Posted on 01/19/2004 4:38:00 AM PST by Clive
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe has thrown his party into turmoil after announcing an anti-corruption crackdown that began recently the arrest of his relative and top crony Philip Chiyangwa. The crackdown has split his party between the old guard, led by Mugabe, and the so-called Young Turks, who believe Mugabe is trying to victimise them because he suspects they are plotting against him.
Chiyangwa, in his early forties, belongs to the camp of the Young Turks, many of whom packed the courtroom during his bail hearing this week.
The Young Turks are suspicious of Mugabe's intentions because most of them have accumulated enormous wealth, apparently as they looted white farms and intimidated factory owners into giving them equity for a song. They suspect that as Mugabe's reign reaches its twilight zone, the 80-year-old leader wants to improve his credibility at their expense.
The Young Turks interviewed this week insisted that if Mugabe was serious about cracking down on corruption, he would also have to target members of his old guard who have been equally corrupt. They say he has to start by firing Emmerson Mnangagwa, the speaker of parliament, and others accused of looting the Democratic Republic of the Congo in a United Nations report.
Young officials of the ruling Zanu-PF party said Mugabe now accepted the inevitability of his departure from power and he was probably suspicious that they might disrupt his succession plans.
Mugabe this week said he had helped young men establish banks and accumulate different forms of wealth, but he accused them of having become corrupt and resorting to sabotaging his government and the economy in pursuit of wealth. He said he would no longer tolerate any corruption.
His remarks this week were a marked departure from what had become his normal rhetoric of blaming everything wrong in his country on Britain and other "white enemies". The remarks were also preceded by the arrests of Chiyangwa and a number of young business executives, most with close links to his party.
Chiyangwa, who is also the chairperson of the Zanu-PF Mashonaland West provincial executive committee, has been named in connection with a Z$61-billion (about R1-billion at the official exchange rate) scam, the country's largest bank scandal since independence from Britain in 1980. In addition, Chiyangwa allegedly looted white-owned farms, stealing farming equipment from beleaguered white farmers. Other cronies had reportedly been involved in asset stripping, taking over state assets for a song and reselling them at huge profits.
Chiyangwa's woes mounted this week when police found several luxury vehicles at his homes in Harare. He had previously told the court he had no knowledge of the cars.
Many analysts doubt that Mugabe will sustain the crackdown. "If he does, he will have to fire just about everybody in his cabinet because they are all corrupt," said Lovemore Madhuku, a political analyst.
One group I doubt he'll target: young Army officers who made good in the DRC.
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