Jenny Barraclough - Zimbabwe Documentaries (1980, '83)

Speaker 1: This is the voice of Zimbabwe.

Edison Zvobgo: This is the voice of Zimbabwe broadcasting on Radio Mozambique in Maputo.

Josiah Tongogara: Phambiri na tshimurenga, phambiri na hondo, phambiri na lushindi lweZimbabwe, phasi na imperialism, phasi na neocolonialism.

Edison Zvobgo: The Patriotic Front is now broadcasting your program through Radio Mozambique. People of Zimbabwe, victory is certain.

Jenny Barraclough: Maputo, once called Lourenço Marques, the capital of Mozambique, which now plays host at the largest, most secretive guerrilla army operating against Zimbabwe Rhodesia. Its leader is said to be a terrorist. He's so hated and feared that his fellow countrymen are forbidden to publish his name: Robert Mugabe.

Robert Mugabe: How, how are you this morning?

Jenny Barraclough: For so long spurned by the West and branded as the man who massacres the innocent, Mugabe is now a key figure in the London talks. In Maputo, this is his central committee, his inner cabinet, and these are probably the most educated of the Salisbury regime's opponents. Almost every man here has spent a decade shut away without trial in Rhodesian jails. Simon Muzenda, the party's vice president. Edgar Tekere, secretary general. All of them were educated by Christian missionaries. Some once tried to forge a peaceful, multiracial community within Rhodesia. But even those like Dinimus Mutasa are now all revolutionaries. It's these people who've set the pace in Rhodesia's 14-year war. There are 2 main guerrilla armies formed into a hitherto tenuous alliance called the Patriotic Front. Based in Zambia, Joshua Nkomo and his party ZAPU. About 2,000 of his troops are now thought to be operating inside Rhodesia. To the east, with its headquarters in Maputo, is Robert Mugabe's ZANU, the Zimbabwean African National Union. Its army, ZANLA, is widely conceded to have over 8,000 troops in Rhodesia at any one time. Of the 2 leaders, Mugabe is the least known. But he's grown to become a powerful contender for total control of a new independent Zimbabwe. And Mugabe holds a trump card in the London talks. Since ZANU, even more than ZAPU, is still committed in the field to extending the war, ZANU's agreement is essential if the war is to be ended. But despite appeals for a ceasefire, the latest of them yesterday, Mugabe is sticking to his guns.

Robert Mugabe: There's no doubt that our people want peace. But the great bulk of the people, the majority of the people who have suffered under the regime for over 90 years, do not want peace at all cost. They would like an honorable peace, a peace which will enable them to assume the sovereignty of the country.

Jenny Barraclough: And if this is not forthcoming, I'm sure they will be prepared Could there be a settlement which didn't put the Patriotic Front in power in Salisbury?

Robert Mugabe: No, what, what we are really negotiating is not a settlement that is just favorable to the Patriotic Front. It's a settlement favorable to anybody, any group whatsoever, which would like to participate in elections.

Jenny Barraclough: The image of Mugabe presented by the British press has been consistently hostile. A survey conducted for this programme found that during 1978, the 16 major Fleet Street papers published 20,903 column inches on Rhodesia. But of all that they said, only 30% was found in the survey to be neutral or unbiased, despite a cautious system of classification which was designed to favour the newspapers. In fact, 50% of all column inches broadly reflected the views of white Rhodesians. and almost all the news came from Salisbury. Only 20% reported the views of the Patriotic Front. It's an imbalance that a former Rhodesian prime minister acknowledges. Garfield Todd.

Garfield Todd: If there is an atrocity which is blamed on the guerrillas, the government will fly in people and let them see it. If the government shoots 60 innocent village— villagers, or napalms a village, They don't fly in the journalists to let them see that.

Speaker 7: Really raised the sights on your battle.

Jenny Barraclough: Television and radio have the same problems. Vastly outnumbered by black Africans in their own country and jostled by hostile black African nations along most of her borders. The Salisbury regime has worked hard at gaining a favorable image. It claims a free press, but often stage manages where journalists can go and what they can see. Even then, news reports are sometimes censored. Journalists are normally forbidden to enter tribal trust lands where 80% of blacks live, so they may have to rely on government handouts. Those who displease the regime are sometimes given private warnings, refused work permits, or even expelled. Inside Zimbabwe Rhodesia, it's forbidden to use the words freedom fighter or guerrilla. But the guerrillas themselves have repeatedly denied reporters access to their armies, even to their leaders. And so the stereotypes are easily reinforced. Fully armed and indisciplined terrorists close to equal terms with trained soldiers. Mugabe's notorious murder list, an intemperate threat to collaborators, was widely condemned, but no mention was made of Smith's death list. The Salisbury regime actually puts a price on guerrilla leaders' heads, dead or alive. You know, Mr. Mugabe, there are many white Rhodesians, and there are many in Britain and the rest of the Western world too, who regard you as a thoroughly evil man. Mrs. Mugabe, how do you feel about that?

Sally Mugabe: I think it hurts to some extent. It hurts because these people who talk like that have not taken the trouble to get to know the man, and they just speak from what they hear from others. They read from other newspapers what is propaganda against him, and they take it in like that. This is what hurts. But otherwise, I think it's politics. It's part of the game.

Robert Mugabe: My wife gets hurt by these things. Naturally, she feels for her husband. But to tell you the truth, in politics you have to have an inbuilt system of shock absorbers. And I just don't care what they say, as long as I know I'm right. So they can say anything in their papers, damage me in every way possible, as long as the people I lead are behind me and approve of what we are doing. That's what matters. The rest of the world will one day, you see, be persuaded to believe we were right when we resorted to armed struggle.

Jenny Barraclough: Since they first chased the blacks from their land in 1890, power has been almost exclusively wielded by the whites. The first rebellions were in 1893 and 1896, but they were crushed with help from Britain, and the leaders were executed. For Mugabe, these were the first martyrs of the revolution. Zimbabweans resigned themselves to serfdom, but bitter memories passed into African folklore.

Robert Mugabe: The revulsion I think started through the stories that our parents used to narrate to us, how the white man came to the country, how he grabbed the land. And in a society where you have a class whose main purpose and accepted privilege If the majority of people are being oppressed, being exploited, you can't avoid, if you have any moral principles at all, the call to do something about it.

Jenny Barraclough: To this day, while all white children complete secondary education, only 3% of blacks do. Robert Mugabe was lucky that he was educated in a white school. There was a Catholic mission right beside his village, but even missionaries weren't exempt from prejudice.

Edison Zvobgo: Edison Shvobgo. We were in Form 4, and we were invited by the superintendent, who is a minister, Wesleyan Methodist, to come to his house as a class for tea. We had the tea. We sat in the sofas. And just as we were walking out, we actually saw his wife come down with a fumigator and fumigating the seats where we were— in which we had been sitting just a few moments ago. I went out and cried, and I vowed I'd never again go to church.

Jenny Barraclough: Back in the '50s and '60s, Black political aspirations were modest. They wanted simple political rights, but even their demonstrations were banned. As frustration mounted, moderation turned to militancy, passive resistance turned to civil disobedience, and the seeds were sown for a full-scale civil war.

Robert Mugabe: You cannot fight these grievances by pleading for their rectification. You can only do so by getting to the root cause of the problem. And that's the, the, uh, the problem of power.

Jenny Barraclough: But at that point, you were firmly committed to achieving power through the ballot box.

Robert Mugabe: Yes, through the ballot box, that's right.

Jenny Barraclough: At what stage did you very first consider that it might be necessary, in your view, to use a gun?

Robert Mugabe: To use petrol bombs, as far back as 1960, and we were the first to We used them, but purely as a means of pressure, not really to try and destroy life, but to intimidate the authorities into conceding, as it were, to our wishes.

Johannes Martens: Did it work?

Robert Mugabe: It didn't work. Then we had demonstrations and strikes. She participated in one of the best-organized demonstrations in the country, the women's demonstration. Thousands of them. Thousands were sent to prison in Salisbury, and thousands sent to prison in Bulawayo and Gwelonumtali in 1961.

Jenny Barraclough: Then, in 1962, black opposition was banned. Overnight, the authorities turned ZAPU from a legitimate political party into an underground resistance. Hundreds were arrested and imprisoned without trial. Resentment began to burn more fiercely. In 1963, the more radical elements, most of them in prison, broke away from ZAPU to form ZANU. Prison became their campaign headquarters. The young Mugabe was to spend 11 years in detention, away from his wife and his only child.

Sally Mugabe: Then I had the little boy, and then he died.

Jenny Barraclough: How did he die?

Sally Mugabe: He had malaria with convulsions, and we couldn't, you know, save him.

Robert Mugabe: A telegram to that effect through my sister, and we got the news. That was it. There was nothing you could do. It was a terrible event, but there was nothing you could do. I tried to get permission to go and bury my child, but it wasn't possible to get that permission. The authorities wouldn't allow. I'm sorry to hear that.

Garfield Todd: This is the Rhodesia Broadcasting Corporation.

Jenny Barraclough: Then, in 1965, came UDI. Any chance of a peaceful transition to black government was destroyed, in the words of Ian Smith, for 1,000 years at least.

Robert Mugabe: I believe that we are a courageous people, and history has cast us in a heroic role.

Jenny Barraclough: Britain lacked the will to put down this constitutional treason. The UN could only offer sympathy and sanctions, and the scene was set. It must be a terrible responsibility to have to bear, to know that you were instrumental in starting a war. I mean, however just you feel a conflict to be.

