The Internal Security System

The collapse of white settler rule was in itself a profound event in Zimbabwe. The political system opened: outlawed political parties were legalized, universal suffrage announced, procedures for free competitive elections established, and civil and political rights extended to the black majority. Yet an analysis centered on these changes may obscure important political continuities. Formal democratic structures are perhaps less central indicators of the substance of a political order than the sharpness of the state's cutting edge, its structures of coercive control. The literature on decolonization has often overlooked this point.

[13] At the end of 1987, six African nations had military regimes, thirty-five had oneparty systems, and ten had multi-party systems. On variations in authoritarian rule in Africa, see R. Collier, Regimes ; Rhoda Howard, Human Rights in Commonwealth Africa (Totowa, N.J.: Rowman and Littlefield, 1986); Robert H. Jackson and Carl G. Rosberg, Personal Rule in Black Africa (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982).

There is a basic continuity in the core of state power in Rhodesia and Zimbabwe. The essential features of Rhodesia's internal security apparatus remain: it possesses tremendous power and institutional autonomy, displays a partisan bias against opponents of the regime, and operates in a consistently repressive fashion. In short, the development of internal security structures in Zimbabwe has been a continuous process, punctuated by the transfer of power to a popularly elected government in 1980.

At the same time, the moment of independence signaled its official legitimation. The regime proclaims that the security branch has acquired a universalistic ethos, and it appears to have more extensive popular support.^[14] The official doctrine of national security now cites defense of the majoritarian order as a moral basis for Zimbabwe's security institutions and emergency powers. Security of the white minority has given way to security of the majority; the police force is frequently referred to as a "people's police," committed to serving the masses; the army is presented as an "army of the majority" instead of an instrument of domination; and the state of emergency that once protected white supremacy now "comes from the people and is directed to protect their interests."^[15] According to the Home Affairs minister, the "state of emergency promotes rather than diminishes our freedom and independence";^[16] the oppressive violence of the Rhodesian state has been replaced with the new regime's "transformative violence" in "the service of our people."^[17] In a nutshell, the Government uses the language of majoritarian democracy to justify repressive controls.^[18]

Zimbabwe's political leaders take an instrumentalist view of the inherited security system. Security legislation and agencies are seen as neutral instruments that are conveniently available and amenable to the incumbent executive, which may use them to foster the "transformation into a just, egalitarian, wealthy society."^[19] The contrast with official discourse—and, to some degree, practice—in postcolonial Mozambique

[14] No survey of public attitudes on security laws and practices exists, but impressionistic data suggest that Zimbabwe is building legitimation. My review of the magazine of the Zimbabwe Republic Police, Outpost, from 1980 to 1987 found ministerial comments urging recruits to dispel public mistrust and suspicion of the police, who seem to be associated with the old British South African Police.

[15] Minister of Home Affairs, Assembly Debates, vol. 5, 13 July 1982, col. 627.

[16] Minister of Home Affairs, Assembly Debates, vol. 11, 16 January 1985, col. 1209.

[17] Minister of Home Affairs, Assembly Debates, vol. 6, 19 January 1983, col. 859.

[18] Alves documents a similar disparity in Brazil (Maria Alves, State and Opposition in Military Brazil [Austin: University of Texas Press, 1985], p. 31).

[19] Minister of Home Affairs, Assembly Debates, vol. 7, 13 July 1983, col. 416.

is striking.^[20] For example, Mozambique's former president, Samora Machel, declared, "This state, this power, these laws are not neutral techniques or instruments which can be equally well used by the enemy [the Portuguese colonial regime] or by us.... We cannot serve the masses by governing with state powers designed to oppress the masses."^[21] According to this essentialist view, security institutions inherited from an authoritarian regime are structurally and ideologically inclined to act repressively.

If the official raison d'être for Zimbabwe's security system has changed since independence, its organization has changed little. The security apparatus remains large, powerful, and insulated. Decision making is dominated by an inner Cabinet;^[22] it includes the prime minister (now the president), Minister of State for Security, Minister of State for Defense, and Minister of Home Affairs.^[23] They, along with top security officers, constitute the commanding heights of the security core (see Figure 1).

