters. He said Zimbabwe in 1985 was like Uganda under Idi Amin!

  I started campaign meetings on 13 June, and there was no respite until after election day on the 27th. The final results were out by the afternoon of the 28th and we won fifteen of the twenty white reserved seats. It was a great victory and even attracted coverage in the overseas media because the local press had predicted that we would be totally eliminated. Not only were they vicious in their criticism against us, both press and broadcasting, but they refused to accept any advertisement from us. If the election had been truly free and fair, I believe we would have won all twenty seats.

  Mugabe’s rage was violent and unconcealed. His appearance on TV was predictable; he rebuked the white community for supporting our party and threatened them with dire consequences. This, in spite of the fact that there were many government advertisements urging the electorate to vote and ensuring them that the vote was free. Now that they had done precisely what was requested, they were faced with a barrage of insults and condemnation. He referred to the Lancaster House constitution as a ‘dirty little piece of paper’, which he had no intention of observing. This was a different story from five years previously — in 1980 — when he had supported it as the vehicle which was to bring him into power.

  The election of black members took place a week later, and as the results came in ZANU(PF) were not doing as well as expected. On the morning of 6 July P.K. van der Byl arrived with a message from the governing party. They were concerned that they might not win as many seats as anticipated, and that this would reduce the number of their appointees to the Senate. Would we co-operate, they asked, by appointing three of their candidates — Dennis Norman and two others. Because of our majority of the white seats in the Lower House, we controlled the appointment of a certain number of senators. I agreed to Norman but said we should be given details of the other two, and P.K. concurred. Norman had served as an able Minister of Agriculture in the previous government.

  By the following day, with all the results declared, however, they obtained the necessary number of seats and the request for our assistance was withdrawn. P.K.’s contact commented that they were relieved to be spared the embarrassment of putting themselves in a position where they would be seen to be talking to us. Politically this would be worse than death! They were soon back to their tactics of hurling abuse at our white community because they had the temerity to do what they had been urged to do: use their free vote! Clearly, their intention was to eliminate our party, and they resorted to the most unscrupulous means to achieve their objective.

  In order to avoid provocation — and this was always our policy — some time ago we decided to abandon our party name, the Rhodesian Front, and contested the recent election as Conservative Alliance Zimbabwe (CAZ). However, this in no way altered the government’s attitude — all opposition had to be eliminated. Moreover, this applied to blacks as well as whites. Nkomo and the Matabeles were Mugabe’s main target, for obvious reasons. The political influence of our white community could be eliminated constitutionally in 1990, in keeping with the Lancaster House agreement, but the Matabeles, approximately 20 per cent of the population, would remain for ever.

  The problem erupted in the latter half of 1982, when the Matabeles started complaining that their part of the country was being infiltrated by, and their top jobs given to, Mashonas — Mugabe’s people. In certain areas there was open unrest, resulting in the ejection of Nkomo from the cabinet and the arrest of about sixty of his supporters, including his two top military leaders, Dumiso Dabengwa and Lookout Masuku. This was followed by the invasion of Matabeleland by Mugabe’s notorious North Korean-trained s
oldiers, who ran amok and killed an estimated 30,000 Matabeles. Vast areas of the country were placed under curfew, with no admittance to visitors or the press. Because of world interest and reaction, which continued only for a brief period, the campaign became more insidious, with transport and food being denied to selected rural areas. There were numerous reports of children and pregnant women suffering from malnutrition and, in some cases, starving to death. Those Matabeles who continued their open support for ZAPU and Nkomo were picked up after dark and never seen again — as one report stated: ‘The political slogan in Zimbabwe these days is “Dead men tell no tales”.’

  In the run-up to the 1985 election there were many attacks on ZAPU pockets of support in Harare (formerly Salisbury) and Gweru (formerly Gwelo). It was not surprising that some of the constituencies around Gweru, an area dividing Matabeleland and Mashonaland, which were held by ZAPU in the last Parliament, had been won over to ZANU(PF). The campaign of intimidation to eliminate all opposition, however, continued and a report published 9 July 1985 stated:

  Spurred on by last week’s election victory, thousands of Mugabe supporters yesterday continued a rampage against opposition party supporters. In Mufakose township more than 500 ZANU(PF) women’s league members attacked the homes of opposition supporters, throwing their furniture and belongings into the street. Many homes had their doors and windows smashed and many families were forced to spend the night in the street because their attackers had locked the doors and taken the keys. It was reported that three people had died in the violence. The police appeared powerless to intervene. One policeman admitted that he had no powers to act against the demonstrators. Joshua Nkomo, the main opposition leader, condemned the violence, saying he believed it was the start of a campaign for a one-party state.