Robert Mugabe: No, no, no, no. I didn't feel any conflict at all. I felt justified. There was the whole history of our having tried nonviolent methods. They had failed completely. And, um, Neither the settler regime nor Britain heeded our cries. They just wouldn't move. They wouldn't yield an inch. And so we decided, without any qualms about it, that armed struggle would be the right thing.

Jenny Barraclough: Have either of you personally ever carried a gun or fired a shot in anger?

Robert Mugabe: That's what Smith says about me, that I haven't fired a shot in anger, but I'm not a trained soldier, Sarge. I'm a revolutionary nevertheless.

Jenny Barraclough: It's a revolution that's brought out that most conservative of emotions, plain old-fashioned patriotism. Zimbabweans are always said to be a gentle people, but ZANU now claims to have 40,000 or 50,000 able-bodied personnel, and it's broadly accepted that they've up to 50,000 ZANU's military commander, Josiah Tonga Gara, was the most feared and wanted man in Ian Smith's Rhodesia. He trained for a time in China, but had to learn the hard way how to fight a guerrilla war.

Josiah Tongogara: We have learnt a lot. In fact, I would rather say Smith is a great teacher.

Jenny Barraclough: Smith is a great teacher?

Josiah Tongogara: Yes, because all the attacks he has made on us has improved our tactics. our tactics. So each attack he makes, we sit down, analyze it, make scientific analysis, and then we come out with some solution to it. And that is part of increasing our knowledge.

Jenny Barraclough: But Tongagara's army has been accused of grotesque atrocities— massacring missionaries, butchering and intimidating blacks. ZANU blames Rhodesia's undercover troops, but neither side will admit to anything more serious than an occasional misdemeanor. These pictures are published by Zimbabwe Rhodesia's Information Ministry.

Josiah Tongogara: If you have got an army of, say, about 40,000, 50,000, you know, you, you are likely to find some people who— mad people who may even commit some atrocities. But definitely this, we are trying to stamp it out, and we have been trying that, and, uh, and we have never had any official report of a group of ZANU forces going to, to massacre the people.

Robert Mugabe: We are fighting a war which is a very difficult one, but in spite of the difficulties posed by the enemy, we take care not to make people unnecessarily suffer.

Jenny Barraclough: But I quote from your own publications, Zimbabwe News: All land to the tillers. Socialism now. You have to hit a racist settler in the groin and skull hard, very hard, very, very hard, before you can get him to scream those words. That's what we proposed. That's what we will continue to do till final victory. Let us never forget that only a dead imperialist is a good one. Now, is that the kind of language that's likely to make soldiers behave responsibly?

Robert Mugabe: It is only a dramatic way of saying we are waging a struggle to overthrow the settler system. It does not literally mean that we go all out to destroy the whites. No, we are fighting a just war. war aimed at the overthrow of the settler government which is presently oppressing our people.

Jenny Barraclough: You see, I wonder whether language like that might not incite young men to commit the most appalling acts within the conflict.

Robert Mugabe: No one is fighting an individual war. All our fighters are fighting collectively under a command that, that derives its authority from Inside Zimbabwe, the guerrillas say they've widespread support.

Jenny Barraclough: This ZANU film was taken in what they call a liberated area, where they claim to have effectively set up their own administration, even to the extent of giving white farmers ZANU passes for safe conduct. They're farming themselves, sometimes on a huge scale, and they're teaching the villagers how to put their theories of socialist cooperation into practice. We are farmers. Do you find a lot of supporters among the villagers?

Speaker 11: Oh, yes.

Josiah Tongogara: Oh, yes.

Speaker 12: We—

Josiah Tongogara: when we open a new area, we don't just go and fight. First of all, we make a study, investigation among the masses. They tell us their national grievances, and those we exploit and use them. You tell— you explain to them why you have come to them, why you are fighting this war. They have to understand They have to understand it. And they have to— you've also got to explain the difficulties which come, which will come thereafter from the enemy, because the enemy is going to conduct some atrocities. So you've got to explain this to them, and you let them volunteer themselves and say, yeah, yeah, we are ready for that. We are prepared to face any difficulties in order to liberate our own country.

Jenny Barraclough: This man knows from personal experience what the Tonga It's hard to tell whether Mugabe and Guevara are broadly telling the truth or not. Johannes Martens was kidnapped from his farm last year and spent 6 months in ZANU captivity. When he and another white were released, both praised the guerrillas, though in Britain only 2 national newspapers reported what they said. Now out of danger, and presumably to the bewilderment of most of his white compatriots, Mr.

Johannes Martens: Martens still insists that the guerrillas did not live up First of all, I thought, well, this is it now, you know. This is where the end of my road will be, you know. This is where they're going to burn me alive. This is where they're going to really have the joy of, you know, cutting me up or doing— you know, I've read it. I've seen it, heard it, read in the papers how these people would be tortured. I think it was the first time I'd ever seen a I mean, it's, it's, it's not a secret.

Jenny Barraclough: But in fact you were treated well?

Johannes Martens: If I must be honest, then I cannot say otherwise. Never have they ever laid a hand on me.

Jenny Barraclough: Were the villagers— did they appear to be sympathetic towards—

Johannes Martens: My goodness me, what do you mean? I mean, how would you put it? I mean, here they are, the terrorists. Here they come And get these people together, they are rejoicing, to put it, you know, at least. I mean, these people were shouting and laughing and happy, and they were actually rejoicing.

Garfield Todd: Well, I can tell you one story that happened not too far away from me, where some guerrillas came into a small group of houses, and the people welcomed them, and the women went and cooked for them. There was a poor old sub-chief there whose job it is to report anything that's wrong, and if he didn't report this, he knew that he could be put into jail for 20 years. And now that we've got martial law in some areas, if he'd lived in one of those areas, he could be hanged. So he quietly took his bicycle and went off and reported it to the authorities, thinking that they would let him go back and perhaps send some soldiers back with him, but by that time the guerrillas would Yes. However, they kept him at the center, and they sent out some soldiers dressed as guerrillas who, when they entered the village, of course were received as true guerrillas would be received. But they opened up with their automatic weapons and killed 5 people, including 2 teenage girls, and went on their way. Well, the old sub-chief hadn't come back, but he came back the next day, and the people by this time Nobody at the time quite knew what had happened, so they just took him and killed him. And this is one of the terrible things, the division of families, the enmities that are made, the whole tragic story where there should have been an evolution. Now we're in a revolution.

Jenny Barraclough: Revolution is an intoxicating thing.

Johannes Martens: Theory.

Jenny Barraclough: Its reality is tragic. Zimbabwe Rhodesia is now a land of refugees. Not just a few thousand well-publicized whites, but well over a quarter of a million blacks have fled the country, and most of them have gone to Mozambique. Neither ZANU nor the impoverished Mozambicans can cope. Despite growing aid from the United Nations and the The World Council of Churches, there's precious little medicine and hardly any food. The result is pitiful. Many of these families have fled here simply to escape the fighting. Many more have made the dangerous journey to escape from the guarded corrals, which the Salisbury regime calls protected villages, but which some of the refugees describe as open prisons. But they're not always safe, even here. Just after dawn on the 23rd of November, 1977, Rhodesian paratroops began an attack on 2 camps near Chimoio and Nyadzonya in Mozambique, described as terrorist bases. According to the UN, at one camp there were no combatants, only refugees.

Edison Zvobgo: Planes came in the morning and carried out such massacres, dropped paratroopers, who then, as ground force, ringed this camp, these 2 camps. And as these youngsters started running in all directions, they were bayoneted. I'll never forget the sight of the little kids at the schools, where the bombs were dropped. With their pencils and paper outside, and the little bodies scattered everywhere. It was so brutish, it was incredible. They killed the sick, dragging them from ambulances and beheading them.

Robert Mugabe: Oh, my God!

Edison Zvobgo: You see, to this day, we have not attacked one white school in the country. Not because those kids are defended. We have not attacked one white hospital in the country, when we are absolutely certain everyone sick in there is white. Princess Margaret Hospital, we could hit it tomorrow. We said no. It's barbaric. It doesn't belong to the 20th century. That's not the way you fight a war.

Johannes Martens: I'm sorry.

Edison Zvobgo: Can you imagine if 400 children were killed in London or in New York? It would be a story never to forget. It would be everywhere.

Robert Mugabe: Mm-hmm.

Edison Zvobgo: But no, it wasn't given any publicity at all abroad. It was just, you know, Maybe because it's black kids. It may be it's black women.

Jenny Barraclough: Can your enemies today become your friends, your allies, your fellow countrymen tomorrow, or will there be a period of revenge and recrimination?

Robert Mugabe: This question has been asked before, and I think what people would want to know is whether those who have committed genocide and massacres will become our friends tomorrow. I don't know what the Allies would have answered if a similar question had been asked in 1945, 1946, whether Hitler and Mussolini would become the allies of Churchill and Roosevelt. Our answer is that those who are architects of this genocide and massacres surely must, on the basis of Yes. Moral and legal principles, be brought to trial. But this does not mean that the followers, the ordinary person, must be tried. Those who have hatched the plan, the treason, as a result of which massacres of all kinds have been perpetrated against our people and against the people of Mozambique, people of Zambia, Angola, and Botswana, surely They must be brought to book for their crimes.

Jenny Barraclough: Would that include Bishop Muzorewa?