Since independence the ruling party, the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU), has held that it is politically supreme. ZANU's 1984 congress established a Politburo and five new standing committees of a Central Committee, whose mandate is to supervise and administer ministries and secure the authority of the party over the Government. In law and in practice, however, ZANU is secondary to the executive branch: the Cabinet determines whether and how party resolutions are to be implemented. President Robert Mugabe himself admitted at the 1988 congress that ZANU's supremacy over the Government "has not been achieved."^[24] Supporting evidence can be found in some of the most important policy decisions: against ZANU's wishes, the Cabinet has moved very slowly in resettling peasants on formerly white-owned land;^[25] the Government did not abolish the reserved white seats in Parlia-

[20] The pressures of the long and devastating guerrilla war in Mozambique help to explain the emergence of new forms of authoritarianism since independence (see William Finnegan, "The Emergency: II," The New Yorker, 29 May 1989).

[21] Quoted in my article, "In Search of Regime Security: Zimbabwe since Independence," Journal of Modern African Studies 22, no. 4 (December 1984): 555.

[22] Eric Marsden, "Mugabe in 'Super-ZAPU' Clash," Sunday Times, 20 March 1983. The executive consists of a pragmatic technocratic faction and a radical populist one. Libby notes that technocrats have tended to dominate decision making, particularly on economic issues (Ronald T. Libby, "Developmental Strategies and Political Divisions within the Zimbabwean State," in The Political Economy of Zimbabwe, ed. M. Schatzberg [Praeger: New York, 1984]).

[23] Interview with Minister of State for Security, Commerce, April 1983, p. 4.

[24] Quoted in Colin Stoneman and Lionel Cliffe, Zimbabwe: Politics, Economics, and Society (London: Pinter, 1988), p. 80.

[25] By 1988 only 41,000 families had been resettled, out of a target figure of 162,000.

Figure  1.
Structure of the Security System (1987).

ment before the constitutionally stipulated date of 1987; the Government has postponed declaring a one-party state despite sustained party pressure since 1980. Yet relations between party and Government elites are generally harmonious, partly because ZANU's Politburo and standing committees contain prominent ministers and deputy ministers.^[26] Their presence suggests that the Politburo combines both groups into a power elite; its overlapping membership helps minimize disagreement in the upper echelons. When these elites conflict with lower-level ZANU cadres over security matters, the Government usually prevails. A former Minister of Home Affairs described a typical exchange.

There have been pressures from the party for the Government to take certain lines of security, but the Government hasn't always done so. There has been tremendous pressure to ban ZAPU [the Zimbabwe African People's Union] and have a one-party state. The Government said it wanted to follow the rules.... Many in the party thought Nkomo [the ZAPU leader] should be detained, but the Government didn't want to. It was a difficult position for the Government to be in.^[27]

Following in the footsteps of other African nations, Zimbabwe has progressively Africanized its security system, staffing it largely with members of the Shona ethnic group, which is linked to ZANU. Since independence the number of whites in the police force, military, and intelligence agencies has dwindled to a handful. Members of the Ndebele ethnic group have little better representation. They do not receive promotion to top ranks in the police and very few serve in the intelligence service. The military is roughly one-third Ndebele, but Shona officers hold the command posts.^[28]

Africanization has helped to overcome the previous racial configuration of the security branch. But this changing of the guard has had little impact on the system's structure, organizational interests and proclivities, resources, and modus operandi. In other postcolonial states, Africanization has rarely led to the liberalization of institutions of control. In Zimbabwe, two special personnel factors are relevant. The black personnel in the security sector come primarily from the ranks of exguerrillas who fought against the settler regime or "rehabilitated" of-

[26] In the state's first years, the Central Committee met infrequently; there was a "tendency to determine issues in Cabinet" rather than risk debate in the party (Africa Confidential, 3 March 1982; Claire Palley, "What Future for Zimbabwe?" Political Quarterly 51, no. 3 [July 1980]: 294). The growth of greater party influence has been slow (interview with Edgar Tekere, MOTO, July 1984, p. 5).

