Soldiers and the State in Zimbabwe 1138496189, 9781138496187

Table of contents :
Cover
Half Title
Series Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
List of acronyms
Note by the author
1. An introduction
Contextualising soldiers in Zimbabwe
Book structure
2. Recruitment and training
Introduction
Integration and recruitment: strengthening the base
Stripping and shrugging the ‘civilian mentality’
Drills, military dressing, and discipline
Circumventing military command and control
Conclusion
Notes
3. Military intelligence, politics, and loyalty in combat uniform
Introduction
Soldiers as victims in the army barracks
Charlie Mike and his compatriots
Whisky Papa and other deserters
Conclusion
Note
4. Empty combat bellies, troop canteens: Barracks of hunger
Introduction
From the Congo war to Zimbabwean barracks
Barrack kitchen arrangement
Quartermaster: keeping and stealing army rations
Empty canteens: 001
Ma Off eZhara: time off because of hunger
Outside the barracks: sustaining the barracks
Calling off parades and other military activities
Conclusion
5. Promotion and demotion of rank
Introduction
Political armies: Africa and beyond
Political speeches: army generals
Promotion and demotion: the two armies in army barracks
Conclusion
Note
6. Military prosecution and detention
Introduction
Military court martial
Incompetent military prosecutors/judges
Distinction between court martial and civilian court
The Zimbabwe Defence Act Chapter 11: 02: interpretation and punishment
Offences on morale
Mutiny
Conclusion
7. Dreaming the military: Re-living the barracks in exile
Introduction
Soldiering in church
Perpetuation of the military past: socialities in exile
Camaraderie spaces
Humour and jokes
Between justification and remorse
Military skills: the only resource on the labour market
Conclusion
Note
8. Mobilising the coup in the barracks
Introduction
Director of military intelligence in all the barracks
General Chiwenga visit
Celebrating army generals in politics?
Conclusion
Concluding remarks
References
Index

Citation preview

Soldiers and the State in Zimbabwe

This book explores the barracks experiences of soldiers in post-independence Zimbabwe, examining the concept of military professionalism within a state in political crisis. Drawing upon interviews with former soldiers of the Zimbabwe National Army, Soldiers and the State in Zimbabwe casts a light on the oppression of soldiers by commanders who sought to repress and control the political thinking of their men. By contextualising the political, economic, and material conditions in which Zimbabwean soldiers existed, Godfrey Maringira reveals the everyday victimisation and violence of the barracks. Exploring such events as the imposition of the Defence Act, the desertion of soldiers, and the 2017 military coup in Zimbabwe, the book presents and discusses the politicised nature of the military in post-independence Zimbabwe, and the political consequences of service in a state in deep political crisis. Soldiers and the State in Zimbabwe will be of interest to scholars and students of African politics, military and security studies, and African studies. Godfrey Maringira is a professor of anthropology based at Sol Plaatje University, Kimberly, South Africa, and a recipient of the Volkswagen Foundation Senior Research Fellowship. He was awarded the 2018 Best African Author Prize for his article Politicization and resistance in the Zimbabwean National Army in African Affairs. He is also a Research Associate at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa.

African Governance 1. Traditional Institutions in Contemporary African Governance Edited by Kidane Mengisteab and Gerard Hagg 2. Non-State Social Protection Actors and Services in Africa Governance Below the State Edited by Nicholas Awortwi and Gregor Walter-Drop 3. State-building Interventions in Post-Conflict Liberia Building a State without Citizens By Susanne Mulbah 4. Mauritania's Colonels Political Leadership, Civil-Military Relations and Democratization By Boubacar N’Diaye 5. The Rwenzururu Movement in Uganda Struggling for Recognition By Martin Doornbos 6. South Sudan Post-Independence Dilemmas Edited by Amir Idris 7. Institutional Legacies, Decision Frames and Political Violence in Rwanda and Burundi By Stacey M. Mitchell 8. Aid Relations and State Reforms in the Democratic Republic of the Congo The Politics of Mutual Accommodation and Administrative Neglect By Stylianos Moshonas 9. African Presidential Republics By Jean Blondel 10. Cultural Capital and Prospects for Democracy in Botswana and Ethiopia By Asafa Jalata 11. Soldiers and the State in Zimbabwe By Godfrey Maringira

Soldiers and the State in Zimbabwe

Godfrey Maringira

First published 2019 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2019 Godfrey Maringira The right of Godfrey Maringira to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Maringira, Godfrey, author. Title: Soldiers and the state in Zimbabwe / Godfrey Maringira. Other titles: African governance ; 11. Description: New York, NY : Routledge, 2019. | Series: African governance ; 11 Identifiers: LCCN 2019008477| ISBN 9781138496187 (hardback) | ISBN 9781351022347 (ebook) | ISBN 9781351022323 (epub) | ISBN 9781351022316 (mobipocket) Subjects: LCSH: Zimbabwe. National Army--Military life. | Soldiers--Abuse of--Zimbabwe. | Civil-military relations--Zimbabwe. Classification: LCC UA861.7 .M37 2019 | DDC 355.3096891--dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019008477 ISBN: 978-1-138-49618-7 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-351-02234-7 (ebk) Typeset in Times New Roman by Taylor & Francis Books

This book is dedicated to my late Mother.

Contents

Acknowledgements List of acronyms Note by the author

viii x xi

1

An introduction

1

2

Recruitment and training

8

3

Military intelligence, politics, and loyalty in combat uniform

27

4

Empty combat bellies, troop canteens: Barracks of hunger

43

5

Promotion and demotion of rank

58

6

Military prosecution and detention

73

7

Dreaming the military: Re-living the barracks in exile

93

8

Mobilising the coup in the barracks

105

Concluding remarks

114

References Index

115 125

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank my funders who have made the writing of this book possible: the African Peacebuilding Network: Social Sciences Research Council for awarding me a book manuscript grant to write this book and providing a mentor, Dr Khabele Matlosa, who has been very insightful and thorough in his reading, suggestions, and comments. He read each of the chapters in this book and gave feedback. Again, Volkswagen Foundation: Junior and Senior Fellowship has been important in my research and writing. It would have been difficult for me to sit down and concentrate without such financial support. The fellowship had also enabled me to have productive mentors: Professor Diana Gibson has been wonderful throughout the writing phases, and since 2011 when I first met her as my PhD supervisor. I am also very thankful for Professor Rachel Woodward, who has been very thought-provoking in the development of this project. Since 2012, she has been very helpful, coming down from the UK to attend and present her work which speaks to mine, and we have had detailed engagement. Dr Sarah Bulmer has been a resource since the beginning of the project, right from the inception. In addition, Professor Annemiek Richters has been quite helpful in this journey too while I was developing my ideas. Professor Lorena Nunez Carrasco has been important too in her insights. I am also very thankful to Professor Jocelyn Alexander, Oxford University, whose work has inspired me a lot and allowed me to strengthen this kind of work on African critical military studies. She has been giving me feedback on some of the chapters way before I began the book project. At the time of writing, Professor Alexander has been my Volkswagen Foundation senior fellowship mentor. Indeed, she remains an academic resource. Thanks also goes to Professor Joost Fontein. He read some of my draft work and gave me critical feedback, helping me to shape my arguments and the papers which were later published. I would also want to thank the funders, The American Council of Learned Societies – African Humanities Program (AHP), Next generation Social Sciences in Africa, Africa Peacebuilding Network, Harry Frank Guggeinheim Foundation–Young African Scholars program for the engagements and flying me to international conferences – including the African Studies Association, UK conference.

Acknowledgements

ix

One of my foremost thanks goes to the soldiers who shared their painful barrack experiences. Special thanks go to the late soldier who had served 21 years and 8 months and finally deserted the army. He told his stories with agony. At the time of writing the manuscript, he had passed on. I am thankful to all my colleagues which I cannot all mention here. They have been supportive. My greatest thanks go to my wife, Linda Kahari, and our two kids, Makatendeka and Mukundisi. You have been enduring, but you continued to be supportive. It would not have been possible without you.

List of acronyms

AMMOZA – Affected Military Men of Zimbabwe Association AU – African Union BMATT – British Military Advisory and Training Team DDR – Disarmament Demobilisation Reintegration DRC – Democratic Republic of Congo MDC – Movement for Democratic Change SADC–Southern African Development Community SIB – Special Investigation Branch ZANLA – Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army ZANU PF – Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front ZAPU – Zimbabwe African People’s Union ZIC – Zimbabwe Intelligence Corps ZIPRA – Zimbabwe People’s Revolutionary Army ZMP – Zimbabwe Military Police ZNA– Zimbabwe National Army

Note by the author

The book highlights some of the issues which have been ongoing inside the military barracks way before the November 2017 coup: issues which were hidden from the media. Considering much of the military interest in politics, issues which are raised in the book, it was not surprising to see the military staging a coup in Zimbabwe. This book explores these issues in greater detail.

1

An introduction

What do we know about soldiers and soldiering in post-colonial Africa? Scholarship has been dominated by soldiers doing political violence on civilians, but less is known about the ways in which the state does violence on its own soldiers who serve it. In this book I argue that soldiers should not only simplistically be viewed as perpetrators but also as victims of barrack and state violence. This often happens in a context where a country is in deep political crisis. It is argued here that in the context of Zimbabwe, the state, and the political party which rules it, the Zimbabwe African National Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) had to work quite hard to mobilise soldiers to support it. It was never a given and easy for ZANU-PF to co-opt soldiers to do the work of violence as some scholars would think, rather in the army barracks ZANU-PF, through its political commanders, had to hoodwink, punish, and align junior soldiers into a particular political thinking which celebrates it. The army commanders devised forms of punishment for soldiers who were politically astray, but also forms of reward to those who were glorifying the ZANU politics respectively. The barracks became spaces of politics for men in combat uniform, a practice which is forbidden by the constitution. Soldiers were labelled as belonging to an opposition political party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), led by the late Morgan Tsvangirai, now led by Advocate Nelson Chamisa. While some soldiers remained in the barracks, others deserted. They were deeply disappointed by the erosion of professional ethics in the Zimbabwe National Army (especially the ways in which the army had become de-professionalised) and found refuge in neighbouring African countries. This book therefore explores soldiers barrack experiences of being tormented by their political commanders. This political practice was and is hardly known to the public domain; such realities of living and working in combat under ZANU-PF army commanders has never been an easy task for men whose voices are presented in this book. This is despite that the Zimbabwe National Army draws much of its military training approach from the British, but in practice it does the opposite of what a professional army is expected to do. Inside the Zimbabwe army barracks politics grimed and soiled junior soldiers’ daily living: soldiers could only eat one meal per day: supper. I explore these in the book in greater detail.

2

An introduction

Apart from hunger in the barracks, the political commanders manipulated and deployed the Defence Act to intentionally prosecute and detain soldiers. Interestingly, none of the commanders who sought to interpret the Defence Act had knowledge of the law and its application. The Act was a weapon to discipline and control soldiers’ activities. Almost on every day, soldiers were brought before the officer commanding for the said offences, which were in all respect politically charged. None of the soldiers could contest and /or appeal a charge against them, as this was deemed to be an insubordination of command. The barracks were therefore centres of political power in which ZANU-PF ideology was perpetuated and inculcated by all means. The book draws on soldiers who, since 1980, had joined the Zimbabwe National Army and so served in post-independence Zimbabwe and deserted the army in post-2000. They differ from former liberation guerrillas who were incorporated into the Army after independence. For the latter the military at the time had a political meaning and goal for and of liberation. The deserters joined the Army mainly because it was an opportunity to serve the country as well as secure paid work. There has been no such kind of work on this category of soldiers. The only approximate and detailed account is that of Alexander (1998) who studied soldiers who deserted from the Zimbabwe National Army (ZNA) in 1982. The 1982 deserters were former liberation war fighters from the Zimbabwe People’s Revolutionary Army (ZIPRA), an armed wing of the Zimbabwe African People’s Union party led by Joshua Nkomo. On integration into the new Zimbabwe National Army they were motivated to desert because of ethnic-based political tensions within the army and the country at large. Most of them were Ndebele compared with the majority of Shona people in Zimbabwe. Long before and after their desertion, their relations with the government deteriorated and their political leaders, for example Dumiso Dabengwa and Lookout Masuku, were jailed. These deserters were called ‘dissidents’ (Alexander, 1998) based on claims that they planned to subvert former President Robert Mugabe’s government and had retained arms caches. Some of the latter were apparently discovered but were a ploy by Mugabe’s army and security personnel in Matabeleland in 1982 and were seen as an indication of a plan to overthrow the government of Mugabe (CCJPZ, 1997). Unlike Alexander’s (1998) article, which attended only to Ndebele soldiers who deserted when they were politically as well as ethnically targeted and persecuted in the army, I focus on Ndebele and Shona-speaking soldiers who joined the ZNA in post-independence Zimbabwe between 1986 and 2001 and subsequently deserted or resigned and went into exile in South Africa. Contrary to Alexander’s (1998) study, my participants did not participate in the liberation war for Zimbabwean independence. They were deployed in postindependence wars, i.e. in Mozambique (1986–1992) and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC; 1998–2002). Apart from Alexander’s study, there has not been any other account that explores the experiences of disillusioned Zimbabwean soldiers who left the army, including those who seek refuge in

An introduction

3

South Africa. The reasons for abandoning the military and migrating to South Africa, as well as their lives in this host country, have thus far remained obscure.