Robert Mugabe: Bishop Muzorewa is a mere puppet, an unwitting puppet for that matter. And just now he claims he has power, but we know he hasn't got that power. We have appealed to him to reverse his stand and correct the stance he has adopted so far.

Jenny Barraclough: So he could remain free as a democratic opposition figure?

Robert Mugabe: Sure, sure, he could. As long as he's prepared not to continue, you see, upholding the evil system there is, I suppose this conference gives him a chance to say his repentance and ask for forgiveness of his sins.

Jenny Barraclough: The Rhodesians claim to have killed well over 10,000 terrorists in this war. It's hard to tell how many were innocent civilians, but there's no doubt ZANU combatants have suffered badly too. You stepped on a mine?

Josiah Tongogara: Yes.

Jenny Barraclough: And what happened to you?

Edison Zvobgo: You know, I lost my leg. I just felt disappointed.

Robert Mugabe: But then, after that, I knew the war was going to continue.

Edison Zvobgo: And I knew that it was going to make Zimbabwe free, because in a fight, you've got to die, and you've got to be wounded.

Jenny Barraclough: Are you still pleased that you joined ZANU?

Speaker 1: Oh, ZANU is the only party, you see, which I found to be the only party ZANU's headquarters in Maputo.

Jenny Barraclough: A parcel bomb sent here through the post.

Edison Zvobgo: The bomb blew up the door that side and cracked the wall right out to the other end.

Jenny Barraclough: What happened to them?

Speaker 12: He was—

Edison Zvobgo: he died within a few moments of reaching hospital. His entire leg, the intestines, and the chest were blown out. chest all cracked up, and 4 other young comrades were injured.

Jenny Barraclough: ZANU is run rather inefficiently by unpaid volunteers on a shoestring budget from what's little more than a council flat in a residential block. From here, not only is the war directed, but plans are being made for a future Mugabe government. The dominant ideological influence is clearly Chinese, but ZANU insists it's completely non-aligned. In fact, much of its literature is Western, some of it critical of orthodox socialist systems. A good deal of ZANU's financial backing comes from the West as well, and many of its personnel are undergoing civilian training in the West.

Speaker 1: Well, we—

Jenny Barraclough: ZANU depends on handouts, so there are frequent fundraising tours to America and We gather that Christian Aid in Britain is going to allow us £20,000.

Didymus Mutasa: We got promises from Oxfam. War on Want promised to give, you know, educational and medical help as needed.

Edgar Tekere: The government, how is that?

Robert Mugabe: Did you tackle them? Yes, we did.

Didymus Mutasa: We had a meeting at the Foreign Office Did we get anything?

Robert Mugabe: Sadly, no.

Edgar Tekere: Yeah. Well, I think it's an interesting question just now, whether the British government does anything for ZANU or not.

Josiah Tongogara: Look, we have clothes, food, everything is coming from those progressive organizations in Britain and in America and in Sweden and all over the world. This shoe, I never bought it. This is, I think, from Sweden. If I didn't have it, how would I walk? Would I fight? I wouldn't fight. So the man who is fighting in Zimbabwe more than a Zimbabwean is the one who contributed to this shoe. I'm able to plan because I'm putting on a jacket and on trousers. And who is giving me this? The people in Britain, the people in America.

Jenny Barraclough: But what about the whites inside Rhodesia? Have you done anything to give them any confidence in ZANU, or in their own futures, come to that?

Josiah Tongogara: You know, this is the problem which is really facing us at the moment. And we have always appealed to all our friends, all our allies, who would like to see this armed struggle succeed, to really transmit the message to those people inside the country, whites. They must understand what we are fighting for and what we stand for.

Jenny Barraclough: But it's what the guerrillas stand for that frightens the whites quite as much as the fear of being killed. They feel their prosperity is threatened by a doctrinaire Marxist dictatorship. What would things be like in terms of ownership of cars, of all the other sophisticated bits of equipment that many Rhodesians, black and white, already do have? Or are they going to all be part of this collective enterprise?

Edgar Tekere: Can you ask Ask your next question, and perhaps the next, around the area of socialism.

Edison Zvobgo: Okay.

Jenny Barraclough: How do you envisage that socialism would change the lives of the majority of people in Zimbabwe?

Johannes Martens: Aha.

Edgar Tekere: Your next question after that?

Speaker 7: Well, I'm—

Jenny Barraclough: that would depend partly on the answer to these.

Edgar Tekere: All right. Okay. Now, you seem to dwell a lot on this question of socialism. Now, what you are trying to say to me or what you're trying to suggest to me, what has been suggested to us over and over again, is that this idea of socialism will not work. In other words, we are being persuaded to get stuck with capitalism. During the 1920s, the 1930s, our fathers, our forefathers worked Like slaves getting paid almost nothing to build the economic infrastructure. Now, is it not common sense that when we fight to liberate the country and want to introduce a new system, we should look for a system which is different from capitalism?

Jenny Barraclough: There is an expression in England. Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. And I wonder if you look around Europe or Africa, whether you really believe that it's the socialist countries that are more efficient and happier.

Edgar Tekere: I'm absolutely convinced that I would be happier in a socialist country. I've recently been to the United States. The show of capitalism there, the way it plays on your mind, even on television, When you ought to get more acquainted about the things that matter around the world. No, I shouldn't like to live under such a system.

Jenny Barraclough: How can you be certain that whatever government you set up won't eventually become oppressive, won't be the sort of society where people are frightened of speaking out, frightened of doing anything without looking over their shoulder?

Edison Zvobgo: We do not want to create A social legal order in the country in which people are petrified, in which people go to bed having barricaded their doors and their windows because someone belonging to the special branch of the police will break into their houses. This is what we've been fighting against. Every one of us has been in jail 10 years, 14 years. I myself, 9, without trial. Every one of us has lived, has had to live scared of the police. How on earth could we create a society which is exactly like that? We don't want it. We are fed up of it. And this is why we are in this revolution for as long as is necessary to abolish this system.

Jenny Barraclough: How do you see the future Zimbabwe should ZANU come to power? If you were to take power, what would it mean for the ordinary small trader, the farmer, businessman?

Edison Zvobgo: We will obviously collectivize the national pillars of the economy. I mean mining, for example, railways, Aerodesia, you know, the finance houses, those top occupations which have national repercussions. But the government, from our point of view, the government has no business selling matches or Coca-Cola, for example, to people. The government has no business in running a dry cleaning shop, for example. Those small distributive and other social services are better left to the individual, to individuals who want to promote the quality of life, so that the fear of some state running down— running human affairs right down to the family is foreign to our people, is foreign to our thinking, and we have no intention of creating a system Socialism, yes, but it does not mean totalitarian dispossession.

Robert Mugabe: It is absolutely wrong to allow a set of individuals to acquire the ownership and possession of resources which are God-given. They're not man-made— the land, the water, The forests, the animals, the fish in the river, the minerals— these are given us by nature, and it is in principle wrong for any one man to claim ownership of such resources, which should belong to the people as a whole.

Jenny Barraclough: But Mugabe's socialist vision is seen by most whites as communism. If he comes, they say, we go.

Robert Mugabe: The whites who are in the country needn't If they are prepared to adjust, they will be regarded on the same basis as everybody else.

Jenny Barraclough: But wouldn't the whites be left with any sort of vestige of the standards of living to which they've been accustomed in the past?

Robert Mugabe: If those standards of living have been based on color, then they, they must forget about them. But if they are based on the fact that they have the necessary skills, to contribute, then they will continue to maintain them. And no one is going to deprive them of what they are entitled by way of benefits from the economy if they have the necessary skills and make the necessary inputs into the development of society.

Jenny Barraclough: So they could still live in big houses, swimming pools?

Speaker 12: Sure.

Edison Zvobgo: Why not?

Robert Mugabe: Why not? They are there, but not to the exclusion of people of other races.

Jenny Barraclough: The British ambassador's residence, Maputo. Zimbabweans have a love-hate relationship with Britain. They were born British, educated in British ways, and feel betrayed by Britain. The communist world has provided more consistent friends.

Johannes Martens: Mugabe!

Jenny Barraclough: That's an irony that isn't lost on ZANU, for by fighting the Salisbury regime, they're in one sense fighting for Britain, fighting to put down a rebellion against the British Crown. But still the British groped towards a compromise. This was the last attempt to set up a peace conference by Mr. Callaghan's adviser, Cledwyn Hughes. I've seen President Nyerere, President Kaunda, Mr. Nkrumah, and I've been to Salisbury and also to Pretoria. If I can say To say very briefly, if the parties agree to attend, there is a reasonable prospect that the talks could end successfully. Every British government has felt it's done its best, but have they? Garfield Todd.

Garfield Todd: There are only 90,000 adult whites in Rhodesia. That's all, 90,000 adult whites. I think the Western world might have even bought them out 20 years ago if it had been necessary. To think that 90,000 adult whites have been able to hold the world to ransom is not brave, it's just outrageous. And it's deeply, deeply racial, and it's deeply racial in Britain. You can't get away from it. If a black man had been in charge of the government in 1965 and had 270,000 black followers, and these people were keeping 6 million whites in subjection, And he broke away from Britain so as to be able to keep them for 1,000 years under black rule. The freedom-loving countries of Britain and Europe and America would have fixed it up in a week.