[27] Interview with author, 10 June 1987.

[28] Africa Confidential, 27 March 1985, p. 4.

ficials who served that regime. It is not uncommon for state personnel to remain after a political transition; many top elites now in the CIO, the Ministry of Home Affairs, and the police are blacks who began their careers in the 1960s or 1970s. They, like the few remaining whites in these departments, apparently see themselves as professionals prepared to serve any government. But neither ex-guerrillas nor officials from the old regime tend to show special sensitivity to standards of human rights. The ex-combatants are war-hardened, and the surviving officials were trained under an authoritarian order. The Government apparently sees the new recruits differently, judging by a comment of the Home Affairs minister: "ex-combatants ... are excellent recruits because they already have military knowledge and the necessary political orientation to police a dynamic and changing society."^[29]

The Rhodesian Ministries of Law and Order and Internal Affairs have been dismantled, with their security functions and policing transferred to the Ministry of Home Affairs.^[30] Home Affairs operates in a manner reminiscent of the Ministry of Law and Order—in part because it administers many of the same statutes. One former ranking Home Affairs official stated, "In the overall administration of law and order policy, I don't think there has been a great deal of change."^[31]

Since independence, the ministry's budget allocation has grown substantially (see Table 2). Absorbing over 90 percent of the funding, the Zimbabwe Republic Police force numbers fifteen thousand, plus three thousand in the Police Support Unit.^[32] The former paramilitary role of the regular police has become less prominent, but three units deal with internal security: the Police Intelligence and Security Inspectorate, the Police Support Unit, and the Criminal Investigation Division. Policing features some important continuities with the Rhodesian past, as a former ranking officer in the ministry emphasized: "The machinery of the police and their training goes on much as it did in the past. Training is very similar and police methods are much the same as they were."^[33] They enforce, inter alia, the security legislation inherited from the old regime—which partly explains why the force has had difficulty over-

[29] Speech delivered at senior officers' seminar, reprinted in Outpost, September-October 1982, p. 11.

[30] "Ministry of Home Affairs," mimeo, D12/47a (c. 1984), p. 1.

[31] Interview with author, 2 June 1987.

[32] The Military Balance, 1986–1987 (London: International Institute for Strategic Studies, 1986). Increases in expenditure do not necessarily indicate sinister fortification but may stem from organizational rationalization; for the police, some funding is for improved training of personnel, but the bulk is for salaries and allowances.

[33] Former senior Home Affairs official, interview, 2 June 1987.

coming the punic's suspicion and mistrust and disassociating itself from the old British South African Police.^[34]

There is evidence that some priorities of the police have been politically influenced by officials of the ruling party and that the force has become increasingly politicized and deferential to ZANU officials.^[35] Party membership may not be a requirement for promotion within the force, but officers are encouraged to become members and ministers sometimes stress the proper political role of the force. One Minister of Home Affairs, for example, told police officers:

[34] The police magazine, Outpost, often reprints official complaints about this problem.

[35] Arnold Woolley, "Recruiting for Trouble" Police Review, 29 August 1986 and 5 September 1986.

the proposition that a police force is neutral and apolitical must be stood on its head.... No army, police, and judiciary are, or can be, apolitical.... Politicization of the police force will enhance the removal of colonial hangover [sic ].^[36]

A successor issued similar instructions: "You must make every effort to be fully informed of the government policy and above all Party policy ... and ideology in order to ... implement that policy.^[37]

One particularly controversial arm of the police, under the direction of the Home Affairs minister, is the Police Internal Security and Intelligence Unit. It is exclusively concerned with investigating and gathering intelligence on the activities of insurgents and their civilian supporters.^[38] This elite unit is known for its mistreatment of suspects in custody and harassment of ZAPU officials.^[39]