Contextualising soldiers in Zimbabwe The Zimbabwe National Army was promulgated and formed at independence in 1980. Its formation mainly involved the integration of two former liberation armed groups: the Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army – an armed wing of the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front led by former president Robert Mugabe and the Zimbabwe Patriotic Revolutionary Army, an armed wing of the Zimbabwe African Patriotic Union, as well as members of the former white Rhodesian Security Forces. In the early 1980s the army was professionalised and regularised with standardised principles, policies, organisation, uniforms, training, etc. through the advice, supervision, and involvement of the British Military Advisory and Training Team (BMATT; see also Alao, 1995; Tendi, 2013). Until the departure of BMATT in 2001, the Zimbabwe National Army was still professional – though with some political challenges, especially following the disturbances and the Matabeleland massacres of the early 1980s under Gukurahundi (see White, 2007; Alexander, 1998). In the late 1980s the Zimbabwe National Army recruited the first cohort of soldiers who had not participated in the liberation war (Young, 1997). The reasons for such recruitments were twofold: first, to support an aging group of veteran soldiers who had served in the liberation army and second, for deployment in armed conflicts in Mozambique and the Democratic Republic of Congo. In the later years, the army became much more politicised, publicly supporting former President Robert Mugabe, while denigrating the opposition political party (see Chapters 3–8). A brief description of the armed conflicts abroad, as well as the political crisis in Zimbabwe – in which these soldiers were involved – is needed to understand what they went through and why they deserted from the army. While soldiers who fought in the Zimbabwean liberation war from the 1960s to the late 1970s joined the army for political reasons (Alexander, 1998; Alexander & MacGregor, 2004; Chung, 2006; Kriger, 2003; Mhanda, 2011), the former soldiers, who participated in this study, did so mainly to find employment. They joined the ZNA from 1986 onwards, when the Zimbabwean government embarked on the mass recruiting of soldiers to support the Mozambican government (1986–1992) against the Mozambican National Resistance (RENAMO) rebels (Young, 1997). The Zimbabwean soldiers were deployed to protect the oil pipeline, stretching from Mozambique to Zimbabwe, against rebel attacks. Subsequently, ZNA soldiers were also deployed, between 1998 and 2002, to support the war of the government of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) against a rebel group, which was backed by Rwanda and Uganda’s National Army. In 2003, after the cessation of this war, the Zimbabwean troops returned to barracks in Zimbabwe. From there, they operated in internal deployments. Scholars have described the

4

An introduction

Zimbabwean situation at the time as a multiple crisis (Crush & Tevera, 2010; Hammar & Raftopoulos, 2003; Raftopoulos, 2009; Worby, 2003) exacerbated by internal state-sponsored political violence. This violence became known as jambanja, which refers to an uprising, chaos, disorder, and a general loss of political morality, as brutality grew against opposition party supporters (Chaumba et al., 2003). Muzondidya (2009) notes that ZANU (PF) political party, led by President Robert Mugabe, deployed its militant youth to shore up support during elections and marshalled state resources and institutions such as the army and the police to ensure electoral obedience. The soldiers became perpetrators and victims of jambanja. They were politically deployed to threaten and commit violence against civilians (defined as members of the opposition political party) and against perceived enemies of the State, including white farmers (Sachikonye, 2011). This created acrimony and a social distance between soldiers and a large part of the civilian population. All soldiers were viewed as oppressors, like the ZANU PF, especially as a result of the violence committed by soldiers during these operations. Thus, while Ndlovu-Gatsheni (2009) argues that former president Mugabe has never been tolerant, Ranger (2004) notes that Mugabe shifted from ‘nationalist historiography’, which advocated a welfare agenda and reconstruction, to ‘patriotic history’, which divides the nation into black and white, ‘patriots’, and ‘sell-outs’. The Zimbabwean army remained politicised. In the post-2000 crisis, the army publicly supported former President Robert Mugabe (Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 2009). This phenomenon has been described as the ‘politicisation of the military’ in post-colonial Zimbabwe (Rupiya, 2011). Politics centred on Mugabe and every political action was undertaken in support of his regime. This is what Ranger (2004a) called ‘Mugabe-ism’ (see also Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 2009). Thus, in Zimbabwe, soldiers are perceived as anti-democratic beneficiaries of former president Robert Mugabe’s patron–client relationship, a perception reinforced by the involvement of the army in political violence. Soldiers were deployed in rural and urban areas, for instance during the land reform programme and during election periods (Alexander, 2003; Hammar, 2005; Hammar et al., 2010; Solidarity Peace Trust, 2009), as well as during Operation Murambatsvina (‘Clean the filth in all cities’) in 2005 (Fontein, 2015) in which the filth was the opposition political members. Elections were approached by ZANU-PF as ‘battles’ and political opponents were viewed as enemies to be annihilated rather than as political competitors (Muzondidya, 2009). According to Raftopoulos (2009) most of the political violence against civilians was directed by the Joint Operation Command (JOC) of the armed forces. At the time, amidst the political and economic crisis from the year 2000, a large number of soldiers were positioned around the country to ensure the implementation and success of different government political actions, forcing people to chant and celebrate President Robert Mugabe’s slogans and songs, harassing and flogging civilians (Sachikonye, 2011; Hammar & Raftopoulos, 2003; Hammar, 2008; Raftopoulos, 2009; Solidarity Peace Trust, 2008). This was done to ensure a solid bloc of votes

An introduction

5

for President Mugabe against his opposition, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) led by Morgan Tsvangirai. In the post-2000 crisis, the continuing political violence and economic decline of the country profoundly affected soldiers in the barracks. Many became frustrated and, with rampant inflation, their salaries could not meet their basic needs. In some cases their monthly salary was insufficient to enable them to buy the staple food. The return of Zimbabwean soldiers from the DRC war in 2003 coincided with the political and economic meltdown of Zimbabwe. The market was considered to be kupenga (‘mad’ in ChiShona; Jones, 2010b). Subsequently, the economic crisis deepened, with unprecedented levels of hyperinflation. Jones (2010a) described Zimbabwe’s economy at the time as kukiya-kiya, which points to an indescribable scenario where normal strategies of life are rendered useless. People resorted to illegal strategies to survive. Hanke (2008) observed that, by November 2008, the annual hyperinflation index rate was close to 90 sextillion per cent (sextillion: 1 followed by 21 zeros). There were virtually no cash transactions taking place and the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange had stopped trading. Former President Robert Mugabe tried to control inflation by using what Tendai Biti, the former Minister of Finance called ginyanomics – the controlling of inflation by arresting industry and commerce leaders and imposing price-control monitors on shops. When presenting the 2013 national budget, Tendai Biti emphasised that the economy had become feja-feja (a game of dice). The actors in the Zimbabwean economy were using random and at times criminal strategies, most of which fell outside what was normal, in a collapsing economy (Nyamunda, & Mukwambo, 2012). Jones (2010b) observed that by February 2009, immediately before the Zimbabwean dollar was replaced by the US dollar, an egg cost two trillion Zimbabwean dollars. The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe had printed a hundred trillion (Zim-dollar) note and, along with ordinary civilian Zimbabweans, the soldiers faced financial disaster when the Zimbabwean dollar collapsed. The continuing economic crisis destroyed the livelihoods of soldiers and other civil servants; their monthly salary was at the time equivalent to US$10.00. At the same time, in the barracks, many junior soldiers were increasingly victimised by the military intelligence, military police, and paranoid veterans of the former liberation struggle. Furthermore, army generals were re-directing soldier’s food rations for their own use and hunger and strife were common in the barracks. Faced with such an economic crisis and severely suffering from political victimisation, a number of soldiers decided to end their contracts or, because of the stringent conditions associated with resigning, simply deserted from the army and sought refuge in South Africa. Some of the soldiers stated explicitly that they deserted from the army because of an increase in cases of persecution and the indefinite detention of troops by the Zimbabwean military police, the Special Investigation Branch (SIB), and military intelligence. This usually followed on suspicion that the

6

An introduction

soldiers supported the opposition political party, the MDC led by the late Morgan Tsvangirai, issues that are dealt with in this book.

Book structure Chapter 1 contextualises the political and economic conditions through which soldiers were made to live just like any of the people in Zimbabwe. This provides a vantage point in framing the ways in which the crisis permeated the army barracks. Chapter 2 presents how soldiers were trained. The chapter asserts that the relationship between soldiers and the state is made through military training. However, even though the military training was more British in its approach, ZANU-PF had to find ways to recruit man who could neither read nor write, a clear testimony to fulfil its political mandate of reaching out to its support base, especially in the rural areas. Chapter 3 explores the everyday victimisation of soldiers in the army barracks. Thus, while there has been voluminous scholarship on how soldiers perpetrate violence against civilians, the chapter reveals how soldiers lived as victims of political violence perpetrated by their partisan commanders. These and others were the reasons for soldiers to desert the Zimbabwe army. Chapter 4 reveals how soldiers were subjected to hunger in the army barracks and the ways in which soldiers tried to find alternative ways to deal with lack of food in the barracks. The chapter argues that the absence of food in the barracks and in some cases the provision of sub-standard food to soldiers represented a state failure, especially to soldiers who served it. The army responded by giving soldiers ma off ezhara, meaning soldiers were given time off to go home because of hunger in the army barracks. Chapter 5 analyses the political promotion of army generals while junior soldiers were demoted of their ranks. The chapter examines the public speeches made by these army generals supporting former president Mugabe while denigrating the opposition political party, the MDC. I analyse these speeches as a political space which made the generals visible in politics but also as a way of seeking promotion within the army. Chapter 6 examines the ways in which the military infringes the social and political rights of soldiers. I explore the prosecution and punishment of soldiers through the draconian Defence Act: Chapter 11:02. The chapter presents and discusses what soldiers perceive as inhumane within the military, particularly the application of the Zimbabwe Defence Act and the ways in which punishment was executed. Chapter 7 focuses on how the army deserters respond in their present life in exile to their past military experiences as both perpetrators and victims of their involvement in the political violence in Zimbabwe. The chapter analyses how army deserters continue to re-live and re-enact their military past lives in exile in South Africa.

An introduction

7

Chapter 8 comes back to the more recent political events in Zimbabwe, the November 2017 military coup. The chapter reveals some of the events in the barracks: the 2003 and 2007 all battalion campaign by the director of military intelligence and military police and General Chiwenga’s crusades in the barracks respectively. The chapter also examines the difficulties of expecting a retired army General to behave like a civilian politician.

2

Recruitment and training*

Introduction Military training transforms civilians into tough and obedient soldiers who submissively function as part of a larger group. The military is driven by the sole Weberian idea of the ‘legitimate use and monopoly of violence’; hence, it trains soldiers to understand and celebrate killing. In this chapter the central argument is that the relationship between soldiers and the state is forged through discipline and punishment which de-civilianise men who come from a ‘civilian world’. In substantiating the argument, the author draws from Goffman’s (1961) idea of ‘total institution’ and Foucault’s (1977) ‘techniques of discipline and punishment’ which helps in understanding how a new military persona is made. The chapter explores how recruited soldiers are ‘stripped of’ a ‘civilian mentality’ to adopt a ‘military mentality’. The latter conforms to the military world and its practices. Through processes of hard military training, recruits are stripped of their civilian lives by order and command of military instructors in the army barracks. Once the soldier is made through the hard military training, it is often difficult for the soldier to return to civilian life. In this chapter the author discusses what military training does to young men: shaping them to fit into the military organisation whose professionalism has been criticised for its involvement in brutalising civilians and publicly supporting the ZANU-PF political party led by former President Robert Mugabe (see Masunungure, 2011; Rupiya, 2005; Makumbe, 2002). Whilst the process and practice of military training is not a new phenomenon or peculiar to the African military, this chapter reveals that on entering the military training, a recruit soldier is forced to leave behind more than the guiding civilian perceptions about the self and others. The ways in which soldiers are ‘made’ through military discipline and punishment is central to the chapter. In revealing the ways in which soldiers are trained, it is important to explore the transformation of the Zimbabwe National Army in the independent Zimbabwe.