Jenny Barraclough: As it is, it's taken 15 years, and it's been the war, not Britain, that's forced the pace. Ian Smith has had to compromise. Those he once imprisoned are gathered to talk of peace, and behind the scenes, the frontline states have clearly exerted a moderating influence. There have already been concessions on a new constitution. The agreement needed now is on arrangements for transition from war to peace.

Robert Mugabe: Now, in the process of transference of power, it has to be recognized that the vicious force that minorities depended upon has to be demobilized, and a completely new force based on the fact that the people's interests have got to be safeguarded, has got to emerge. We are not saying that only our troops must constitute the army. We are saying that alongside our troops there must come acceptable elements from the other side, and this will constitute the national army of the country.

Jenny Barraclough: What would you describe as acceptable elements of the existing security forces?

Robert Mugabe: Obviously, the Zulu Scouts have to go. The grey scalps, the mercenaries. These are the ugly features, the unacceptable elements which have to go of necessity. All those commissioned officers who have been ideologically committed to UDI and have supported treason have no right to be in command of a new army whatsoever.

Jenny Barraclough: You wouldn't be prepared to accept some sort of formula whereby Joshua Nkrumah where Nkomo's forces perhaps looked after the western part of Zimbabwe, where your own ZANLA forces largely looked after the eastern sector, and where there was some joint army in the central sector and around the towns like Salisbury?

Robert Mugabe: We are thinking in terms of one army, and the Patriotic Front is going to emerge with one army. There will therefore not be any sector for ZAPU, a sector for ZANU. We are one, and that we shall remain.

Jenny Barraclough: Are you proposing to merge your 2 armies in the near future?

Robert Mugabe: The principle is there, and it is our hope that very soon our 2 armies will be—

Jenny Barraclough: will constitute one force, as indeed our 2 commands have constituted one So what would happen if you get the free and fair elections that you ask for? Would you and Mr. Nkomo fight each other as rival parties, or would you stand on the same platform?

Robert Mugabe: We have the Patriotic Front, and our hope is that we shall fight as one. We would like to constitute one front and with just one leader.

Jenny Barraclough: That will mean that someone will have to be self-effacing. Someone will have to take a back seat.

Robert Mugabe: Well, this is what it means. It means that the people will have to make their choice in due course.

Jenny Barraclough: Would you be prepared to be a number 2 to Mr. Nkrumah?

Robert Mugabe: I'm prepared to be whatever the people want me to be.

Jenny Barraclough: A lot of viewers might find that hard to believe, but I'm prepared to believe it. believe, might find it very hard to believe that a man who's fought for so long would be prepared to give up the fruits of power just at the point of changing.

Robert Mugabe: We haven't been fighting for individual benefit. We've been fighting to get power into the hands of the people. In other words, we have been fighting a people's struggle. And in the course of fighting for this struggle, some of our leaders, colleagues, have died. Others survive, but the people continue all the time. And so it's the interest of the people really that is the decisive factor. That's the paramount issue.

Jenny Barraclough: What transference of power there's already been to the people was scorned by the Patriotic Front, and the existing constitution's been rejected by the London Conference. Bishop Mosereywa is now Prime Minister, though effective power resides where it always did. But what if, even under a new constitution, the bishop was elected once again?

Robert Mugabe: If the bishop won the elections, which are free and fair, you might as well consider the devil would win elections in heaven. We do not ever envisage a situation where the bishop could win elections which are free and fair. That can never, never happen.

Jenny Barraclough: But it's perhaps the principle rather than a prediction that I'm looking for.

Robert Mugabe: The principle is there. Whoever wins the election naturally becomes a leader. Whichever party wins the election naturally forms the government.

Jenny Barraclough: And you would be prepared, just given that hypothesis, that the devil, as you put it, Mr. Mosarewa, were to win, you would allow the bishop to become, or to remain, prime minister, as he would say it, and you would form a legitimate We are prepared that the bishop will not win, but if miracles happen and the bishop won, well, fine, he should lead the country.

Robert Mugabe: Why not?

Jenny Barraclough: And you would then fight the next election and the next?

Speaker 15: Yes, yes.

Robert Mugabe: We are for a democratic system, and in a democratic system you have to accept, you see, the verdict of the people.

Jenny Barraclough: When I spoke to you in Maputo, you said that if the people were in favor, then you would certainly favor a one-party state. Now, how would you feel if Bishop Muzarewa were to declare a one-party state, having won an election?

Robert Mugabe: Once again, if that is the verdict of the people, then it becomes the verdict. It becomes these— the decision by which we must abide.

Edison Zvobgo: And where would that leave you?

Robert Mugabe: I do not want to imagine a situation where ZANU and ZAPU can lose. I think together we constitute the most formidable front of all the groups inside the country, and there is hardly any possibility of our being defeated in any elections.

Josiah Tongogara: What I'm What some of us are fighting for is to see that this oppressive system is crushed. We don't care whether—I don't even care whether I will be part of the of the of of of the top echelon in the room. I'm not—I'm not worried, but I—I die to see—I—I'm dying to see a change that you know in the system. That's all. That's all. I would like to see the young people enjoying together black. White, enjoying together in a new Zimbabwe. That's all.

Jenny Barraclough: Good words and good intentions have, as history demonstrates, a habit of evaporating in the bitterness of struggle and in the fruits of power. That Zimbabwe will one day flourish in freedom and prosperity as a fair, multiracial society is a fine hope, but an uncertain prospect. Much will depend not just on what constitution is agreed in London, on whether an effective way can be found to guarantee a ceasefire and to supervise transitional arrangements.

Robert Mugabe: We cannot envisage a situation where Britain, for example, supervises the elections, because already, through the pronouncements made by the government, we have concluded that the present British government Is biased in favor of the internal regime.

Jenny Barraclough: Are you then distrustful of Lord Carrington as foreign secretary and Mrs. Thatcher, the prime minister?

Robert Mugabe: No, I'm not, but they have a political stand which favors the internal regime, and they as individuals are probably free of bias, but as a political party, the Conservatives are obviously in favor of the regime, the present internal regime, continuing, and hence the attempt to lift sanctions and grant them recognition.

Jenny Barraclough: How optimistic are you that this conference will succeed, that there is an end to the war in sight?

Robert Mugabe: I think if we continue as we have started, the possibility of reaching a settlement is there, but we hope the sincerity with which Lord Carrington has so far handled issues and listened to our own criticisms and observations will help the conference to conclude a peace agreement.

Jenny Barraclough: Do you think that it's possible that by the new year there may be peace in your country?

Robert Mugabe: It is possible, given the willingness by all parties to achieve peace, that peace could be achieved. But it must— it mustn't be conceived that our side must do all the giving and the other side all the taking. After all, as I say, we are winning the war, and we can never allow a situation to arise here at Lancaster House where we suffer reverses merely because our political negotiations have failed. We would like to We want to see an agreement which will sustain our advances and gains in the battlefield. This is what the fight has been about.

Jenny Barraclough: Since the London conference began, nearly 400 people in Zimbabwe have been killed. No one knows how many have been injured. Do your family know what happened to you?

Speaker 15: But how and when?

Speaker 1: When Zimbabwe is free, when I happen to get them, because I know Smith is bombing at random, so I don't know whether I'll meet them.

Robert Mugabe: If, if I meet them, I will tell them I lost my leg in the battlefield.

Speaker 1: I was trying to free them.

Robert Mugabe: I don't believe in black majority rule ever in Rhodesia, not in 1,000 years. I think it will be a disaster for Rhodesia.

Edison Zvobgo: Whether you like it or not, you are subject to the whims of these filthy little murderers, these black barbarian savages, because that's what they are.

Speaker 1: This is the voice of Zimbabwe.

Edison Zvobgo: People of Zimbabwe, victory is certain.

Jenny Barraclough: Maputo, headquarters of the largest guerrilla army at the height of the war for Rhodesia.

Edison Zvobgo: We filmed there 2 years ago, when Robert Mugabe and his followers were labeled by the world as terrorists.

Robert Mugabe: There was the whole history of our having tried nonviolent methods. They had failed completely, and neither the settler regime nor Britain heeded our cries.

Edison Zvobgo: They just And if the Western press was unenthusiastic?

Robert Mugabe: I just don't care what they say, as long as I know I'm right. So they can say anything in their papers, damage me in every way possible, as long as the people I lead are behind me and approve of what we are doing. That's what matters. The rest of the world will one day, you see, be, uh, convinced that we are right. persuaded to believe we were right.

Edison Zvobgo: 2 years later, Mugabe's new home, the Prime Minister's residence, Salisbury. Ian Smith's worst fears have been realised. Mugabe, socialist revolutionary, has been elected by universal franchise. But in these early days, the revolution is remarkably restrained. At Mr. and Mrs. Smith's old home, not a lot has changed. The European Economic Community will give 23,000 tons of grain as emergency aid to 6 African countries. The Soviet President, Comrade Brezhnev, yesterday ordered a categorical denial to be made in New Delhi of reports that Soviet troops have entered— This film is a glimpse behind the scenes of a government that's had the eyes of a sceptical world on it since it came to power last April. ...killing John Lennon, he will become the 40-year-old ex— It's somehow a remarkably British revolution. At the Prime Minister's office, in the finest traditions of the British civil service, the advisers who brief Mugabe at the start of each day include men who advised Ian Smith when he commanded the war against Mugabe.

Robert Mugabe: Last week, Mr. Mugabe dismissed General Walls from his position as army commander after accusing him of making statements Which had done a great deal of harm to Zimbabwe. That was the full quote. Quote from?