The quality of policing by regular officers in Matabeleland has also been a problem. According to an Amnesty International report in 1985, "Conditions in police stations in Zimbabwe are reported to be generally poor, with severe overcrowding, poor food, lack of bedding, and no exercise. Prisoners are reported to be beaten [and tortured] both by the police and by CIO interrogators."^[40] Incidents of police torture reportedly declined after the appearance of Amnesty's report, due to the circulation throughout the police of instructions forbidding torture; at the same time, however, police posts in Matabeleland were filled with strongly anti-ZAPU officers.^[41]

In 1980 the Special Branch of the police was removed from police jurisdiction and fully integrated into the Central Intelligence Organization (CIO). The CIO also lost its direct access to the prime minister and is now accountable to the Minister of State for Security. Most important, the CIO's basic structure and criteria for evaluating threats and making policy recommendations were not overhauled. Initially the Government

[36] Speech delivered at senior officers' seminar, reprinted in Outpost, SeptemberOctober 1982, pp. 10–11.

[37] Speech by the minister reprinted in Outpost, May-June 1986, p. 6.

[38] Assembly Debates, vol. 13, 21 August 1986, cols. 1035–36.

[39] Africa Confidential, 11 December 1985; David Caute, "Mugabe Moves to OneParty Rule," The Nation, 22 February 1986, p. 204.

[40] Amnesty International, Detention without Trial of Political Prisoners in Zimbabwe (London: Amnesty International, September 1985), p. 3; see also Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, Zimbabwe: Wages of War (New York: Lawyers Committee, 1986), pp. 89, 109.

[41] Africa Watch, Zimbabwe: A Break with the Past? (New York: Africa Watch, 1989), pp. 19, 41.

envisioned some change in the organization; these plans never materialized, as the CIO director disclosed:

When Munangagwa [the Security minister] asked me to stay in office for at least the two-year period it would take to reconstruct CIO, I agreed but maintained that there was little need for change.... Munangagwa left the professional control of CIO to me.... This made for very little change in Intelligence functioning, and as far as the rank and file of CIO were concerned there was virtually no change in executive or administrative control.^[42]

Modifications in the intelligence apparatus since independence have not liberalized it. Previously the Special Branch would arrest and the CIO would interrogate suspects; today CIO operatives have both powers of arrest and interrogation and often use them with disregard for due process of law. Since independence, the agency has been linked to scores of incidents of torture, political kidnapping, and harsh interrogation practices. The tremendous autonomy and freedom of action that it enjoyed under the Rhodesian state remains.

The CIO's budget climbed from Z$5.7 million in 1980–1981 to an estimated Z$38.3 million in 1986–1987.^[43] Parliament does not debate this funding (as it does other departmental budgets); questions that MPs have raised about its allocations have been ruled out of order by the Speaker of the Assembly. Moreover, it is the only part of the budget exempt from auditing by the Comptroller and Auditor General.^[44] The quantum jump in the CIO's budget, its merger with the Special Branch, and its prominent role in internal security suggest that the agency may be even more formidable than under settler rule.^[45]

What about the military? For one thing, it is larger than that of most other African states, partly because it kept many former guerrillas in uniform after 1980. As of 1986, the army numbered 41,000, the air force 1,000, and paramilitary forces 38,000.^[46] Changes within the army have involved Africanizing the force; integrating previously hostile

[42] Ken Flower, Serving Secretly: An Intelligence Chief on Record, London: John Murray, 1987, p. 272. In late 1984 a commission was formed to advise the Government on recruitment, training, and intelligence systems; its recommendations were implemented only to a limited extent (Africa Confidential, 5 September 1984, p. 8; former CIO officer, interview with author, 17 June 1987).

[43] Estimates of Expenditure lists CIO's budget under Special Services, Prime Minister's Office.

[44] Assembly Debates, vol. 12, 1 August 1985, col. 147.

[45] Frederick Ehrenreich, "National Security," in Zimbabwe: A Country Study, ed. H. Nelson (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1983), p. 278.