Integration and recruitment: strengthening the base In 1980, Zimbabwe declared her independence from British colonial powers and the new army was formed: the Zimbabwe National Army. It was a merger of the

Recruitment and training

9

two main guerrilla armed wings and the Rhodesian forces: the Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army (ZANLA), the armed wing of the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF), led by former President Robert Mugabe; and the Zimbabwe People’s Revolutionary Army (ZIPRA), the armed wing of the Zimbabwe African People’s Union (ZAPU), led by the late Joshua Nkomo and the Rhodesian forces (White, 2007; Young, 1997; Jackson, 2011). This military integration was done under the supervision of the British Military Advisory and Training Team (BMATT), which helped in the standardisation and professionalisation of the military (White 2007; Young, 1997; Alao, 1995; Tendi, 2013). Since independence, the Zimbabwe National Army continues to borrow heavily from the British way of training its soldiers. This is evident in the drills and field tactics, among others. From 1986, the Zimbabwe National Army began to recruit a new blood of soldiers who had not fought in the liberation struggle. One of the first recruitments was done by Colonel Lionel Dyck under the 6th Brigade. The majority of the soldiers who underwent military training were later deployed in the Mozambique war (1986–1992). In between 1986 and 1998, soldiers were also recruited, but an interesting part of recruitment began in 1999 when there was massive recruitment of more than 5,000 soldiers per year to be deployed in the Democratic Republic of Congo War (1998–2002). It is important to note that despite the dwindling economy, the Zimbabwe National Army tried to stick to the professional recruitment procedures and training practices. However, in post-2000, the military began to recruit youth who were trained under a partisan ‘national’ youth training program known as the Border Gezi. 1 Some of the youth were illiterate: they could neither read nor write. The deep focus on recruiting the illiterate rural-based youth was driven by the fact that ZANU-PF’s majority of voters were largely the rural people. However, this does not mean that the military did not recruit in the urban areas. It did. For general duty soldiers, the military recruited those between the age of 18 and 22, who would qualify after running a 10 km distance in 40 minutes and passing a medical examination. The five ordinary level passes were also required but not mandatory, as many were recruited without these. Cadet training requires soldiers to undergo military training for 18 months. The soldiers undergoing cadet training must be aged between 18 years to 24 years. They must also possess two advanced level passes. Interestingly, in post-2000 there was a deliberate recruitment of the young people from the Matebeleland region, an area which experienced Gukurahundi, i.e. mass killing of Ndebele people, perpetrated by the ZANU-PF regime. This was also driven by the desire to include the Ndebele ethnic group in an army dominated by the Shona people. The fact that the military was dominated by the Shona people is testified by the language used in the Zimbabwe National Army, especially when giving orders. Again, the method of instruction is predominantly in the Shona language. All drills, fieldcraft lessons, range orders, and commander briefings are all done in Shona. So targeting the Ndebele people was in some way meant to redress but also to make

10

Recruitment and training

more Ndebele people speak Shona in the barracks and overtime outside it. The Zimbabwe army was in a way becoming a ‘melting pot’ where ethnic groups converge and work together for the interests of the state. The military was driven by the idea of stripping the mentality of national divisions based on ethnic groups to that of a cohesive group through military training.

Stripping and shrugging the ‘civilian mentality’ While the ‘making’ of recruit soldiers in the military barracks is not the same across the world, there are certain practices which the majority of soldiers go through, such as military drills and hazing. In most American and European countries and their former colonies, training of recruit soldiers is largely enforced by military instructors, orders, and commands which mould them into a disciplined and professional force. Thus, on first entering the military, the rules and regulations that guide a soldier are read. Contained in the first reading is what it means to be a soldier serving and defending the sovereignty of the nation (see Woodward, 2008). The oath is read out – recruits are made to promise and swear allegiance and to do their military duty diligently at the order and command of a superior rank. Recruits each append a signature to the oath as consent to what is contained therein. The oath represents the state and it also signifies power and responsibility of soldiers to the nation. However, in the military and for recruit soldiers undergoing military training, power is not just ‘anointed’, but it is embedded and inculcated in the body psyche through discipline and punishment. Thus, military training is not only physical but mental transformation. The first and foremost practise is to deal with the mentality of the recruit soldier. Often recruit soldiers are made to believe in issues that at a time when they joined the army, they would not think such practices exist and may be possible. As noted by one of the military instructors on the first day of training, Welcome to St. Idiot secondary school. The headmaster is Mr Dull, where all students are stupid. The headmaster did not go to school, but he is an Instructor. For the next six months you are not going to think, rather I will think for you. I know when you want to puff, to go to the toilet, to eat, to sleep, to walk, run, and to bath. So, relax. When you are told to jump, you don’t ask why, but how high! Squad! Did I make myself clear? (Alpha Romeo, quoting his military instructor on the first day of military training) The barracks is presented as ‘St. Idiot’ and the military instructor as ‘Mr Dull’. Such presentation of the barracks allows us to understand that power is not only for the educated/learned but also for the uneducated. The extract reveals how on the first day of military training, ‘undignified’ language is employed to transform recruits into believing the superiority of the military instructor. The language is celebrated and also legitimated by military

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instructors. The undignified language represents the state in the sense that it seeks to ‘make’ tough but disciplined soldiers. Thus, the military institution is akin to what Foucault (1977:25) refers to as ‘a system of subjection’. Drawing from Goffman, getting into the military organisation is a ‘leaving-off and taking-on’ (Goffman, 1961:20). Hence it is crystal clear that a military organisation is not like any other organisation where men walk in and work in it and leave at their own volition. In a military organisation, men are trained to live, work, and, in particular, to fit in such organisational life. In some ways, soldiers are trained to live in close proximity to each other in the barracks. For Thornborrow and Brown (2009:355) soldiers are ‘disciplined by organisationally-based discursive resources on which they drew.’ Such resources include forms of punishment which are meted on soldiers by their senior commanders. These military-produced resources make the military function within the ambit of the state power and control. Drawing from Goffman (1961), the military is a formidable example of a ‘total institution’. In defining a ‘total institution’, ‘it is a place of residence and work where a large number of like-situated individuals, cut-off from the wider society for an appreciable period of time, together lead an enclosed, formally administered round of life’. The administration of orders in the barracks requires such an enclosed infrastructure which produces soldiers with specific characteristics which define the military. For Goffman (1961) in ‘total institutions’, ‘all aspects of life are conducted in the same place and under the same single authority’ (p.6). There are particular spaces which make recruit soldiers obey command and control by their military instructors: the parade square is one example where all the drills are specifically and rigorously conducted in a squared space. In a ‘total institution’, ‘each phase of the members’ daily activity is carried on in the immediate company of others, all of whom are treated alike and required to do the same thing together’ (p.6). In the military barracks training ground, the recruit soldiers are trained in platoons (35 recruits) and companies (105 recruits) running, singing, and marching together. In such groups, military instructors discourage individual effort but celebrate the group coordination and success. ‘All phases of daily activity are tightly scheduled, the whole sequence of activities being imposed from above by a system of explicit formal rulings and a body of officials’ (p.6). In the military whatever is done emanates from a senior rank. The communication flow is a very vertical, top-down approach. The hierarchy of rank and file is adhered to in engaging in any of the daily activities. Thus, an order from the commanding officer trickles down directly to the lowest rank for execution without suggestions and questioning. Soldiers are taught to do as the order directs. Lastly, in Goffman’s definition, ‘the various enforced activities are brought together into a single rational plan purportedly designed to fulfil the officials’ aims of the institution’ (p.6). Thus, the main objective of the military is to make soldiers for the state. For Strachan (2006) this is the impartation of ‘military grammar’. This reveals that the military has a particular pattern which it follows in the ‘making’ of soldiers. Soldiers are frog-marched and

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ingrained in the military organisation. They are ‘made’ through the process of intense military training activities. From the first day recruits are made to dress in combat uniform. On the first day of military training, we dressed in combat uniform. When I went to the mirror to see if it fits me, the military instructor just came in the barrack. He told me that you are not here for modelling. Go out and get inside the pool and roll and crawl from there. I am giving you one minute to complete the task. (Oscar Papa) The body has to be trained to fit in the combat uniform. This extract reveals the distinction between a model and a soldier. While the former dresses for fashion, the latter does so for war. For the latter, the combat uniform signifies the violence of the state to enemies and those perceived as such. Thus, denying recruits a look in the mirror represents particular barrack beliefs which are anchored on ‘military culture’ (see Lande, 2007; Hale, 2008; Woodward, 1998; Barrett, 1996). Military culture has to do with the ways in which the soldiers behave and approach the task before them. It is a way of life that is ensconced in the military as distinct from the civilian way of life. But on entering the military institution, the recruit soldiers are only aware that soldiers go to war, but not familiar with the deep practices of military training. While for these African recruit soldiers, civilian life is all about respect for human dignity and being compassionate to others around you and beyond, the military does not adhere to such a civilian understanding of life. Instead, the military has its own ‘prescription’ of making soldiers. In fact, the military changes the ways in which African soldiers perceive and interact with people around them. This can be testified by the sole purpose of the military, that of legitimate killing: as Caforio (2007) asserts, the sole client of the military is the state. In this case the state legitimises the military actions, to train soldiers to be effective killers. For Hedges (2012:9) ‘war produces killers and. . . organised killing in war is done by a well-disciplined and professional army’. If war produces killers, then the military ‘makes’ killers who would then participate in war – doing the violent act. For soldiers to be able to kill, they have to be trained into it through particular processes and practices which sediment their minds so that they cease to be more humane. So, in the military training, the soldier’s body and mind is ‘re-moulded’ into a particular thinking, that killing is a way of resolving political disputes. Thus, drawing from Goffman (1961), recruits come to the military with a ‘presenting culture’, derived from the ‘home world’. For Oscar Papa, the idea of ‘looking in the mirror’ reveals the ‘home world’ which stands in stark contrast to the ‘military world’. In the military, the body serves as an instrument in which a recruit soldier is deprived of rights. According to Foucault (1977:11), ‘the body is caught up in a system of constraints and privations, obligations and prohibitions’. This is evident from the first day of military

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training, which is quite different from an inauguration or academic orientation encountered at a university. Charlie Romeo reiterates that ‘what I saw in war movies many years ago and which I considered a fiction was actually turned into reality through direct experience’. As Alpha Sierra notes: We were called for a parade and, um, the Commandant officially opened the training and said, ‘the training is now open, you are now recruits!’ After that instructors I heard ‘prrrrr’, they blew the whistle, I am telling you, it was tough because they were making us roll, crawl, you know, and we were squeezed and punched on the ground and I am telling you because I still remember, ah, they create certain pools of water and they would say, go there, swim in there and when you come out, you will be wet and instructors say roll on the ground. All recruits’ combat uniforms were now full of muddy [sic]. (Alpha Sierra) The idea of rolling and crawling reveals how the body is subdued by the military. The subjugation of the body in water pools and ‘rolling on the ground’ represent how recruits are made to be obedient to military orders. For Hinojosa (2010) the military is an organisation where bodies are reshaped and transformed. This transformation of bodies has its own process, including crawling with ‘wet bodies’. In the first days of military training, recruits are immersed in water, soaked to the skin, muddied, made to crawl, and made to roll until their fatigues (combat uniforms) are torn to rags. This reveals to us that the transformation of ‘civilian bodies’ to ‘military bodies’ is not an easy task, but one that is achieved through cruel practices legitimated by the state. Thus the ‘correction’, ‘control’, and transformation of a soldier from a civilian focuses on the utility and docility of the body. For Foucault (1977:25) ‘the systems of punishment are to be situated in a certain political economy of the body’. It is the ‘military body’ (Woodward & Jenkings, 2013) which is an organisational body (Hockey, 2002). Once the recruit soldier enters the military barracks, the body is perceived as one that ‘belongs’ to and is ‘owned’ by the military; whistles are blown to make the body work. The whistle is a metaphor of power. It represents authority; it gives values but also debases the civilian status in a military training field. The whistle values the instructor while devaluing the recruit. This is what Goffman (1961:15) refers to as ‘role dispossession’, i.e. in the context of military training there is ‘role possession’ (that of the instructor), while ‘role dispossession’ is that of the recruit. Even though the drama of the first day of military training is characterised by the madness of instructors over recruits, including the shoving around of recruits, some recruits like Alpha Sierra resisted but failed against the harassing machine of military instructors. Instead, recruits are subjected to a series of humiliations, abuses, and degradations. One instructor came to me and said, ‘you cockroach, go into the muddy pool before I break your naughty assy’. So I just put my hands in the pool

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Derogatory labels/language, e.g. ‘your naughty assy’ prepare the mentality of recruits, reminding them of the new military culture they are ready to embrace in and be proud of. For civilians, the use of derogatory language in the military is inhuman. What must be noted is that the military training program – composed of fieldcraft, road running, range firing, long marches, assault-courses, and drills – does not in any way state that derogatory language should be used when training soldiers. In fact, in some cases instructors have been punished and/or arrested by the military police or military intelligence for going beyond the stipulated training. Alpha Romeo notes that, ‘during training one of our instructors was arrested when we were forced to drink undiluted orange crush’. In the military organisation, the recruit ‘is stripped of the support provided by the home world arrangements’ (Goffman, 1961:14). The support of family care and love is non-existent in the military. For Zurcher (1967) civilians join the military guided by freedom of choice, which cannot be tolerated in the army. Flogging is an instrument used during military training, particularly in the first few days, when recruits would still be gripped by the civilian mentality. Flogging is a habitual practice in military training, and to flog is a symbol of power, representing a relationship between the punisher and the punished. Instructors work on the recruit’s body, train it and force it to carryout tasks. This is what Foucault (1977:25) refers to as the ‘political investment of the body’, i.e. the body in itself is dominated by instructors and subjected to the wills of the military. I am telling you after being flogged, I soaked myself, crawled and mudded along with other recruits. I still remember on my first day, that uniform of mine, ah, on my knees, actually it was, it was torn and tattered on that particular day, so that was very tough and, ah, some of the guys, they were wishing that they should have not, ah, joined the military. You know the last time I was whipped was when I was at high school. Now instructors were flogging us like hell. Ooh, I still have most of the scratches, the marks of those whips. (Alpha Sierra) The feeling of being isolated is common for many recruits in the first days of military training, but through collective training recruits come to feel a part of the organisation which they desired to join. Such routine, Barrett (1996) claims, ensures recruits are initiated into a cult of toughness, remain obedient, and do not question authority. The ways in which instructors work