Edison Zvobgo: From the BBC.

Robert Mugabe: We, don't forget, had had no experience in running a government, and it sounded like a dream, you know, when we won the elections. And not that we didn't expect to win, but that the reality of independence had come sooner than we had anticipated. We had thought that we would, through armed struggle, achieve victory perhaps in 1981 or 1982, but it had come earlier than that. And so we needed— I needed support. I needed even the support of my former enemies, who now had transformed into allies. Previously, we had hoped that the war The war would go on until final victory. Well, if that had happened, then obviously we wouldn't have Ian Smith here, we would never have had General Walls, and quite a number of people would have been brought to trial. But it's not the way that things went, and perhaps we are glad that things have taken this political trend towards the end of the armed struggle.

Edison Zvobgo: What's the solution? The cabinet: 18 members of Mugabe's party, ZANU, 4 posts for his major political rival, Joshua Nkomo, and 2 for Ian Smith's Rhodesia Front, in a government of national reconciliation.

Robert Mugabe: Quite a number of ministers are abroad on various duties.

Edison Zvobgo: And in Parliament, a black Speaker. Didymus Murtaza, once jailed for establishing a multiracial community called Cold Comfort Farm, where blacks and whites lived and worked together as equals.

Speaker 16: There's nothing much on the order paper today. So far as we know, there are no notices of motions. That's the— for the agenda to the debate. It could be withdrawn, which I've put here, and Mr. Micklem will beg leave to withdraw. Yes. So don't forget to look at him when the minister has finished speaking.

Sally Mugabe: Fine.

Speaker 16: And that should all be very simple this afternoon. I'm sure everything will be perfectly all right and you'll manage very well.

Joshua Nkomo: Fine.

Speaker 16: Don't forget to straighten your wig before you go down.

Robert Mugabe: Fine. Thank you very much indeed, Princess.

Edison Zvobgo: A Westminster model parliament in. Mugabe and his followers have acknowledged they'd prefer. Instead, Didymus Mutasa, after 3 years in jail and then in exile labelled as a terrorist, is now deferred to by black and white MPs alike, with a graciousness that would put many British parliamentarians to shame.

Robert Mugabe: Didymus Mutasa, Almighty God, who in thy infinite wisdom—

Edison Zvobgo: But how long will these gentilities last, or is a one-party state just around the corner?

Robert Mugabe: No, it isn't. We are committed to the Lancaster House Agreement, and it is because of that agreement that we have a situation where there are various parties represented in our parliament. There are not that many, actually. But in spite of that multi-party system which the Lancaster House has yielded, my party is virtually in control. There is no need for us really to think of a one-party state. Is there any debate?

Speaker 7: Mr. Chairman, I believe it is true to say that the security situation within Zimbabwe is as bad at the moment as it has ever been. The life of the individual has, I believe, not been eased Nonsense. If at all. That's nonsense. If one considers the problem of the people of this country dividing, the consequences of that are too dreadful for law-abiding citizens to contemplate.

Robert Mugabe: You want to engineer an uprising?

Speaker 7: That is the sort of stupid, ignorant ridiculous remark that causes more trouble than, than anything else.

Robert Mugabe: Nonsense.

Speaker 7: Mr. Chairman, if the honorable members over there do not wish to listen to me, I suggest they leave the chamber. Sir, I am absolutely terrified and horrified at the movement— Would the chair mind asking that gentleman over there— and I use the term extremely loosely— to withdraw that remark?

Josiah Tongogara: What was it?

Edison Zvobgo: Monkey?

Speaker 7: He called me a monkey. I've been called an elephant and now a monkey. I wish they'd make up their mind.

Jenny Barraclough: It's all a very far cry from Mozambique, isn't it?

Didymus Mutasa: Yes, indeed. Absolutely so.

Jenny Barraclough: So if you could choose, you wouldn't dress up like that, I take it?

Didymus Mutasa: Absolutely not at all. If I had to choose, I'd really choose something that is traditional, something that is African. Every time that I'm presiding, very funny thoughts come to my mind that, you know, I'm really presiding over a We are presiding over a house of people who, a few months ago, were referring to each other as terrorists and fascists.

Edison Zvobgo: It's not that long since Africans were jailed for demanding representation in Parliament. Mugabe himself was in prison without trial for 11 years.

Speaker 7: Mr.—

Edison Zvobgo: Stain.

Robert Mugabe: Yes, Mr. Stain. Just the names, that's right.

Edison Zvobgo: This is the first time Mugabe has returned here since he was a prisoner.

Robert Mugabe: Yes, they are complaining. Yes, I slept here. Zekeriya was here, I think. And then Sutole was sleeping here. We did our thing. We were cleaning here by turns. Only Citroën didn't do any cleaning.

Edison Zvobgo: And your bed was where?

Robert Mugabe: My bed was just here.

Edison Zvobgo: What did you do during the day? How on earth did you find time?

Robert Mugabe: We studied here. We had our books piled next to us. We read throughout the day. I got 3 degrees here.

Jenny Barraclough: You got 3 degrees from this cell?

Garfield Todd: Yes.

Jenny Barraclough: What do you feel as you come back and look at this? What emotions come back?

Robert Mugabe: Oh, mixed memories, really. One, that although I was in prison, it was not in vain. But another, that prison is a horrible institution.

Edison Zvobgo: Is there still a touch of bitterness in you as you look back on all those, in a sense, wasted years?

Robert Mugabe: No, really, I will— it's a chunk that has gone out of one's life. But what do you do about it? But you had a cause to fight for, and those in power failed They had their own cause to defend. And this is it. It happens. You can't lament over that. You can't allow yourself to be bitter. We played table tennis or draughts, a game of draughts. But we also had slabs. Yes, this is ours. We used to play this. Let's see. There were 2 of them. We actually had this made. I used to be very good at it. Maurice Nyagumbo—

Jenny Barraclough: He's now the Minister of Mines.

Robert Mugabe: Minister of Mines. Nkala also, and Tekere too, to some extent. But I think I was— I used to be the best. Yes, we used to peer through here too. To the garden.

Jenny Barraclough: Did you play table tennis?

Robert Mugabe: Yes, I did. But Morton Malianga was, and Didmus Mutasa, when we still had Didmus Mutasa, they were the champions here. So I wasn't very good here. I was good there.

Edison Zvobgo: Did you ever feel like escaping?

Jenny Barraclough: Did you ever try to escape?

Robert Mugabe: Why escape? Run away? From what? That's the one thing I never, never would have wanted to do, even if I'd been left alone in an open place. I had a cause to fight for, and being put in prison was a challenge, a test of my determination and commitment to the cause. And running away would have proved me a coward anyway. I never thought of running away at all.

Edison Zvobgo: Some of your close friends were executed while you were here. What effect did that have on you when your colleagues were hanged?

Robert Mugabe: Each time a person was going to be hanged, we were told about it. And of course, the atmosphere became very— a solemn one, in that people were not allowed to go out for that morning. They were to sit And sit at given places and remain quiet. It was a terrible thing. See, hanging a person is a deliberate act. It's not the same act as, you know, shooting a person. In a fight, although that is deliberate. But then there is the cause behind it. But really, for a sane community to decide that because certain persons are guilty of capital offenses, we must perform a deliberate The act of hanging them, that I can't reconcile myself to.

Edison Zvobgo: There'll be no hangings while you're prime minister?

Robert Mugabe: I don't think there will be. No. I don't think there will be. One doesn't know what happens in future. But really, this type of thing won't happen. It is quite an attractive appeal when people cry for vengeance and that kind of thing. But if you really proceed to be vengeful and to start a campaign of persecuting your enemies, where does it end?

Edison Zvobgo: The cock, election symbol of the ZANU party. Mugabe! Mugabe! ZANU, having won the countryside in war, will not now relinquish it in peacetime. The people here are still suspicious of the police and other agents of the government, and though Mugabe needs to re-establish The rule of law. He's reluctant to undermine the hold his party has. Mrs. Mugabe has proved to be an effective campaigner in her own right. At the party's headquarters, where unemployed comrades back from the bush still mill around aimlessly, Sally Mugabe has the job of helping them come to terms with peace.

Sally Mugabe: Forgive, they will, but forget, no. Because there are certain horrible occurrences that one can never forget. I know a comrade who fell into an attack, and during the attack, 2 friends of hers were injured. And all she saw was one of her friends lying down with no leg. Then she looked around and found her friend bleeding, but did not notice the friend did not have a leg. Then later on, she looked the other direction and saw the leg. Yes. By itself, so her friend started shouting, "Please carry me! Please carry me and take my leg too!" The friend said that was terrible. Then she carried the friend on her back and then started looking for the leg, carry the leg on the other hand. So the friend told her, "I think we should throw away the leg because it's already useless." Then this friend started crying, "You can't do that!

Edison Zvobgo: Please carry my leg too!

Sally Mugabe: I want my leg!" It took a lot. It took a lot of persuasion for her to know that the leg was no use. We must bury it. Then later on, they decided to bury it. Instances like that, who will forget? Forgive you can. Yes, we are all trying to forgive, you know, but to forget is difficult.