[46] Military Balance, 1986–1987 . Decidedly pro-ZANU grass-roots "people's militias" (totaling twenty thousand members) have formed and been given paramilitary training to defend their communities against subversives.

armed forces and dismantling the more notorious units of the old regime (like the Selous Scouts and the Special Air Services); and retraining troops by a British advisory team.

The nominal integration of ZANLA, ZIPRA, and the Rhodesian military forces has not produced an ethnically or racially balanced defense force. The military has been Africanized and is now dominated by the Shona ethnic group and staunch ZANU loyalists. Former Rhodesian ofricers have resigned. Although roughly one-third of the rank and file is ex-ZIPRA, the top ranks have been purged of former ZIPRA men (some have been arrested on charges of supporting antigovernment insurgents). The celebrated integration of the three antagonistic forces has, therefore, been more apparent than real.

The retraining of troops by the British Military Advisory and Training Team (BMATT) has centered on converting a guerrilla force with an insurgent ideology and modus operandi into an apolitical, professional force with conventional capabilities. However, the Mugabe Government has moved to politicize the military and to ensure that it is run by ZANU loyalists. Top military officers are members of ZANU's Politburo and Central Committee, helping to make "the military a hidden arm of the party."^[47] One of the few solid studies of Zimbabwe's military concludes that the trend toward professionalization cannot compete with that toward sectarianism: there is a "constant tension between military professionals and ethnic praetorians," with the latter acting as "a constant brake on formal professionalism." According to Evans, "comprehensive Western-style professionalization of the armed forces is unlikely to occur."^[48] In short, the military has replaced one form of sectarianism with another, moving from white racial to black ethnic commitments. Communal reorientation, not liberalization, has occurred.

Defense expenditure has mushroomed under the new regime, jumping 28 percent from 1985–1986 to 1986–1987 alone. The army absorbs approximately 80 percent of this allocation, with the remainder going to the Ministry of Defense, the air force, and paramilitary forces.^[49] Zimbabwe spends around 5 percent of its gross domestic product on defense (3.5 percent is the average for developing countries).^[50] Defense expenditure absorbs a growing proportion of the total budget (see Table 2), and

[47] Mike Evans, "Gukurahundi: The Development of the Zimbabwe Defense Forces 1980–1987," Strategic Review for Southern Africa 10, no. 1 (May 1988): 25.

[48] Ibid., pp. 3, 30, 1.

[49] Estimates of Expenditure .

[50] Military Balance; The Economist, 21 April 1984, p. 9.

the defense proportion increasingly approaches that in 1978 and 1979, at the height of the Rhodesian war.

Whereas the first budget (1980–1981) emphasized spending for development and social services, subsequent ones decreased funding for social programs and increased spending for security. Inflation and the cost of demobilizing and supporting thirty-five thousand ex-guerrillas for two years have contributed to the rising security allocations. More recently, a significant proportion of the defense budget—around 7 percent in 1987—has been maintaining from seven thousand to ten thousand troops in Mozambique to protect vital transportation lines from sabotage by guerrillas fighting the Mozambican Government.^[51] The overall defense buildup since independence is officially defended in terms of ongoing security problems;^[52] but critics, including some officials, contend that actual security requirements do not warrant the magnitude of spending.

One innovation in the area of law and order is the creation of Youth Brigades linked to the ruling party. Under the mantle of building national unity, the paramilitary brigades have been involved in attacks on members of opposition political parties, particularly in 1984 and 1985. Prosecutions have been rare.^[53]

Like other organizations, state security agencies have a vested interest in survival, if not expansion. An internal security system inherited from a settler state is structurally conducive to repressive outcomes. Equally important may be a regime's encouragement, for political or other reasons, of these essentialist institutional tendencies. The juncture of independence in Zimbabwe provided a unique opportunity for the system's overhaul, which the new regime did not seize. Instead it fortified these agencies with material resources, personnel, and legal powers; it left them only nominally accountable; it repeatedly praised the activities of the security forces; and it assigned them missions likely to produce repressive outcomes. The following sections examine the legal, intrastate, and societal factors favoring repressive outcomes and the elective affinity between the repressive proclivities of the security sector and the new regime's political agenda.