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on the body are organised, calculated, and technically throughout, and thus the subjected body is more than the result of spontaneous practices. Body marks are a symbol of the military – they represent a life lived as a recruit and the life led by military instructors. Instructors berate recruits: Alpha Romeo remembers the instructor’s taunts on the first day of training: I still remember the first day of training. I recall when the army instructor said, ‘for the next coming six months of military training all of you must leave your manhood outside the barracks, and then take it on your passout parade, for now it is only me with a manhood. Did I make myself clear? Squad’! In unison recruits will respond: Sir, Yes Sir! The language of ‘leaving your manhood outside the barracks’ illustrates to us that recruit soldiers are emasculated by military instructors. In terms of Foucauldian analysis, figures in authority use derogatory language to express their specific dominance and at the same time exact particular obedience from those they dominate. At this point, the ‘undignified’ language used by instructors is intentional. It is a weapon of power in the transformation process. Derogatory language reflects power relations which exist between instructors and recruit soldiers. It sharpens and ‘toughens’ the mind (Gibson, 2010) and contextualises it within the military and in later life. It is embedded and ingrained in soldiers’ behaviour as their organisational language. According to Arkin and Dobrofsky (1978), ‘verbal practices are used by drill instructors to train recruits to withstand stress’. Derogatory language prepares the mentality of recruit soldiers to brave the deployment moments in the life of soldiers, particularly when soldiers are deployed in war zones. In fact, war zones can be frustrating, as soldiers journey between their trenches and repeat the daily routines of patrol. Hence the military employs derogatory language to harden the mentality of recruit soldiers in combat zones. Thus, every step has a purpose, which is military in nature. We were asked to shave our heads, our beard. One of my instructors nicknamed Ninja told us that a recruit soldier’s shaved head must shine like the bums of a newly born baby. After that the instructor asked us to balance upside-down on our clean-shaven heads at night while singing the national anthem until morning. (Charlie Mike) While the ‘civilian body’ is that which is perceived as a ‘modelling body’, the military conquers that body and remoulds it into a ‘military body’ (see Hockey, 2002). This is what Foucault (1977:26) refers to as ‘the political technology of the body.’ Such processes are viewed as part of military initiation, a welcoming into the military organisation. From the first day of military training, recruit soldiers are led in songs and practices that are cruel. Military instructors bombard the recruits as a form of initiation into the military world. Oscar Papa recalls that,

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Recruitment and training On my first day at Recruit Training Depot [RTD] I was told that my body is no longer mine, but it is an army body. So the instructors said that even if they damage it, I was not supposed to complain.

The idea of making the recruit’s body into an army body by making recruits believe that they have to deny their bodies just to satisfy the army’s objectives of making a soldier is unjust. Legitimating the ‘damaging’ of a body is an abuse of power and authority in the name of the military. The silence expected of recruits is in itself a representation of the domination of their souls and mind by the military. For Zurcher (1967) military training disorientates and reorientates recruits. The army sought to control and transform recruit soldiers’ bodies through a detailed surveillance of their activities (see McSorley, 2013; Newlands, 2013). One way of making sure recruit soldiers feel the pain is to deprive them of their sleep. As noted, Throughout the first seven days of military training we were not allowed to sleep. One instructor nicknamed Doctor because of expertise in hazing recruits told us that the military is a field of pain – no one is going to rescue you, but you will rescue yourselves by doing what we order you to do. We spent the first seven nights singing. It was called the ‘deep freezing’ period, meaning that it was a tough period of crawling and rolling in the mud. (Bravo Mike) The military is here presented as a ‘field of pain’, and the pain is ingrained in the body and mind. Hazing of recruit soldiers is characterised by instilling a new military mentality, where pain is celebrated by the military instructors. The idea of ‘deep freezing’ is a first stage in military training which separates potential recruits from ‘visitors’ to the training camp. In this case ‘visitors’ are those recruits who are not sure whether or not they want to join the military; rather, they are interested in weighing their options by first observing through participation, and if it is painful, they are ready to leave. Recruit soldiers were pushed physically and emotionally beyond anything they had imagined. Recruits regularly had to balance upside-down on their clean-shaven heads at night and forced to sing the national anthem until the next morning. They were forced to handle human faeces with their bare hands. Alpha Bravo explains that I didn’t know that at military training one could be forced to touch human waste with bare hands. It was early in the morning when an instructor commanded us to search for human waste in the training field. Initially, we thought it was funny, but he paraded us all, and those without human waste were taught a hell of a lesson. Each of us had to acknowledge that, ‘I am here Sir with madhodhi [human waste] waiting for your inspection Sir!’

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It is important to note that the military exercises power in ways which are celebrated by the state. The punishing of recruits represents how a state can be punitive to its own citizens. The incident of touching and holding human waste represents how modern states exercise power over its citizens and to those who do not conform to its political ideology. In addition to this, there is no confidentiality for recruits. Bravo Mike gave an account of how he was asked to read a letter from his girlfriend in front of other recruits: You know, instructors said recruits are not allowed to receive letters from home. So, at that time I received a letter from my girlfriend. It was delivered by the post office. The instructor ordered me to it read aloud in front of the other recruits. It was not good, but when you are at military training it’s like you are undressed; you don’t have anything to say. The private and confidential is made public. It is devalued. The military prioritises the military life over the social and civilian emotional needs of the recruit. This should be understood as the broad aim of the military to separate the recruit soldier from the civilian life and all other social support systems. In doing so the military is able to inculcate a particular way of thinking in the making of a soldier. The military finds different ways to make recruit soldiers conform through enforcement. Lima Delta talks about how he found ways to sleep during military training: When I grew up, I did not know that actually somebody can sleep seated straight when it is raining, but actually I learnt during training that even when it is raining, when it is pouring, I can sit in the middle of the rain; I will not be feeling that rain. I did sleep because that was the only time I would get. If I can sleep for 10 to 20 minutes, it is enough during training. Sometimes I can just ask to go to the toilet, then I can sit on the chamber and sleep, but if the instructor would have caught me, it would have been another punishment. (Lima Delta) Being denied sleep trains recruits in the reality that the military is a 24hours job and seven days a week occupation, particularly in war. Punishment is meted out to those who attempt to dodge this. According to Hockey (2002:150), the body is controlled by a training programme which is akin to a perpetual conveyor belt proceeding at a hectic pace. The recruit is sucked into the military training schedule and has to deal with it in formidable ways. During military training, the recruit soldiers were not allowed to walk in the barracks; they ran, ‘doubled-up’ from point A to point B. Walking is a serious offence during military training. Every morning, dressed in uniformed shorts and t-shirts (but women recruits wear track bottom), recruits went for a

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20-km road-run between 3 a.m. and 5 a.m. In the afternoon there was a prelunch log run and/or circuit training. Each soldier had to carry a wooden/ metal log weighing 10–15 kg. This was in addition to the 15 kg weight carried at each soldier’s back. ‘Because of sun heat, some of the recruits would faint, but instructors would whip the hell out of their lives; one soldier died out of this flogging’ (Tango Romeo). In the evening, between 4 p.m. and 6 p.m., recruits went on obstacle-crossing hikes. They had to cross a flooded river, as well as fenced or protected fields. They did route marches for as far as 80 km with 15 kg weights on their backs. In some cases, they did training exercises in a game park that was home to lions and elephants. They had to deal with the threat of these animals for four weeks, especially in the final phase of their military training exercises. The whole intention is to weed out the feeble and weave together the real recruits, and it is usually after these first hazing phases that the military will begin to trust those who did not quit. From day one of military training and throughout the six months of training, each recruit signs for an FN rifle which a recruit will live with – sit, eat, run, and walk with. The instructor nicknamed ‘Doctor’ (because of his expertise in hazing recruits) told recruits that ‘This FN rifle is your wife’. Instructors used the metaphor of a wife to describe how recruits were to carry and live with the FN rifle. Each soldier slept with his rifle in his roll-bag. Even when they were bathing, they reported that they could not put soap on their faces, fearing that if they took their eyes off their rifle, someone might take it away. The punishment for losing the rifle was harsh. If a recruit lost the rifle, he/she had to carry a heavy log all day until the rifle was found. Military equipment is the symbol of being a soldier. It is an extension of a soldier’s body. The equipment represents power and politics. This is what Woodward and Jenkings (2011) refer to as the materiality between the gun and the soldier, in which their military identities are understood and reframed through the use of weapons. Soldiers learn to use guns and other military weapons that reinforce their status as warlike beings (Hinojosa, 2010). However, for soldiers using the gun for the first time, it is characterised by punishment. A soldier has to be both man enough to do what the gun does and be disciplined when holding a gun. Thus, military instructors instil both the modalities of courage and discipline, and the latter is defined by punishment. When we signed for our rifles, the first thing we were told was to squat on them, raising our hands up while singing the national anthem. When we failed to sing in unison, the instructor ordered us to raise our rifles above our heads, singing. (Tango Papa) The idea of singing while holding the guns up signifies how soldiers are made to believe that the gun protects the state. What is striking is how soldiers are made to understand the politics of the gun through punishment. Thus, holding a rifle in one hand while the other hand grasps the crotch is

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itself a punishment. For Foucault (1977:93) ‘punishment is an art of effects. . . and it looks towards the future . . .that one must punish exactly enough to prevent repetition’. The relationship between soldiers and guns is one that is forged through punishment, which affects a soldier’s understanding of his rifle. In a metaphorical sense the weapon is embedded in the soldier’s mind (see Mankayi, 2008; Woodward & Jenkings, 2013). Recruits are punished so that they can conform to the military way of doing and being. The holding of rifles for the first time has to go along with a symbolic representation, that of singing the national anthem, which means that the men are ready to train to do violence for the state (Tilly, 1985). The gun is for the physically strong bodies, as noted by men who have undergone thorough military training. I have never felt so exhausted like what happened to me when we were commanded to carry 20 kg sandbags on our backs, coupled with an AK rifle. We could then be ordered to run along the railway line. (Sierra Mike) The training of soldiers is what Woodward (2000) refers to as the making of ‘warrior heroes’. It is a period of no pain/no gain, where pain is synonymous with gain (Higate, 2000). The physical part of military training has to do with making a soldierly body, a body that can fight in war terrains. The military centres on the body to make a soldier out of a civilian. For Higate (2000) training is meant to produce men of valour and strength. From the fieldcraft where we were taught the theory of being a soldier, you go to [an] assault course where you do the practical of crossing obstacles like climbing over high walls, crawling in a 400m mudded tunnel and crawling under barbed wire. (Yankee Golf) Becoming a soldier is embedded in both theory and practice. Learning how to become a soldier through fieldcraft lessons is not enough, but one has to immerse himself in the practical terrain that is synonymous with the real battlefield. The recruit soldiers were taught how to become soldiers, being able to see without being seen – i.e. camouflage and concealment – either in the frontline of battle or in peacetime situations. If an enemy sees you, then you are a silhouette. In this regard the objective is to kill first before being killed by an enemy (Marlantes, 2011). In learning about shooting to kill, recruit soldiers were taught how to stipple (disassemble a rifle and clean it or check for a technical fault) and assemble the basic rifle, the AK 47. The fieldcraft training was followed by range shooting, which assessed what they had learned during fieldcraft sessions. On the first day of shooting, the recruits had mixed feelings. Lima Delta states that,

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Recruitment and training I was happy I could pull the trigger, but unfortunately, I was among those who missed the target. The instructor had a range recording sheet for each recruit, on which shots on target were recorded.

Shooting was done from different positions and distances: standing position at 25 metres, kneeling at 50 metres, and lying from 100 meters, 300 metres, and 600 metres. In all these positions, marksmanship principles were to be observed and followed through during range shooting. If any recruit did not perform well and missed the targets, depriving them of sleep that night collectively punished all the recruits. Collective punishment was the means by which the recruits were forced into becoming a cohesive group that worked together. If any recruit was late to fall in for a parade, the entire platoon was punished. Weak recruits were always referred to as ‘pussies’. Any recruit who dies during training is perceived as weak. The military asserts that it is better for a soldier to die during military training than to die in the war front. If there is an inquiry into the circumstances that led to the death, often only a scanty explanation is given: ‘Died in action’. Charlie Mike felt pained by the death of a recruit in his platoon: You know, this instructor was forcing this other recruit to carry a log over his shoulders. It was clear even to us that the other recruit cannot carry the log alone because three recruits used to carry it. That day it was very humid, at 1 p.m. he was forced to carry it for the pre-lunch run. When he showed signs of fainting, he was whipped all over his body; he fell down and could not wake up anymore. When we returned for lunch, we were told the recruit was dead. The instructor was neither asked to write what happened nor arrested; instead, he was promoted at the end of our training. Their military is characterised by intolerance. Death is a symbol of hard military training. It also signifies that those who survived have the ability to protect the state. During military training, the instructors celebrate the death of recruit soldiers, as it is one way of separating the undeserving from the deserving soldiers. Death is a testimony that military instructors are doing their work. Initially, each day would finish by obstacle crossing, where each recruit was required to cross 29 obstacles: climbing over walls, crawling under a protected field of barbed wire fence, crawling through a muddy tunnel 100 metres long, and so on. On each obstacle there was an instructor standing with a whip. If a recruit soldier delays to cross an obstacle, an instructor will beat the hell out of the recruit. Each of these obstacles required a different approach in order for a soldier to successfully cross it. To cross over a 3 metre wall high above the ground, there would be a need to stand over the shoulders of another recruit soldier. Instructors forbid male recruit soldiers to assist female recruit soldiers for fear that male recruits will hold female soldiers’ bums. In that regard, only women recruit soldiers would be required to at least wait for

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another woman to assist each other to cross over the wall. This is what I can call ‘the gendering of crossing over the wall obstacle in the military’ or simply ‘gendered military walls’. While the process of shaping the recruit soldiers has to do with the training on how to live and fight in the bush during assault course activities, importantly, the military centres on drills.