Edison Zvobgo: I'm sorry. Here, several hundred schoolchildren are back home in Zimbabwe from exile in Zambia and Mozambique. This is a transit camp, and they've been waiting here for 3 months to get back to their villages. Vandalism has been rife. Now at last, schools have been made ready, transport is available, and a new government minister, Khumbirai Kangai, has come to see them off. A quarter of a million refugees have come home What's happened to their families, their mothers and fathers? Well, unfortunately, some of them no longer have any, you know, parents. They were either killed during the war, and others have disappeared right now. They don't know really where they've gone to, whether they moved to other parts of the country, To the urban areas, as displaced people in the area running away from the war, or they're in some corner of the country. We don't know.

Jenny Barraclough: So they're not just refugees.

Edison Zvobgo: They're effectively orphans.

Robert Mugabe: They— definitely, yes.

Edison Zvobgo: The return to peace hasn't always been so joyous or so simple. Here at a gold mine near a military assembly point, the manager's house was attacked in the night for no obvious reason.

Robert Mugabe: With it bending like that, it stretched the metal, and it was pointless trying to bang it out, so it was best putting in a new frame.

Edison Zvobgo: It was one of dozens of outbreaks of violence by trigger-happy young guerrillas who now find It happened at approximately 10 o'clock at night.

Speaker 12: My wife and I had only just got to bed. Our lights were still on. There was a shatter of glass and a terrific commotion of small arms fire. And one's natural reaction is to hit the ground as fast as possible and return fire. It was only after the attack had ended that we realized that it was a police raid. finished that I was able to walk around amidst broken glass to find out that we'd actually been hit by a rocket and that the house was in rather a poor state.

Edison Zvobgo: What does it make you feel about staying on here?

Speaker 12: Well, it doesn't make much of a change. I'll still stay on.

Jenny Barraclough: What with people rocketing your house for no apparent reason?

Speaker 12: Well, there'd been other people I feel in exactly the same position as myself. After all's said and done, I am Rhodesian born and bred. I'm now a Zimbabwean working for the country, operating a foreign currency earning unit, and I have no intention of moving out. If somebody can say that there are better places, I'd like to see them.

Edison Zvobgo: This is one of the most troublesome assembly points, and these men are the key to Zimbabwe's future. After 12 months of mounting boredom and frustration, only 12,000 of the 34,000 guerrillas of Mugabe and Nkrumah's armies have been integrated with the old The military is consuming a third of the nation's budget. The heroes of war, as in all wars, have become an embarrassment in peacetime. But the Prime Minister has been advised to stay away. This is his first visit since independence. I am your father. I am your father.

Speaker 11: I am your father.

Robert Mugabe: I think first and foremost what everybody now looks up to government for is the ability to establish peace. I'm very concerned about these incidents which are occurring. I think it's just some frustration which has set in. In some of the assembly points, not in all, I feel the need exists for us to accelerate the pace, for pace of integrating ZANLA, ZIPRA, and the former Rhodesian forces. As long as these people are in assembly points, frustration is bound to set in. In Bulawayo, when violence flared between Mugabe and Nkrumah's men, 55 people If we had integrated our forces earlier, we would not have had the Bulawayo incident. At least it would not have been that ugly. The elements which are perpetrating these acts, who have gone dissident, are doing us disservice, and it is our duty to deal with them. to ensure that they are apprehended and brought to justice.

Edison Zvobgo: This is the National Security Council responsible for law and order. Mugabe needs to be seen to be acting even-handedly, but after the Bulawayo riots, 9 of Nkomo's top men were arrested. Nkomo, though Minister of Home Affairs, was neither told nor consulted. Their relationship now is said to be severely strained.

Joshua Nkomo: Many cynics thought we couldn't work together. Many people never thought that there could be any peace at all, and that the guerrillas will be shooting everybody around, and so on and so forth. Shootings have taken place, but not to the extent that the people thought they would take place.

Jenny Barraclough: You and your supporters must have been bitterly disappointed that you didn't get a greater measure of power. Have you and your party come to terms with that?

Joshua Nkomo: Well, people say we were greatly disappointed. But, of course, normally, as a party, you want to be in power. But the point is this: They forget that we didn't fight just to be in power. We fought that the country be free, be independent. We've got that. That's the main thing. There are people— are on people's— at times say we lost. I say, no, we didn't lose. what the main thing— and the main thing is independence. Independence has come for good. Governments come and go. So we have won the real thing we've set ourselves to achieve, and that is an independent and sovereign Zimbabwe.

Edison Zvobgo: Across the country, the alliance between Nkomo and Mugabe is still fragile, and with latent tribal jealousies, the failure of the coalition could be catastrophic. In Nkomo's Matabeleland are some of the poorest This is one of the poorest corners of the country, and there's a danger that the people here will feel forgotten. It's the rural areas that suffered most cruelly in the war, yet so far they've seen little change since independence. There were 4 kraals here burned by the security forces, but there's no straw to rebuild them. There's been precious little aid, and worse still, the rains have failed. I'm a farmer. This simple borehole, vital to survival, has remained unrepaired for 6 months. For the village committee here of Nkrumah's party, this will be one of the first tests of whether the new government in faraway Salisbury deserves their support or not.

Robert Mugabe: We have got no water for so many weeks.

Edison Zvobgo: People are suffering about 6 to 7 miles away trying to get some water.

Robert Mugabe: But we try to report this problem to the DC, but we never succeed.

Jenny Barraclough: Nothing's ever happened?

Joshua Nkomo: Nothing ever happened.

Jenny Barraclough: Some people have said that you and the Patriotic Front, Mr. Nkrumah's supporters, don't like the present government and would like a civil war. Is that true?

Robert Mugabe: No, it's untrue.

Jenny Barraclough: You want to live in peace?

Robert Mugabe: Yes, we want to live in peace.

Jenny Barraclough: Even under Azimio PF coalition government?

Robert Mugabe: Coalition government is all right.

Edison Zvobgo: It's all right?

Robert Mugabe: Just as long as it can bring us something, good changes to the people, for the people. We don't care whether color, language, whatsoever. We need help to the people, for the people.

Edison Zvobgo: Water is the life. It's the only life.

Robert Mugabe: literally a life is the water. Water is our life.

Edison Zvobgo: The most outspoken advocate for change is one of Mugabe's most radical and controversial ministers, who's narrowly escaped conviction in a famous murder trial, Edgar Tekere. Do you feel somewhat impatient at the way things are going?

Jenny Barraclough: Do you feel that There should be faster changes, more radical changes, perhaps?

Edgar Tekere: Oh, I think even Comrade Mugabe himself very often is suffering lots of strain because he's feeling frustrated. Things are not moving as fast as they ought to, and he's all the time trying to throw out his fingers to put them on threads of leads, you know, to quick change. I like quick change. The way I analyze it is very simple. We were out in the bush. We sacrificed many young men and women. Many of them are dead. Many of them are maimed, you know, shooting out a war. Bullets are very fast things. We caused these parents to commit their young children to Daughters and their young sons. Now we have come. The war has stopped. The bullets have stopped. Is it not natural that the population that gave its young sons and daughters should expect things to move fast, although not as fast as the bullet, but pretty fast? This is what I mean by the process of the revolution. We taught the people that there must be quick change, and we said, you give us sacrifice because we want quick change. And in fact, it is to be very liberal to say we want it now, because we want it yesterday. I know this age-old argument: don't disturb. You see, don't rock the boat. You see, but but if we if we have had so many decades of underprivileged people, suppressed people economically and politically, how do you go about that without rocking the boat? Go on with the people going on as they have always gone on. Then whom whom are we for? You see, it's commerce and industry for the people, and not people for the commerce and industry. No.

Edison Zvobgo: You have government in Zimbabwe.

Jenny Barraclough: Do you really feel you have power, proper power?

Edgar Tekere: We have power in parliament, in majorities in cabinet, but physical power is still something Economic power? Mm-mm, no. And this is why the process of the revolution must continue at a very fast rate. If anybody doesn't want to belong, get out. And let's take fresh stock of who is prepared to stay. And this goes for skilled manpower. You see, if they are going to behave like spoiled children, you know, who want privilege all the time and without any sense of belonging and without being people-oriented, out they go. They don't belong here. We don't want them.

Edison Zvobgo: Have you sometimes wished that some of your ministers had stayed silent rather than speaking out as openly as they have?

Robert Mugabe: They have made statements, I think, which by and large have been salutary. There have been others, of course, which tended to reflect the views of the individual minister. And this is because of the need which still exists on the part of some of them to reconcile themselves to the reality of accepting their former opponents or enemies as allies. I think that's a very important point. And it's therefore that psychological state which gives rise to some of the statements which the whites have found rather disconcerting.

Edison Zvobgo: Do you think some of the whites have rather overreacted to these statements, or do you have some sympathy with them when they're rather scared of what might happen?

Robert Mugabe: I think there has been some degree of overreaction, but I do sympathize with them, and I've had to appeal to some of their leaders to go more by government action than by some of the statements which they, they say cause fear and despondency amongst them.

Edison Zvobgo: So the whites have to be persuaded that their lifestyles are secure, while the blacks have to be convinced that change is coming fast. It's an almost impossible contradiction. At Kutama, Mugabe's birthplace, his old house is much as it was when he was a child. Life for his relations is much as it always was. The average income for peasant farmers is £20 a year. They need access to education, but above all, to new and better land. These are refugees displaced by the old regime and now without land of their own. Squatting is commonplace in land owned by absentee white farmers. Nowhere is the contrast between blacks and whites stronger than in education. This is a black primary school being visited by the minister, Zingayi Mutumbuka.

Speaker 1: This school actually is educating 941 young Zimbabweans.

