Mugabe won’t stop raids

President Robert Mugabe will not intervene to end the current wave of invasions of private companies by his supporters, the ‘Financial Gazette’ reported on Thursday, quoting information minister Jonathan Moyo. “Instead of seeking President Robert Mugabe’s intervention, the CZI (Confederation of Zimbabwe Industry) leadership should seek to meet the workers who have genuine grievances and try to address them,” he said. Moyo added that Mugabe would not step in to end the crisis. The CZI is the country’s biggest umbrella body for exporters and manufacturers.

“The CZI is continuing to exaggerate the crisis, but the war veterans have made clear that they will not allow impostors to hijack the genuine grievances of workers which they are trying to solve,” Moyo told the ‘Financial Gazette’. The veterans, who are spearheading Mugabe’s campaign for crucial elections due next year, have in the past two months raided several private firms and foreign NGO’s and kidnapped bosses who they accuse of backing the opposition or ill-treating workers. A CZI spokesperson told IRIN that they remained very concerned about the raids and that they were continuing to talk to government about the problem.

In the ensuing disturbances, some companies have been forced to close down after paying millions of Zimbabwean dollars to buy their peace while others are downscaling operations. Economist John Robertson told IRIN that at least 250 separate companies had recently been invaded by mobs. Robertson said the subsidiary of one major Western company was recently forced to pay out more than US $218,000 to threatening war veterans.
Zed Rusike, the president of the CZI, this week urged Mugabe to intervene to end the lawlessness which he said was bound to cause more company closures, stave off the limited investment coming into Zimbabwe and suffocate the crisis-ridden economy. “We believe that if the president of the land makes a statement, at least those involved are bound to listen,” Rusike said. “If he doesn’t make a statement, then I think the problem is going to continue and we are worried that the longer that continues the more nails that we are putting into the coffin of industry,” he said.

Zimbabwe has been thrown into crisis in the past three years by runaway state spending which has fuelled record inflation and interest rates, joblessness and mass poverty. Rusike said his organisation had failed to meet the ministers of labour, home affairs, finance and industry to discuss the invasions. The raids have triggered a visible split within Mugabe’s cabinet, rocked last week by the resignation of industry minister Nkosana Moyo. Analysts have said the raids were an attempt to try to whip up support for Mugabe, whose ZANU-PF party lost virtually all urban seats to the opposition in last June’s ballot, ahead of the presidential poll which must be held by April 2002.