Drills, military dressing, and discipline At the centre of the parade square is the drill instructor. The drill instructor represents what Foucault (1977:125) refers to as a ‘machine for altering minds’. One of the most formidable activities which are said to ‘alter’ and make a soldier is the drill, which is conducted by word of command. While the recruit soldiers are taught how to crawl and roll in the mud, climbing over walls and crossing flooded rivers, the drill is a quite different activity. Drills transform a harnessed body into a disciplined body. They teach a soldier how to listen and take orders as they are given by the word of command – orders given. In any case when a soldier is ordered to march quickly or slowly and to halt, there are no questions: the orders must be obeyed. Drills teach soldiers how to march in unison, in groups. According to Arkin and Dobrofsky (1978:160) ‘inspections and drills form the strong, silent, obedient man.’ Recruit soldiers are taught how to dress for drills. I was taught how to dress in a military way – my combat shirt must be in my underwear, the denim [combat trouser] must be tightened with my patrol boots, I must be cleanly shaven and wear [an] ironed uniform. I must only leave three buttons of my shirts outside. Above all, my patrol boots must be shinning like a mirror, reflecting my image. (Alpha Romeo) Teaching men how to dress for drills represents particular discipline and uniformity in the military. Drills are a symbol of discipline, which is an organisational value. It conditions recruits to respond obediently to commands (see Hockey, 2002). There is constant surveillance of how recruit soldiers dress and wear combat uniforms to embed them as members of the military organisation. For Foucault (1977:129) ‘the agent of punishment must exercise a total power. . .the individual to be corrected must be entirely enveloped in the power that is being exercised over him’. The most difficult thing is to be taught how to march. Oscar Papa revealed how the word of command is not always clear on what to do; it is a military language which one is not familiar with – instructors who always use a high sound voice; e.g. Recruits, today is your first day in the parade square where I am going to teach you how to march in both quick and slow march. Any one of you who is not going to get me clear must let me know, Squad!

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Recruitment and training Recruits’ Response: Relax! Instructor: As I lift my right leg about 45 cm thigh parallel to the ground, I return it in this way [instructor demonstrating]. If I say quick march, it is always your left foot that must go first, the same is on slow march. (Victor Tango reciting the military instructor)

The parade square is a ‘sacred’ place where coughing, sneezing, twinkling, and fidgeting around is totally prohibited and punished. For Foucault (1977:135) soldiers are taught to ‘stand upright. . .holding their heads high and erect. . .never to fix their eyes on the ground, but to look straight at those they pass. . .’ On parade, recruits learn how to take and execute an order. This is what we can call the ‘programming’ of recruits into soldiers within the military system. The ways in which the soldiers respond are defined by bodily practice which is ingrained by repetition. Being taught how to march quickly and slowly is quite intentional in the sense that it is fundamental to the making of disciplined soldiers. Because for Foucault (1977:137) discipline produces ‘docile’ bodies (i.e. they are malleable to be reshaped, subjected, improved, and transformed), drilling recruits’ bodies is quite practical for military discipline. Importantly, from a Foucauldian analysis, discipline is a general formula of domination which transforms the confused into ordered multiplicities (see also p.146). Thus, drill shapes a subjected collective group within the military. Drills are characterised by inspection of the body and dressing. In such activities ‘social distance is typically great and formally prescribed, talk is conducted in [a] high voice (Goffman, 1961:7)’. Whisky Papa reveals how and what the instructors inspect. Those found to be dirty are punished. The parade square is where we were inspected in a drill formation, i.e. one arm distance from each other. I remember this instructor once said to me, ‘you have a dirty nose! Dirty big Assy! Dirty shoe!’ And finally, he said, ‘you are a Dirty human being!’ You know when I think of it, I laugh, but during that time it was a moment of madness; it was serious business! I was always punished along with others. You know the instructor will just say go and dip yourself in water and crawl from the water point. Inspection as a military practice controls, corrects, and disciplines the operation of the body. It is a ‘technique of surveillance’ that represents ‘physics of power’ (see Foucault, 1977:172). During inspections, the whole body has to conform to the prescribed roles. Instructors understand that the submission of the recruit body to the military is a productive process which at the end of military training produces a useful and intelligible body, particularly in a war context. Thus, through disciplining and punishing the body, a new body is born, not only for the growth of skills or to intensify its subjection, but as the body becomes more obedient, it becomes more useful (Foucault,

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1977:138). The price of inspection of the recruit’s body in the military is accompanied by punishment to conform. For Goffman (1961:7) soldiers are not supervised; rather, ‘surveillance is employed to oversee if everyone does what is expected of him’. Inspecting with intent to punish is what Foucault (1977:126) refers to as ‘techniques of punishment’. Thus, inspection in the military is synonymous with discipline and most importantly, punishment. An inspection of the body means that the body in itself has to be regulated and regimented according to military standards. Through inspection the body is manipulated and shaped. It becomes a skilful and tactical body. For Newlands (2013) soldiers are constantly inspected so that their bodies can become habituated to the military. The body is always subjected to flogging to the extent that it gets used to the flogging practice. The whole idea is ‘to shape the total person into being a disciplined cog in the military machine’ (see Arkin & Dobrofsky, 1978:158). For Oscar Papa: Being beaten in the military is the order of the day. It’s like, when you are not beaten, you wonder what is going to happen, why am I not yet beaten? Actually, it came to a point that we have to be beaten or there is certain, um, punishment that instructors have to give us. So, if we spend a day without any[one] being flogged, we would be worried about what’s next, so it was very tough. (Oscar Papa) According to Foucault (1977:136), the body is an object and target of power. Recruits are made to understand the habitual practice of flogging as part of their being. There is a ‘knifing-off of past civilian life’ (Zurcher, 1967). In doing so, the military ‘re-forges a new biography’. This reveals how punishment itself becomes part of the recruit life in which it becomes ingrained. In economic terms discipline increases the productive nature of the body, but in political terms it increases obedience (Foucault, 1977). Flogging is meant to enforce conformity. According to Arkin and Dobrofsky (1978), conformity to the prescribed rules of conduct is the focal point for change within the military processes of indoctrination. Thus, what is meant to conform is the body, which is not at rest during the process of military training. Sometimes during the night instructors would just give you a certain task which is senseless because, for example, there was an abandoned airstrip close to our training area. Instructors ordered us to dig that abandoned airstrip, you know. For what reason you are not supposed to know because they just wanted to keep you busy, you know, just to remove a civilian mentality. They were training us not to question the command, you understand, because actually. . . but by the end of the day we ended up enjoying [it]. (Lima India) The idea of learning how to obey commands and orders is done in often unexpected ways, ways which are painful to the body. Thus, it is not only the body that must obey the command, but the mind must be retuned as well.

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There are no mathematical calculations at recruit training. Charlie Mike emphasised that, ‘1+1 is not 2 in the military’. There is no exact time for a certain activity. Military activities are neither punctuated by time nor weather, but by order and command. We were taught in a tough way, we were taught, ah, a certain level of discipline, we were taught a certain level of understanding, and we were taught a certain level of endurance. I can say endurance was [the] main thing that we were being taught because we find that actually some of the situations that they were making us to go through, they were not actually hurting us but they wanted to prepare us for future purposes. At times we could que for food while jogging [double march] and singing and then ordered to eat in 2 mins, while the food was hot. I can face like, ah, a certain tough situation in my life that actually, ah, a normal, a common human being cannot go through it. (Charlie Mike) Similarly, Foucault (1977:26) argues that, ‘the power exercised on the body is conceived not as a property, but as a strategy, that its effects of domination are attributed not to appropriation, but to dispositions, manoeuvres, tactics, techniques and functioning’. Many years after military training, soldiers reflect on the ways in which they were trained in positive ways. Thus, the subjected body is now seen as a productive body. These are the positives of a once-subjected body to the military: one that can now endure beyond what a civilian can. For Foucault (1977:202–203) when individuals regulate their own behaviours (panoptic gaze), i.e. self-disciplining. Such awareness is linked to the physical training of a soldier that prepares him for exercises outside the barracks. Each of the phases has its tactical approaches: Outside the barracks, in our final training exercise we were taught how to advance, attack, and withdraw in war. In our defence exercise, we advanced for 86 km in a game park full of elephants and lions. We advanced for three consecutive days and nights. We deployed for two weeks, and then withdrew. It was an exercise we did in a desert-like area, there was no water, the situation taught us to be soldiers. (Oscar Tango) The inside and outside of the barracks training exercise speaks to how the military makes soldiers to fit into both worlds: the barracks and jungle world, where it is desert-like. Woodward (1998) reveals how the little green outside the barracks fits in the soldierly world. However, even though there are consistent deprivations in the military, recruit soldiers spoke about certain parts of military training which were much easier to go through than others. However, other military exercises like map reading in the jungle were easily accepted by recruits. For Charlie Delta ‘recruits enjoy the freedom that comes with map reading, they find it less painful because they are just deployed in a

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jungle, then do map reading and they can decide when to cook and eat from their ration packs’ (Charlie Delta). The issue of map reading presents binaries of ‘freedom’ and ‘oppression’. While the former is a complete characteristic of being at ‘home’, the latter presents what military barracks can do to recruit soldiers, working under the eye of the military instructor. It follows that recruit soldiers would not completely wait for those ‘freedom’ moments to come by; rather, they can also evade military orders and instructions in different ways.

Circumventing military command and control However, despite the conformity of recruit soldiers to military training instruction, there were also moments of resistance to orders and commands. But what we must bear in mind is that resistance to military instruction was subtle, as Golf Charlie reveals, Because instructors would force us to carry 15 kg of sand at the back of our pouches, sometimes we would just put two loaves of bread, zip it in, and it appears as if its sand. For Foucault (1977:26) ‘power is not exercised simply as an obligation or a prohibition on those “who do not have it”, rather they resist it’. While such resistance to military instruction and order is a punishable offence if caught by military officers, it is highly celebrated, especially by recruit soldiers who perceive it as a tactic rather than resistance. The ‘tactic’ of carrying two loaves of bread rather than the required 15 kg of sand is an initiative from the perspective of recruit soldiers. Similarly, in his writing about British infantry soldiers, Hockey (2002:152) reveals that at certain moments, recruit soldiers employ corporeal tactics to counter bodily control during military training. The purpose of these tactics is to counter manipulation of their bodies in both real and symbolic terms (Hockey, 2002). In revealing his experience as a platoon commander, Bravo Charlie reiterates that, In as much as you want to train recruits to endure hunger as a way to prepare them for war, at night some recruits always sneak out, dress in civilian clothing, and buy food at the nearby shops. Thus, while recruit soldiers ‘accepted’ military instructions as part of transforming them into soldiers, there were also points of resistance. However, in the military, such practices of circumventing military orders by recruit soldiers is seen as part of soldiering, i.e. the ability to move from point A to B without being seen by the enemy. During military training, military instructors are seen as enemies of recruit soldiers because they, in many cases, enforce military orders on recruits. It follows that, while we understand the making of soldiers as a practice which emanates from the top military

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instructors and the institution, soldiers are also produced from below through evading military orders. In the military barracks, soldiers refer to this practice of evading command as ‘skiving’, literally meaning dodging command. Hockey (2002:153) defines skiving as ‘making the body as invisible as possible to superiors, so for example, routes for moving out in the barracks which maximises concealment are used: routes which avoid the centres of power, such as . . .battalion headquarters’. For Hockey such locations like battalion headquarters house individuals who embody disciplinary powers. This therefore reveals to us that soldiers are not entirely passive in the barracks; in certain moments, they devise and have the capacity to act in the barracks.

Conclusion The chapter examined how the military forges a relationship with and between soldiers through techniques of discipline and punishment. The ‘civilian mentality’ which is stripped away from the civilian is replaced by the ‘military mentality’ of the military organisation. The chapter has revealed that the stripping of a ‘civilian mentality’ requires rigorous discipline and punishment to conform and ultimately to transform the recruits into soldiers. Thus, discipline and punishment inculcate military organisational life in soldiers, and they become embedded in it. The military focuses on both the mind and body to make soldiers out of civilians. Military training is practice imbued with subjection of the body to the organisation. Recruit soldiers are made to understand what it means for them to be in a military organisation. Such processes are ‘tough’, but they are rather the end product, which is a soldier who carries with him a ‘military body’ meant to resist wartime practices. Soldiers leave behind their civilian understanding of society, one which respects human dignity/kindness, and they embrace a military culture which subscribes to legitimate use of violence and specialises in killing. A hierarchy of order and command is imposed on recruits and through the process of disciplining and punishment soldiers. However, the process of ‘making’ soldiers is not one of total oppression: recruit soldiers can evade punishment through ‘skiving’, i.e. soldiers employ their own counter tactics, getting socialised from below.