Jenny Barraclough: So 8 classrooms of this size—

Speaker 1: That's right.

Edison Zvobgo: Between them have 900, nearly 950 pupils.

Edgar Tekere: That's right.

Jenny Barraclough: How's it done?

Speaker 1: Well, double sessioning. Some people come in the morning, some come in the afternoon. Tremendous crowding.

Edison Zvobgo: You can see every little space And this is a good African school, by Zimbabwean standards?

Speaker 1: This is a typical African school. It's really a very well-off school by Zimbabwean standards. It's a very well-off school.

Edison Zvobgo: Only 4 out of 10 African children have primary education of any sort at all. Even now, most black schools rely on charity, on the work of missionaries and volunteers. Despite the thirst for education, only one in twenty Africans will get to secondary school.

Speaker 1: This is absolutely incredible. Is this what we fought the war for? It's supposed to be some illegal school. Illegal government, what does it do?

Jenny Barraclough: What happens to children who can't even find a place in this sort of school, which is the majority of them?

Speaker 1: I don't know. I suppose they just rot away. That's why we went to war. And these things still happen. It's depressing, to say the least. I wonder whether I have a right to call myself Minister of Education and Culture when things like this happen.

Edison Zvobgo: This is another school of sorts.

Speaker 1: We have introduced free primary education, but these 2 teachers and their 3rd colleague, who is sick today, They are worried. They don't like these children to walk the streets without being able to read and write. So they come here, they volunteer their time, their tasks.

Edgar Tekere: Nobody pays them.

Jenny Barraclough: So how are they getting paid?

Speaker 1: Nobody pays them.

Jenny Barraclough: But even a great proportion of African children don't even have this level of education, right?

Speaker 1: No. Something like 50% to 60% of African children actually never go to school.

Jenny Barraclough: They don't even have this.

Speaker 1: They don't even have this.

Edison Zvobgo: Just 5 miles away is what used to be an all-white private school. The new government has made it free.

Speaker 16: And put the textbook on top. Right. Which is the best table? I'm going to see who's sitting up nicely. And they get 2 house points. Right, very quietly, put those books—

Speaker 15: On the night that the election results were announced, whites were appalled at the result and extremely concerned at the problems that will exist with the Mugabe government. I believed that there would be massive integration overnight, and I felt that things would change dramatically within And that standards would collapse? Oh, indeed. I think, I think that was the fear in most whites' minds, that standards would fall away, that they'd be forced to leave the country because of falling standards in education, which is one of the 3 things— health, education, and security— that whites were concerned about.

Jenny Barraclough: In the event, what's happened here?

Speaker 15: Well, in the event, of course, the school's gone on as normal.

Johannes Martens: There's been no problems.

Speaker 15: Integration has taken place gradually, and no problems at all. The school is functioning well, as good as it was 2, 3 years ago.

Jenny Barraclough: Are you being completely candid? Really, you've had no problems at all?

Speaker 15: No problems whatsoever. None at all.

Speaker 1: This is the average of any white school, Group A school.

Jenny Barraclough: And is this free?

Edison Zvobgo: It's completely free.

Speaker 1: It's completely free. There's no discrimination as against the child, whether you are black or white, as long as you go to school. But the trouble, of course, is that so many black kids never go to school.

Speaker 16: That's the problem.

Jenny Barraclough: So why don't you turn this back into a fee-paying school?

Speaker 1: Well, it's a question of the principle and policies of the government. We have said primary school education is free, irrespective of who you are, irrespective of your social I'm sorry. Irrespective of your ethnic origin, primary school education in this country is free. No parent has to pay. This is a political position we are taking. And so, we can't, you see, discriminate against children. It's not their fault, these children. It's us adults who made mistakes. So let us not penalize young people for our own mistakes.

Edison Zvobgo: For the lucky few who get good schooling, Britain has traditionally provided scholarships for British universities, but now foreign student grants have been cut and the Zimbabweans are bitterly disappointed.

Speaker 1: It's not just the question of pounds and pence. Many of the people from the Commonwealth look up to Britain as the senior partner. As their kind of mecca, really, shall we say. And people have been educated there. Some of us have been educated there. And you develop a certain tie with those countries. Now, what is going to happen is that the orientation of study is going to change, because if the Eastern Bloc countries offer us study facilities, we will definitely go. And gradually, over the years—

Speaker 16: Yes.

Speaker 1: You will build up a cadre who have their orientation in that direction. That will be their makeup. And that is one thing the British should bear in mind. It's not just a question of pence and pounds. There's much more to it than meets the eye.

Edison Zvobgo: Whatever aid comes from abroad, the new government in Salisbury must generate a prosperous economy if it's to pay for its reforms. They want free medical treatment for low-income Africans, but the whites won't tolerate their standards being lowered. Aspiring young Africans want work, but only 1 in 3 adult blacks now has a paid job. So far, Mugabe is following an economic policy that's much closer to that of the British Labour Party than that of Fidel Castro's Cuba.

Robert Mugabe: We realized that we had inherited an infrastructure which is principally capitalist, and that whatever socialist Whatever socialist policies we would want to implement, these policies had to take into account the economic background of the country, and that it wouldn't serve any purpose if we overthrew the system and tried to build on a completely new social basis. We have not hidden our beliefs. We have said we derive our socialist principles basically from Marxist-Leninist And we feel that there is a link between Marxist-Leninist thinking and some of our traditional collective ideas. And we are linking these together. But we also accept the Christian principles that come into it, the love that we should have for each other. Good neighborliness, charity, and that kind of thing. And on the basis of that, we are evolving a philosophy which we believe will be acceptable to our own people. There is, of course, individualism in our traditional society, but I think we would want to emphasize more the collective aspect, leaving room for individualism. This is how we look at it. I am dead against injustice. That, as an individual, I just can't stand. I can't stand being unfair to other people.

Edison Zvobgo: From this tobacco grading plant, people have complained to the ZANU party that they're ill-treated by the owner. A minister, Edison Zvobo, has decided to investigate. The owner has certainly been involved in Violence, but his injuries come from a domestic quarrel with other whites. Hello, good afternoon. Good afternoon. I'm Dr. Zorbo. How do you do?

Speaker 16: Fine, thank you.

Edison Zvobgo: I came out to to see your farm.

Speaker 1: Yes, yes. Stop it!

Edison Zvobgo: You have quite some dogs here, don't you?

Speaker 11: Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Yes.

Edison Zvobgo: Do they bite? No, no. They make a lot of noise. They make a lot of noise. Yes. Anyhow, I will tell you briefly why we are here.

Robert Mugabe: Yes.

Edison Zvobgo: I came out here because yesterday, yes, I had a rally. Yes. In Waterfalls. Yes. Right. Yes. I had some of your workers with me at the meeting. Yes. They complained extremely. Extremely bitterly about what they alleged to be the kind of treatment they received here.

Speaker 12: Yes, yes.

Speaker 7: From you.

Robert Mugabe: Yes.

Edison Zvobgo: They decided I come down and have a look. Could we have a look?

Speaker 11: Sure, surely. Come in.

Edison Zvobgo: 500 people live and work here, sorting and grading tobacco. Their pay is about 1.5 Zimbabwean dollars for a 10 to 12 hour working day. That's about $2.30 American or £1 sterling. There's no trade union here to improve wages or conditions, and those who tried to form a ZANU party committee complain of harassments and of sackings. At first, people were They say— she says that, and he does, and the others here, that you shupa them a lot, that you bother them here at work.

Speaker 11: And what way do I bother them? Ask them what way I bother them. Why do you bother them? And what we do bother them?

Edison Zvobgo: She says, um, you, you, you bother them because they get up at 6 and they work until You don't give them any break at all?

Jim Sinclair: Oh, no.

Edison Zvobgo: And what's worse— let me finish.

Speaker 7: Yes?

Edison Zvobgo: What's worse, that you use foul language against them?

Johannes Martens: Uh-huh.

Edison Zvobgo: You use bad language whenever you are issuing orders to your workers. Why— why—

Speaker 11: I don't think I use bad language at all. The only times I do use bad language is if the tobacco is mixed.

Edison Zvobgo: Now on this, you use bad language.

Speaker 11: Sometimes, yes. We all do when we get angry, don't we? Yeah. Now on this, let's turn around and take it this way. She says she works from 66. Now there's some of the people here. I don't close doors or anything like this. They go out, they have their meals, they have their tea anytime they want. มึงออนว่ามึงออนมึงออนสิดเด็มมึงออนว่าดี Prime Minister, I don't give them tea.

Edison Zvobgo: All right, all right. I don't give them tea. Oh, I see.

Speaker 11: I don't give them tea. No, no.

Edison Zvobgo: Да я просто не могу шатzenю, конечно, потому что они мне дизаж. I do not give them tea. No. Мы мы не ендамегам, мы chỉ non ngoa tea của Zimbabwe.

Speaker 11: No. But if they want to go out for the tea, they go out. They have a tea.

Edison Zvobgo: We're trying to do a passport. Right. This is the busboy. That's right.

Speaker 11: This is the busboy.

Edison Zvobgo: He agrees with the people. He says you are bothersome. I'm bothersome? He says you dismiss people without notice. Today, today you dismissed two people, a husband and a wife, without notice.

Speaker 11: I Dismissed them, yes. They are daily paid employees. Before you paid the notice? Which is one day.

Edison Zvobgo: But one day?

Speaker 11: That's right. That's right. They are daily paid employees. They're daily paid employees, you see.