Notes * This chapter draws from the following article: Maringira, G. (2017) ‘On entering the military organization: decivilianization, depersonalization, order, and command in the Zimbabwe national army 1’, Political and Military Sociology, an Annual Review, 44: 103–124. 1 This was a “National” Youth training program which was headed by a ZANU-PF politician called Border Gezi. He recruited and trained young ZANU-PF supporters into a militia. The militia was implicated in the violent attacks on the perceived supporters of the opposition political party the Movement for Democratic Change led by the late Morgan Tsvangirai (now led by Nelson Chamisa) and supposedly led the invasions of the white-owned farms.

3

Military intelligence, politics, and loyalty in combat uniform*

Introduction While the dominant discourse in Zimbabwe is that soldiers are perpetrators of political violence against civilians in post-2000 elections (Raftopoulos, 2009; Muzondidya, 2009; Sachikonye, 2011), I argue that soldiers also became victims while serving in former President Robert Mugabe’s regime. The chapter attends to key events during their military service that forced soldiers to desert. In this chapter I pay attention to the ways in which victimisation and harassment were enacted against Mafikizolo soldiers in Zimbabwe National Army (ZNA) barracks. I reveal how senior officers deployed political surveillance tactics against Mafikizolo, and how the latter resisted such political actions through sabotage of order and desertion. Although some commentators may have assumed that the ZNA has always been pro-President Robert Mugabe and his nationalist ruling party, the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF), this chapter shows it was not the case. ZANU-PF needed to work quite hard to ensure the political loyalty of its soldiers. Even though Zimbabwe army generals and other partisan commanders publicly support ZANU-PF and former President Robert Mugabe, Mafikizolo soldiers contest such unprofessional practices in the army barracks. Mafikizolo soldiers considered themselves professionals, unwilling to play partisan roles asked of them. While the paper also draws on Foucault’s (1977:171) idea of the barrack as a ‘diagram of power’, the chapter is nested within broader debates on military professionalism that have been defined as civilian domination of the military (Huntington, 1957), or ‘leaving politics to civilians’. However, I maintain that professionalism goes beyond the disengagement of the military from politics: the chapter adds to our understanding that such professionalism also has to do with the ways in which army generals relate to and engage with the rank and file within the barracks, and its effect on how soldiers remain connected to or become disconnected from the military. The phenomenon of military involvement in politics is not unique to Zimbabwe. Drawing from Huntington’s (1957) idea of the military’s subjective or objective involvement in politics, the chapter reveals how post-colonial African undemocratic states, particularly the military establishment, purport to be

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professional while they are actively involved in civilian politics (Cottey et al., 2002; Bland, 1999; Schiff, 1995). In Uganda, the military has been deeply involved in politics, as evidenced by the political appointment of army generals to government ministries under President Museveni (Tripp, 2010). For example, at the time of my research, former General Aronda Nyakairima was internal minister (from 2003–2013), Lieutenant General Ivan Koreta was ambassador designate to a station to be announced and Lieutenant General Robert Rusoke was an ambassador to South Sudan (Kasasira, 2014). In such contexts, political leanings overrule ability, education, and expertise in the selection and appointment of officers (see also Perlmutter, 1969; Rubin, 2001). This was very similar to Argentina, where army affairs were interwoven with politics, with appointments and promotions made on the basis of political affiliations rather than on professional qualities (Perlmutter, 1969). This approach can make a distinction between professionally able and political correct generals (Rubin, 2001). The situation has been similar in the North African countries such as Egypt; military disengagement from politics is hardly final or complete (Barany, 2011; Albrecht & Bishara, 2011; Harb, 2003). In such a context, there is an unwritten mutual agreement between military generals and politicians, since politicians influence generals’ benefits and interests in return for their loyalty and allegiance to the regime (see Barany, 2011). In substantiating my argument, I focus on two personal accounts, interwoven with other Mafikizolo soldiers’ stories, to bring to life the ways in which these soldiers were persecuted. In the end the soldiers felt they had no other choice than to desert from the ZNA and seek refuge in South Africa and other neighbouring African countries. In the following sections, I provide army deserters’ stories of victimisation and persecution in the army barracks, which for them was of political origin.

Soldiers as victims in the army barracks While it is not the purpose of this chapter to delve into the genealogies of violence within guerrilla armed wings, it is important to note that its practice in the Zimbabwe National Army (ZNA) is not a new phenomenon, but is historically rooted, dating back to the 1960s when ZANU-PF was formed as a breakaway from ZAPU. Mazarire (2011) gave an account of how ZANLA punished its members to instil discipline. In addition, former liberation fighters like Mhanda (2011) and Chung (2006) revealed how guerrillas victimise their compatriots to settle personal scores in the bush. The stories of Charlie Mike, Whisky Papa (both deserters), and other soldiers in this chapter reveal continuous persecution in the barracks: that which was experienced by Mafikizolo soldiers was not very much different from the ways in which guerrillas were victimised during the liberation struggle (see Mazarire, 2011). However, this chapter is interested in the ways in which political victimisation was targeted at a particular generation of soldiers – those with no liberation history, serving under the command of former

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guerrilla/veterans. Whilst professionalism is quite uneven in the history of the ZNA, I selected the narratives of Charlie Mike and Whisky Papa for two reasons – they respectively joined the army in 1995 and 1986 when the ZNA was somehow still professional in its conduct. Thus, they understand the process of change in the ZNA’s professional ethics and how it became increasingly politicised. Furthermore, both these soldiers were deployed in Mozambique (1986–1992) and the Democratic Republic of Congo war (1998–2002). Whisky Papa had worked as a Special Force Commando and was later posted to an infantry brigade. They were later victimised and demoted from their ranks, in processes of political retribution rather than normal army punishment. My intention here is not to generalise the soldiers’ experiences of political persecution in the barracks. Their stories are not exceptional – many other soldiers have had similar experiences during the post-2000 crisis. What should be considered here is that the post-2000 situation in the barracks was so intrinsically political that every battalion, unit, corps, and rank came under political surveillance, particularly by the Zimbabwe Military Intelligence Corps (ZIC), Special Investigation Branch (SIB), and the Military Police (MP). Thus, despite the fact that different military units receive different advanced training and re-training exercises, e.g. special forces such as paratrooper unit, Special Air Services (SAS), and the commando unit, at a time when Zimbabwe army generals were deeply embedded in politics and politics became so entrenched in the barrack life, there were minor distinctions (if any existed) in how this training could help assuage the junior soldiers’ disappointment in the military. Even soldiers who belonged to the medical corps, signals regiment, and those in the Zimbabwe Army Pay and Records (ZAPAR) deserted the military. Interestingly, soldiers responsible for policing other soldiers – the military police and intelligence corps – also deserted during the political crisis, such as some junior soldiers in the intelligence corps who were suspected of ‘selling-out’ classified information to the MDC. This was similar to those in the signal corps responsible for sending and receiving information about the ZNA to and from army headquarters who were viewed as gossiping with the MDC on military operations and deployments in and out of the country. ZAPAR soldiers were also accused of exposing army generals’ payslips and benefits. It was no longer about where a soldier is stationed or the corps to which he/she belonged, but rather about how soldiers played in (or remained out of) ZANU-PF politics. For soldiers who wanted to resign, they had to apply for resignation to army headquarters, and this means a soldier submits the intention to resign, citing reasons for such a decision. This has to be recommended and approved by the hierarchy of command – officer commanding, commanding officer, brigade commander, and army headquarters – then a signal of approval will be sent back to the battalion in which the soldier is stationed. The soldier must surrender all uniforms, tin, or barracks utensils and all other things issued to him/her on joining the military.

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However, when a soldier lodged an application to resign from the military, the process became pernicious, as it was characterised by political victimisation. The soldiers who deserted the army maintain that this was a response to constant arrests and indefinite detentions. It was a means to free oneself from repressive army commanders and the partisan soldiers in the military intelligence and military police. It was a response to tension within the army between senior officers and Mafikizolo soldiers – in which the latter were the victims. The Zimbabwean army’s desertions are not unique in post-colonial Africa – other notable countries have witnessed army desertions as well. In media reports, an unknown number of junior soldiers were reported to have deserted the Ugandan military, citing low morale in the barracks and low salaries, while the government promoted and paid hefty salaries to army generals (see Ojore & Naulele, 2014). In Eritrea army deserters are reported to have gone into exile to Ethiopia, citing political victimisation (Sudan Tribune, 2014). In the Democratic Republic of Congo government soldiers deserted and joined the rebel formations (see Muggah, 2004). But army desertion is not an African phenomenon: elsewhere in the US, American and UK, British soldiers’ desert the army, citing more or less similar problems to those experienced in African military barracks. Writing about USA soldiers who deserted the military, Fantina (2006:6) questioned: ‘what, exactly, causes a soldier, sometimes with history of battle campaigns, to say “enough”?’ Responding to this, he notes that reasons for desertion include from brutal corporal punishment in the military, illegal/ unfair legal proceedings by court martial, different sentencing on the same offence, and, importantly, low salaries as compared to civilians, even those working on farms (p.202). In Zimbabwe, it was noted that a municipal security guard earns more than an army sergeant. This was similar to Gilbert’s (1980:554) historical findings on why British soldiers deserted the military in the eighteenth century, ‘pay was very low . . . a common soldier regularly lived on the border of starvation.’ Shils (1977:428) shared a similar sentiment; for him, even though American soldiers invoked the injustice of the Vietnam War in which they were deployed, desertion was rarely a result of political beliefs. However, in the Zimbabwean context, even though the country’s economy was in crisis, with salaries equivalent to US$10.00/month for civil servants and the armed forces, army deserters rarely referred to the economic crisis in explaining their desertion. Victimisation and ‘politics’ in the barracks were the primary factors that drove them out of the army. However, it is not clear how many soldiers deserted the Zimbabwe army. Whilst numbers obsesses media reports, there are conflicting figures on that. While Baldauf (2007) reports that more than 1500 soldiers deserted, the Zimbabwean News (2011) estimated that thousands were living in exile in South Africa. Chibaya and Mbanga (2005) chose to use the term ‘exodus’ to describe a huge number of soldiers who had deserted the army. What I can emphasise is that army desertion figures are exaggerated, as there is no official

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report by the Zimbabwe National Army (mainly for security reasons). I now turn to the personal accounts of the Mafikizolo soldiers.

Charlie Mike and his compatriots Charlie Mike was born in 1975 in Shurugwi in the central part of Zimbabwe. He joined the army in 1995 with the encouragement of his father, a former soldier. On completion of his basic military training, he was attached to the signals corps as an operator and later became a detachment commander. Between 1998 and 2002, he was deployed to the war zone in the Democratic Republic of Congo. When he returned, the situation in the army had become difficult. You know, actually why I deserted the military. Ah, we went for some campaigns . . . jah political campaigns, which I do not think were good for the soldiers. The army would check where you come from and tell you to go and campaign for ZANU-PF in your province. So, when I was campaigning in my province, you see, I could move with my father’s young brother, my uncles, my nephews; I could move with those people but they were not, ah, ZANU-PF supporters or sympathisers. So, when they see me moving with these people, they would say, now look at this soldier – he is moving around with these opposition people so he is not, ah, ah, a ZANU-PF soldier; he’s an opposition soldier. But they did not consider that the person that I’m moving with, he’s my father’s brother, he’s my uncle, he’s my nephew – blood relatives who support their own party. I support my own party, but the fact remains that these are my blood relatives. (Charlie Mike) This reveals how the ZNA was deeply concerned about keeping soldiers loyal to ZANU-PF, through threats and instilling fear into the rank and file of Mafikizolo soldiers. According to Coser (1974), just like the family, the military is a ‘greedy institution.’ They (the military and the family), demand individual time, commitment, and loyalty. Segal (1986:10) reveals that the military and the family depend on their members, for whose participation they compete with other institutions and social groups. For these army deserters, on deployment to their village or locations, they were torn between companionship with their families and executing their combat duties, which were now largely political. In their narratives, they juxtapose the barracks and their village. The former was viewed as a ‘total institution’ (see Goffman, 1961), where freedom of speech and movement was curtailed, guided by military standing orders. For the latter, Charlie Mike emphasised that soldiers’ duties outside the barracks, like deployment into civilian communities, were seen as a space with relative freedom from the close surveillance of the generals and military intelligence. It reveals the agency soldiers had on being targets in a political system imbued with organised surveillance.

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In this case their agency was based on their ability to distinguish between two spaces: the barracks and village deployments. However, the distinction between the two was very blurred, as the practices of surveillance entered almost every space, including soldiers’ social lives. Delta Echo, who worked in the Engineering Regiment, noted: ‘I was told that I have a similar surname with one of the MDC senators, so I would not be deployed outside the camp. I thought it was a joke, but it happened’. Even outside the barracks, a soldier had to carry with him a particular ideology, a way of thinking, behaving, and acting. It referred to the ideological notion that a soldier had to prioritise the ‘nation’ before anything else – including family. However, in this context, the ‘nation’ meant ZANU-PF and President Robert Mugabe. The army increasingly scrutinised the relatives and friends of soldiers. Thus, soldiers had to conform to the reality that ZANU-PF took precedence over everyone else, including one’s family. Soldiers had to live by ‘orders’ from above, which also permeated into their everyday lives outside the barracks. This is what Foucault (1977) refers to as surveillance from above. Being a soldier during the Zimbabwean political crisis meant spearheading ZANU-PF campaigns and propagating ZANU-PF ideology – despite what the soldiers themselves or their families believed in. Charlie Mike noted that he had family responsibilities and also a right to choose which political party he wanted to support and vote for. For many of the soldiers who deserted, their resistance to some general’s orders and political indoctrination stemmed from their own political convictions that the army should be apolitical. While Charlie Mike was expected to move around with ZANU-PF supporters, he prioritised his family members. They, however, supported the opposition political party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). The lack of liberty to freely interact with his family became a source of dissatisfaction with the military authority. Charlie Mike argues that being a soldier should not turn him into an enemy of his family, regardless of their political sympathies. He stated that: I moved with them because they are my blood relatives, not because they are MDC. But these ZANU-PF people were saying, no, you’re moving with them, so you are one of them. So, they had to withdraw me from this campaign. I went back to the barracks [pause]; they started harassing me. (Charlie Mike) For Foucault (1977:177) this is a kind of ‘functional surveillance’, which is not only disciplinary but represents power enacted on individuals. Sending Charlie Mike back to the barracks is a way of ensuring surveillance of soldiers. It is seen as a ‘technique of controlling’ (cf. Foucault, 1977) rogue soldiers. In her writing, McGregor (2013) argues that surveillance was a more subtle way of controlling the perceived MDC supporters. Thus, surveillance invokes and carries with it a threat that is both real and imaginary. It is real in

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the sense that it can manifest in physical violence, and it is imaginary because sometimes it only exists in the psyche. The barracks became a space to manage soldiers according to ZANU-PF ideals. They marched me into officer commanding orders, and they quoted one dubious Defence Act [rule] called disobeying lawful command when I was referred to the commanding officers’ orders . . . ah, then to the brigadier. I was detained in the detention barracks [DB] for 40 days with heavy punishment. (Charlie Mike) The barracks is represented as a metaphor for punishment. Being in such a space means a soldier can be dealt with effectively. Thus, for Foucault (1977:171) the army barracks is an ‘artificial city, a diagram of power that acts by means of general visibility, built and reshaped to exercise power over armed men.’ The barracks is created in a way that forces the soldier to comply with the rigid military code of conduct. In such instances, Layton (1999) talks about ‘military victimhood’, which refers to the ways in which soldiers have become victims in wars they are made to fight. Being detained not only affects the individual, but other soldiers as well. It sends a warning signal to those who are deemed ‘disobedient’. Even though the military is about obeying orders, in some cases some soldiers remained adamant, especially during the June 2008 presidential run-off. Charlie Romeo states: During the 2008 presidential run-off, all the soldiers were asked to come and vote inside the camp. They used our force numbers for each soldier to vote, and each soldier voted under his company. Some soldiers did not come, and there was Operation Chigunwe chitsvuku [Operation Red Finger]. We were paraded and they inspected who had voted. I was one of the soldiers who was in the camp, but I decided not to vote because I did not want to be herded like goats to vote for President Mugabe and ZANU PF. So, I and others with no red finger were immediately detained without trial; we were told that, because MDC had withdrawn from the elections, now you don’t want to vote. I and other soldiers were told to sleep with no blankets – detained by the military police. (Charlie Romeo) Drawing from this excerpt it is interesting how individual soldiers resisted ZANU-PF’s way of doing. While agency is always seen as a positive practice, in the military it is the opposite. Soldiers were inspected and those who did not vote were suspected of harbouring MDC sympathies and were consequently detained. Thus, the military perceives punishment as a way of thwarting soldiers’ agency in specified fields of power. Those who acted against command were perceived as sell-outs. Bravo Lima, who was in the infantry battalion, recounted a similar experience. He states that, ‘I was told

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that you will show me your ZANU-PF vote’ or ‘tokutamba yechicomrade’ (it’s either you prove to us that you are a ZANU-PF, or we will punish you the way we did comrades who were selling out during the liberation war). Like many civilians in Zimbabwe, the right to a free and secret vote for junior soldiers was not realised. Charlie Mike stole away from the camp and sought refuge in South Africa. Actually, when I was released, that’s when I sneaked out of the camp. I had to run away, and I came to South Africa. I couldn’t live in fear. Jah, I had to come to South Africa because I was not a soldier for the ZANUPF party. I am a soldier for the people of Zimbabwe. (Charlie Mike) Charlie Mike deserted from the army. Desertion was a way to deal with issues of fear in the barracks of being arrested and detained. While in practice, fear does not necessarily end with desertion, it was seen as a way of moving away from repressive structures with a hierarchy, which demanded a particular brand of subordination.

Whisky Papa and other deserters Whisky Papa has comparatively more experience than the other deserters I interviewed. Whisky Papa was born in 1968 in Nkayi, a district in Matabeleland North, and joined the army in 1986. Immediately after basic military training, he was posted to Harare One Commando barracks for further training as a member of the Commando Special Forces. He was deployed in Mozambique from 1986–1992, the Angola peacekeeping mission in 1996, and the DRC war from 1998–2002. Having served in the army for 21 years and 8 months, he was eligible for pension – it accrues at the 20-year service mark. So, he had already exceeded the normal pensionable service. As he indicates in the following, he was demoted and then denied the opportunity to resign. In the context of Zimbabwe, resigning from the Zimbabwe National Army is a tedious and frustrating process. For Whisky Papa he was punished on every parade – being labelled as an MDC sympathiser. In the end Whisky Papa felt obligated to desert from the army, leaving his pension and other benefits. What is interesting in Whisky Papa’s story is that he not only refers to his own experiences but to those of others as well. He uses ‘we’, meaning other soldiers. Whisky Papa identifies himself as a victim of politics in the army. His story is full of memories of persecution in the barracks. Following is his personal account. His problems started during the DRC War when the troops were asked to vote in the Zimbabwe presidential elections. Whisky Papa remembers: That was 2004, 2005, 2006. In 2006 I can say my problems began; they eventually led to my being here in South Africa today. Actually, this is quite a sensitive and emotional issue. To start with, you know when the

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voting process came in Congo in 2002. Envelopes came, they were serialised 001, 003, and in each envelope, there was your name. So, you would be given an envelope ‘001’. So, I remember when I told some junior military men in the trenches those gentlemen, gentlemen watch out here. These envelopes have got serial numbers watch out for what they are planning to do. It was so tricky; the commanders could easily see how you voted. When we got back home after that fraudulent vote because it was not secret, meaning that if you voted otherwise, you would find yourself in prison. So, you cannot say that there was any vote, [because] we were not expressing our wishes. (Whisky Papa) The political disciplining of soldiers apparently began in the trenches in the DRC War. Soldiers were expected to vote under the watchful eye of their commanders, and each ballot paper was clearly linked numerically to a specific soldier. While the dominant discourse in Zimbabwe perceived all soldiers as pro-ZANU-PF and pro-President Robert Mugabe, the previous excerpt shows that soldiers like Whisky Papa wanted a president of their own choice. Even though serial numbers on the envelopes dictated how they should vote, importantly, they reveal to us the unprofessional military practices in the ZNA. The very fact that the political commander brought envelopes with serial numbers is a clear testimony that generals were very much aware of the position of Mafikizolo soldiers as professionals. If not, they would have just let them vote of their own volition. Whisky Papa’s narrative of envelopes with names and serial numbers accentuates the fact that it was well-nigh impossible for soldiers to express their free vote under the gaze of their command structure. In the barracks the army was immersed in politics. So, when we came back, we discovered that indeed the army had totally changed. It was now politics in the military. There was now indoctrination, a sort of brainwashing, a sort of blinkering, and channelling of ideas to the extent that, at the end of it, when it got to around 2006, things were really bad in the military. We were now faced with this thing – forced politicisation of the military, starvation in terms of meals and torn uniforms compared to the luxurious lifestyles of commanders. (Whisky Papa) Conditions in the barracks, as described by Whisky Papa, forced Mafikizolo soldiers to leave the army. What Mafikizolos had expected from the army was not fulfilled. Like the conditions from which they suffered in war, the ZNA had changed from being apolitical to being political, with soldiers being neglected and even harassed. Jah, jah, morale went down, [there were] resignations now; it began with retirement, a retirement that comes not out of your own will but out of a

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Military intelligence, politics, loyalty situation where you see that something is no longer right here. And then there was this, as times went on, around 2007, these retirements they were banned. They were serving no retirements anymore. They were saying, you are now joining MDC and the forces of imperialism. Meaning that, if you look at it I have worked . . . for the country and the constitution, but it does not make me a slave of anyone. The constitution does not say that I should not have my rights. We found ourselves now being told that you cannot leave the army. You want to go and join MDC, meaning that my life, my own life, my God-given life, was now being controlled by another man for his own benefit, against my freedom, against my will, making me a slave of him. (Whisky Papa)

There is anger in Whisky Papa’s narrative. Even when Whisky Papa was talking, he became agitated. He understands that even soldiers should have their rights, as enshrined in the constitution. The right to freedom to leave the army should have been his personal choice, but that choice was not respected. Despite repression, soldiers like Whisky Papa were aware of the constitution pertaining to their rights. There is a consciousness of their rights, which are inalienable, regardless of them being in the army. However, Alpha Romeo emphasises that deserting from the military was a political necessity. I did not desert the army; I was forced to leave. A military man in the barracks is a man under confinement. He is a man who is not sure of his freedom. The moment you are forced by the army to conform to certain things, that compromises your manhood. The time I left the army, the army was no longer an army. You were forced to worship ZANU-PF and President Robert Mugabe. ZANU-PF is the army and the army is ZANU-PF. On payday you are forced to say, ‘thank you ZANU-PF for paying me’. (Alpha Romeo) The use of the language of ‘compromising your manhood’ reveals how these soldiers’ masculinity was emasculated by the army practice of violence in the barracks. Alpha Romeo revealed the ways in which ZANU-PF dictated the ways in which soldiers were to live, perceiving the barracks as ‘confinement’. The relationship between ZANU-PF and the military remained political. In his writing about the civil–military relations, Caforio (2007) rightfully pointed that the sole client of the military is the state. However, the description of the state by army generals in Zimbabwe is President Robert Mugabe and ZANU-PF party. Williams (2007:90) adds that promotion of senior officers, e.g. army generals, is determined either directly or indirectly by the state. Consequently, these army generals leaned on ZANU-PF and remained submissive to President Mugabe’s political control. Whisky Papa notes,

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Politics had taken over the life of a soldier because you had to denounce the MDC in front of war veterans in the army so that you wouldn’t get tortured. I was criminalised and displaced. I was turned into a refugee. From a military man, I was made a refugee. I did not even have time to prepare; the only thing that I left with is my soul. You cannot work for 21 years and 8 months and then simply desert the army. It only goes to show how bad the military had deteriorated. (Whisky Papa) These excerpts reveal the anger and frustration of soldiers who on joining the Zimbabwe army had never envisaged that they would be persecuted. The extracts reveal what these soldiers expected in the military – prestige and honour. However, instead of enjoying the social and emotionally prestigious benefits that come with being a soldier in a once ‘British standardised military’, these soldiers were made to be ‘refugees’. The transitory notion of and from a soldier to a ‘refugee’ is a shared concern among the majority of army deserters on which this paper is based. Apart from that, the story of Whisky Papa is a synopsis of what post-colonial Africa state violence can do to its citizens: ‘making’ its soldiers to be refugees, fearful of their lives. Being ‘made’ a ‘refugee’ refers to what was taken from them as soldiers – recognition as members serving the state and not ZANU-PF. The idea of being ‘criminalised’ and ‘displaced’ means that soldiers were working under the oppressive ZANU-PF military generals whose sole aim was to prop up President Robert Mugabe in power. Even though ZANU-PF tried to rob these soldiers of their professional military ethics, army deserters retained their ideal of what a professional army is. Alpha Romeo and Whisky Papa’s feelings are quite representative for Mafikizolo and of soldiers who absconded from the same army. It is clear from Whisky Papa’s narrative that soldiers who wished to resign were thought to be MDC supporters. The ZNA did not want MDC loyalists within the barracks, but also did not wish them to leave the army. The normal processes according to which soldiers could resign were stopped. This was because the generals suspected that soldiers would join the MDC. There was concern about the mass resignation of soldiers from the army. The right to resign, as stipulated in the Defence Act, was no longer adhered to; it was all ‘politics’. The suffering of Mafikizolo soldiers contrasted with that of the command structure. The latter greatly benefited from ZANU-PF patronage. Whisky Papa emphasised that: When I joined the military in 1986, I was told to be apolitical and to have nothing to do with politics – politics was a civilian matter. But unfortunately, things turned the other way around. We have soldiers administratively discharged just because a commander said I saw so and so soldier attending an MDC rally. A commander could come up with an idea of his own and then make it his word against a soldier, and no