Edison Zvobgo: Now, how come, how come all the, all your workers say you ill-treat them?

Speaker 11: Well, I don't know about this.

Edison Zvobgo: I don't know about this. But that's what they are saying. He says he was beaten and you set dogs, you set dogs to him. What did he have to say?

Speaker 11: I say he was definitely not beaten, and the dogs were definitely not beaten.

Edison Zvobgo: I mean, he was bitten.

Speaker 11: He was bitten.

Edison Zvobgo: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. By which dogs? Let's see which dog. Shiba. He says you were holding You were dragging him here whilst the dogs were biting him?

Speaker 11: No, no, no.

Speaker 1: How long ago was this?

Edison Zvobgo: My friends came here who are members of ZANU-PF, who came to play with me here. You said, why do you play with ZANU-PF people? Then you asked him to come to the office. As soon as he got in the office, your 3 dogs set on him. And your dogs were biting him, and you did not pay him his money. He actually fought you physically.

Speaker 11: Wait a minute. No. Let's go into— no. Can I give you this lot first? This deal first?

Edison Zvobgo: Yes. This is what blacks tend to see as a measure of justice being introduced at the workplace. It's what many whites see as an intrusion into private enterprise, which can only make industrial relations worse. In fact, the minister has no legal jurisdiction here. You want us to believe that leaders of this whole group here, he is guilty of stealing? A leader of this whole group here? You're like, like him?

Speaker 11: According to the police.

Edison Zvobgo: Have they been tried?

Speaker 11: Uh, no, they haven't been tried yet. I don't think so. I don't know. Ask them. George, have you been tried yet?

Johannes Martens: No.

Speaker 11: You haven't been tried yet? When, when is your case coming up?

Edison Zvobgo: No, I was found unguilt—

Speaker 11: You have been tried?

Josiah Tongogara: You did only suspect me.

Speaker 11: Have you been tried yet?

Joshua Nkomo: No.

Speaker 7: You haven't been tried?

Edison Zvobgo: I'm helpless.

Speaker 11: No, okay, but the police took him away. I asked if he'd been charged, and he was shot.

Edison Zvobgo: If you call the police and say, take him away, he has stolen, they will take him away. They will examine— yes, then they will examine him, they will cross-examine him, and if they find there are no grounds to prosecute, they let him go. That's why I'm saying, why so much emphasis on firing people? Who else was dismissed?

Speaker 11: Now, I'm not taking all I will take some. You take him, stand there.

Edison Zvobgo: Right?

Speaker 11: Now, Mr. Minister, on this, this is—

Edison Zvobgo: Let us have a gentleman's agreement. Otherwise, I shut down the place.

Speaker 1: Okay. Now, Mr.

Speaker 11: Minister—

Edison Zvobgo: Now, I'm giving you a very clear-cut offer.

Speaker 11: Right. I totally agree with that.

Edison Zvobgo: Right. This is your private business.

Johannes Martens: Yes, yes.

Edison Zvobgo: You either take back some people I am going to produce here, or I shut down the place. Place from tomorrow. Okay. All right. Now you take him back, right? Right. We are going to. You take him back from tomorrow, eh? Right. All right.

Speaker 11: Give him job tomorrow. No, Mr. Chairman.

Edison Zvobgo: Why?

Speaker 11: Why? Why? He is a bad grader. He is a bad. He is a bad grader.

Edison Zvobgo: He is a bad grader. Yes. Uh, Zanzibar mugone ku grada. Yes. He is a bad grader. Ah, makaseza.

Speaker 11: He is a bad grader.

Edison Zvobgo: He has been grading for four. Oh, yes.

Robert Mugabe: No, for these employees.

Edison Zvobgo: What I'm trying to do is to restore—

Speaker 11: Yes, I totally agree with you.

Edison Zvobgo: —the confidence—

Speaker 11: I totally agree with you.

Edison Zvobgo: —in your workers, in you. All right? I want us to be very clear. You, as employer, you are entitled to them to work hard, to earn the money that you pay them.

Joshua Nkomo: Our workers earn very well.

Edison Zvobgo: That's right. That's right. They have— if you are going to pay them, they must put A day's hard work here.

Joshua Nkomo: Yes.

Edison Zvobgo: But you treat them with respect. You treat them as human beings. You treat them as human beings. You treat them well.

Speaker 11: Yes.

Edison Zvobgo: Now, this business of your firing people left, right and center—

Speaker 11: Yes.

Edison Zvobgo: —is not consistent with what we are trying to do, which is— we have talked about the spirit of reconciliation and so on. But can you explain why don't they all of them like you? Why? I don't know.

Speaker 11: You can help and see they do their work. All of them don't.

Edison Zvobgo: You don't have hard workers here at all. Oh yes, very hard workers. But why don't those hard workers like you? Why? Mr. Minister, honestly. Yeah, you know. Wasn't that who you supposed to have overdone? Unanimous.

Robert Mugabe: Yes, I'll show you those celebrities.

Speaker 11: I don't see the business continuing at all if they carry on like this.

Edison Zvobgo: I think If you did close here, where would you go? What would you do?

Robert Mugabe: Well, I don't know about this.

Speaker 11: I've been seriously considering the UK. But when you have a look at the UK and have a look at their politicians, some of them don't even know back from front on this. Well, it's very, very hard to say. Perhaps the UK, perhaps South Africa, maybe Brazil. I don't know. I'll just have to see where I can get myself fitted into.

Edison Zvobgo: At least 1,000 whites a month have left since independence, though few because of harassment or actual government policy. Most took their decisions in the early days because during the war they'd been encouraged to think there could be no future for them. For those who remain, their image of Mugabe has undergone a transformation from bête noire almost to great white hope. Each month, about 400 people, blacks and whites, are quietly going out to settle. But when whites quit, as with some farmers near Mtoko, it tends to get into the papers. Farmers' leader Jim Sinclair.

Jim Sinclair: Well, Mtoko's got a unique problem. They, um, they have an AP in the area, an assembly point. They have been harassed considerably, but there are only 23 white farmers in Mtoko anyway, compared to the total A white farmer, a population of about 6,000. So although it's a tragedy for those farmers concerned, it's by no means a tragedy for the industry or the country.

Jenny Barraclough: So you're saying the press is exaggerating the problem?

Jim Sinclair: Yes, I'm saying that, yeah. I think that they're tending to go to the areas of concern and leaving the peaceful areas, which are by far the larger part of the country, alone. And that's, to my way of thinking, is, you know, it's an unreal situation. An unreal portrayal of our situation.

Jenny Barraclough: You think, by and large, the Western press has got it wrong?

Jim Sinclair: Well, from what I've seen of the Western press, yes. I have been overseas recently, and the picture that they paint of this country doesn't bear any relation to the one that I know. And we've got a whole lot of self-fulfilling prophecies around here, like the whites are all going to leave. Well, we aren't going to leave. It seems to me that a lot of people would like to see us leave. I don't believe that many Zimbabweans want to see us leave, and I include my, my black compatriots in that remark. But pressure is on us, sure, but we'll survive it. We'll stay. And I can see a fairly sticky 2 years ahead, but I think once we're through that, we'll be fine.

Robert Mugabe: I believe that we have got to look to now. We've got to look to the future.

Jenny Barraclough: I represent, Mr.

Robert Mugabe: Chairman, people who are farmers, people who have everything sunk into this country, people who are not going to leave, people who are determined to make a success. And I look optimistically towards the future.

Jenny Barraclough: I give my best wishes, too, to the new government.

Robert Mugabe: To the prime minister and what he's trying to do and reassert once again my confidence in the future. Once again, Mr. Chairman, may I thank all members for the compliments that they have showered on me.

Didymus Mutasa: There are some people who really absorb the whole of my attention, and then others that make my mind wander. I think about I was thinking about, you know, how good it is to have got to this position, but how sad that we have had to arrive at it through the loss of so much blood, and how mad, really, people can be to resolve through war something which we could have actually resolved through discussion. And seeing Mr. Smith To see President Obama there and Comrade Mugabe looking at each other and probably laughing at the same joke is something which is very pleasing. You see, people have done now what we should have done a century ago.

Robert Mugabe: I have tremendous responsibilities. I know, but I know this is what we were fighting for.

Jenny Barraclough: But do you have private doubts sometimes?

Robert Mugabe: No, I'm always a confident man. I never allow defeat to— I mean, the thought of defeat to creep into my mind. I'm not a defeatist, as it were.

Edison Zvobgo: Is it a lonely position, being prime minister, with all the problems, responsibilities you have?

Robert Mugabe: In fact, my complaint is that I'm never lonely. I would like to be lonely sometimes. And I'm always in company, as you can see. Right. Okay, fine. Guy? Our ability to direct events here in a way which will build peace and lead to greater economic development and the establishment of a nonracial society, if we can If we succeed, I think our success will promote the endeavors of the people in South Africa to work towards the same goal. In fact, if the history of this country were to be written, it would simply record that once upon a time there was a party called the British of France which would not tolerate other parties or individuals opposed to it, banned parties, banned individuals.

Edison Zvobgo: Mm-hmm.

Robert Mugabe: And remain only with puppet organizations around it. I think they are happy that they have an African government, that that government is one of their own making. I think they're prepared to wait, but of course there is a limit to which people can wait for the benefits to which they know they are entitled.

Speaker 11: Hello, Darbar al-Fanun!

Joshua Nkomo: Hello!