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Military intelligence, politics, loyalty witness was needed. As long as a commander who is totally loyal to ZANU-PF would say I saw (that) particular soldier, evidence was thrown out whether this one is right or not, and you suffer the consequences. (Whisky Papa)

Unlike in 1986, when the army was supposed to be apolitical, the situation in the military had changed drastically by 2000 and thereafter. Whisky Papa had originally joined a ‘professional’ army – when politics and politicking were seen as civilian matters. Now soldiers who had joined the army in post-independence Zimbabwe were increasingly perceived as ‘sell-outs’ – they actually dared to quote their rights under the constitution. The victimisation of soldiers in the army barracks was a result of the politicisation of the military. Whisky Papa uses the language of censorship of soldiers’ conversations in the barracks to express how they were limited in their choices to comment, especially on political issues in the country. Other partisan soldiers who were meant to see if they were not supporting the MDC also monitored soldiers outside the barracks over the weekends. Whisky Papa’s experience of censorship in the army barracks was similar to that of India Sierra, who was working in the Signals Corps. India Sierra emphasised that: ‘the shift commander was a war veteran and he didn’t want me to work as an operator; he was always saying you are too junior to know what is happening in the army – you will sell out’. Censorship in the barracks reveals how the Zimbabwe National Army feared Mafikizolo soldiers, that ‘they will sell out’. Whether the fear was real or imagined is immaterial. If a Mafikizolo soldier wished to be ‘safe’, he had to praise President Robert Mugabe and his ZANU-PF political party. This to some extent reveals how the army was fearful of soldiers’ support of the MDC. Because the MDC had a lot of support and was gaining a dominant position in politics, Mafikizolo soldiers were forced to praise ZANU-PF and not to choose any alternative or embrace any other ‘truth’. For Whisky Papa: You were no longer allowed to even read the private media newspaper; you were no longer allowed to put on a red cap. Anything that is red was not allowed. You had to hide anything that is red because the moment you are seen with anything that is red, it was a problem. Red, jah, that’s the colour of the MDC. (Whisky Papa) The red cap and red t-shirts are currently MDC regalia used in public campaigns. The extract reveals how soldiers were caught in the ZANU-PF politics in the barracks. The barrack became a space controlled by partisan soldiers who had turned to spying on other soldiers. Military intelligence was responsible for monitoring what soldiers were reading and which radio station they listened to. Soldiers who were caught with anything red or reading private media newspapers were detained and harassed. It is quite hard to believe

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how soldiers who were trained to be ‘warrior heroes’ (Woodward, 2000) became victims in the ZNA. Politics was very central to soldiers’ understanding of their position as victims of the regime they were serving. Victimhood was underscored through excessive discipline and punishment in the barracks and seen through the lens of the political. Similarly, among British former soldiers who had served in Iraq and Afghanistan, issues of ‘military victimhood’ were commonly understood through injury and the mass death of British soldiers (see McGarry & Walklate, 2011:5). In the Zimbabwe army, for example, in 2002, two lieutenants from the battalion which I know were dismissed from the army when it was reported that they seemed ‘too happy’ in the officers’ mess when MDC’s victorious parliamentarians were announced by the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission. When a soldier wanted to read or listen to private (not state-controlled) broadcasting, he had to do so surreptitiously. Radio stations such as Voice of America (VOA) and Voice of the People (VOP) were said to be anti-government. In addition, newspapers such as the Daily News, The Standard, and Financial Gazette were forbidden material for soldiers’ inside and outside the barracks. Those with satellite dishes were not allowed to watch and listen to programmes on BBC, CNN, and News24. Such news was said to represent the views of the West and America, whose leaders were regarded as ZANUPF enemies. Soldiers were kept in the dark; they were not supposed to know how the MDC was progressing politically in the election campaigns. The only radio and television stations that were allowed in the barracks were government-controlled broadcasting stations: Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC) and Zimbabwe Television (ZTV). In addition, soldiers had to read only the state-controlled newspapers: The Herald, The Chronicle, and other state provincial newspapers like Manica Post, Masvingo Star, which spearheaded the ZANU PF ‘patriotic history’ (Ranger, 2004a; Tendi, 2008), and propaganda in the post-2000 crisis. The state newspaper ran front-page stories that were worshipful of President Robert Mugabe’s rule, while private newspapers denigrated that view. So, it was the contrasting news and debate that the army generals did not want Mafikizolo soldiers to hear. Soldiers caught reading private newspapers or listening to Voice of America were frog-marched and punished by either the regimental or military police. Labels such as ‘sell-outs’ were imposed on those caught doing so. Over time there was an increase of parades. The company sergeant majors (CSM) inspected soldiers every morning. On Mondays it was the main parade inspected by the regimental sergeant major (RSM). At the brigade level, the brigade sergeant major (BSM) was responsible for different inspection days. During all these periods in parading, soldiers experienced repression and constraints. On parades, the regimental sergeant major or company sergeant major would just say: ‘We have civilians in combat around us, those who support MDC.’ The notion of ‘civilians in combat’ is a metaphor in the military which demeans other soldiers. It is a label for those who were seen as not properly trained – in this case, those who were perceived as MDC

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supporters were viewed as civilians dressed in army uniforms. It was at such parades that the CSM and BSM invoked charges and threats to evoke the military’s draconian laws. For Mazarire (2011) ZANLA guerrillas used parades as spaces of discipline and shaming rogue comrades. Soldiers who were found to have an undone button, to be unshaven, in messed-up army fatigues, or in unpolished patrol boots were punished, for example, with two days extra guard duty. The punishment was not fixed, but was very subjective, determined by the parade commander, i.e. CSM, RSM, and BSM. He or she could decide to impose minimal punishment like 10 press-ups, while some gave harsh punishment – like digging a six-foot pit in a day. Apart from soldiers being punished, parades were also used as spaces of political mobilisation. In revealing the ‘politicisation of military parades’, I draw on Woodward’s (2013) idea of military landscapes as ‘spaces of violence’, i.e. the ways in which military activities leave an imprint of soldiers activities. However, in this chapter, it is junior soldiers paraded on political parades who were indoctrinated and victimised by political commanders. One of the activities that became a routine in the military was toyi-toying (the stamping of feet and spontaneous chanting of slogans and political songs) in the barracks and being drilled in a quick and slow march. Political indoctrination was publicly declared, without question. ZANU-PF slogans were openly chanted during parades. Slogans such as masoja pamberi nemusangano (soldiers ahead with ZANU-PF) became everyday language enforced by the commanders on parades. Parades became sites where the opposition political party, the MDC, and its leader Morgan Tsvangirai were demeaned as soldiers’ wives. Whisky Papa emphasised that: I was falsely accused of being an MDC because I was absent for two days. They created a story about me. This brigadier incriminated me. I was arraigned before him and I was dealt with unfairly by him. I was demoted from staff sergeant to corporal. That very day I was put on guard duties at the main gate from 2 a.m. to 4 a.m. I wrote to the Directorate Legal Service [DLS] for the redress of the wrong, citing the corrupt element of the commander. The major who assisted me was arrested and put behind bars for 10 days. As for me, everyone could see that I was headed for prison. The brigadier would do anything to ensure that he made my life very uncomfortable; I had no intention of deserting. I had challenged the brigadier. (Whisky Papa) Whisky Papa was demoted in rank. In the army, an absence of two days does not warrant demotion. Instead, the charge (and punishment) involves a misdemeanour and usually involves extra guard duties. Because of the unfairness of the charge brought against him, Whisky Papa decided to resign. However, his decision to resign was turned down. Officers linked to the brigadier were always punishing Whisky Papa and he finally deserted. For soldiers who

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desert and mutiny, Higate (2012:32) argues, ‘it is important to register, however, that soldiers are neither ‘blindly obedient’ nor subjectively homogenous’. Whisky Papa asserts that, I asked to go on leave, they denied me. They began putting me always under arrest. I was always being arrested. No, no, no, I would be arrested by the brigade sergeant major [BSM], I was always under arrest. (Whisky Papa) When arrested in the barracks, soldiers were subjected to heavy punishment popularly known as chitigu in the Chishona language. Punishment was meant to ‘correct’ those who behaved in an undesirable manner. Physically, a soldier under arrest was ordered to roll and crawl in the muddy and watered ground, all in the name of discipline. The idea of confining ‘undisciplined’ soldiers reveals also constant surveillance. Soldiers who asked to be transferred to battalions closer to their home had their requests turned down. Bravo Kilo requested a posting to 4 Brigade, which was closer to his rural area. His request was dismissed on political grounds. The administrative officer explained to him: ‘You want to go and support your new MDC member of parliament.’ The barracks were conceptualised as a political enclosure in which soldiers were coerced to behave and act in a certain prescribed ‘patriotic’ manner. Routine everyday military activities were structured by politicised military discipline. This discipline was at its most extreme during the period of political crisis in Zimbabwe. The barracks became a containment zone for disciplining and punishing soldiers, especially suspected MDC supporters. As with politics among the civilians, labels such as mupanduki (traitor) came to be commonly used for soldiers. In situations where soldiers became political targets in the army barracks, they would find it hard to continue serving. Whisky Papa said: The brigadier gave the military police specific orders to arrest me upon sight. Before I left the country, I told them [immediate commanders] that I would fight back. I used to tell the officers, gentlemen I am going but be careful, we are going to fight. I used to tell them that, no, I am not going to go and keep quiet. I am going to fight back because of what you have done to me. You have destroyed me. My life has been destroyed over politics, over a system that has gone haywire. So that’s how things ended up and I ended up here. (Whisky Papa) For Whisky Papa, politics in the barracks was central in his explanation of his victimisation. He described his life as ‘being destroyed over politics’. What is interesting is that as a soldier, Whisky Papa believed in fighting to repossess what he had lost, even though he did not fight back as he had stated he

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would. Whisky Papa left the army as a disappointed soldier. At the time of consolidating this book, Whisky Papa had passed on – a bitter soldier.

Conclusion While commentators on military studies often view the military as an organisation which completely ‘makes’ soldiers who follow every order, this chapter reveals how army deserters challenged and resisted partisan policing of civilians. This was despite knowing they would face severe consequences – detention and demotion of rank. Their actions, in effect, delineated the contours of their understanding of the professional soldier. They objected and justified their actions as men who understand the constitution – they did not accept that the army could interfere in their personal relations and fiercely protected their right to a private sphere. The ways in which the barracks become a particular location for the battle over the political and professional have been explored. What is interesting is how the army continued to use the guerrilla tactics of violence (of perceiving other soldiers as sell-outs) and tools to punish and discipline Mafikizolo soldiers in a post-colonial army. However, the argument here is not that such violent practices were not there in the barracks before the year 2000, but that the political crisis invoked political victimisation which targeted a particular generation of soldiers within the army.

Note * This chapter is drawn from the following article: Maringira, G. (2017) ‘Politicization and resistance in the Zimbabwean national army’, African Affairs, 116 (462): 18–38.

4

Empty combat bellies, troop canteens Barracks of hunger

Introduction This chapter reveals how soldiers were subjected to hunger in the army barracks and the ways in which they tried to find alternative ways to deal with lack of food in the barracks, including making up temporary cooking places in the barracks, a practice which was forbidden by the standing orders in the barracks. The chapter argues that the absence of food in the barracks and in some cases the provision of sub-standard food to soldiers represented a state failure, especially to soldiers who served it. The soldiers were made to eat boiled dried beans with no cooking oil in it, no onions, and sometimes with no salt. There was no breakfast and sometimes delayed lunch and /or no lunch at all. In this chapter the author talks about the barracks canteen, sergeants’ mess, and officers’ mess: how these dining halls functioned at a time when there was hunger in the barracks. In certain moments when food was served in the kitchen canteen, some soldiers did bhizhu, meaning getting served twice. I explore these practices which were not soldierly, but they were driven by hunger and the uncertainties which surrounded tomorrow, a day which soldiers were not aware of in terms of food in the barrack canteen. Soldiers ended up bringing dried traditional vegetables such as mufushwa wemushamba, meaning boiled dried pumpkin leaves, from home, storing it in the barrack lockers and drawers, a practice which was not known in a professional army. Some of the soldiers who were strategically positioned, like the quartermaster, signallers, medics, fuel attendant, and army truck drivers, stole and resold a few army resources for their survival in the barracks. With regard to the shortage and lack of food in the barracks, the army responded by giving soldiers ma off ezhara, meaning soldiers were given time off to go home because of hunger in the army barracks.

From the Congo war to Zimbabwean barracks It is important to note that at a time when the Zimbabwean National Army deployed in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 1998, the soldiers were well fed and food in the barracks was in abundance. The deployment of Zimbabwean

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soldiers was intended to protect the government of Laurent Kabila that was under threat from rebel insurgencies backed by Rwandan and Ugandan armies. The Zimbabwean government’s deployment of soldiers was decided under the Defence and Security protocol of the Southern African Development Community (SADC). While for the SADC the war was legitimate, in Zimbabwe the soldiers were deployed without parliamentary debate and approval (Rupiya, 2002; Makumbe, 2002). The soldiers who fought in this war were never told why they were fighting in the DRC war nor told when they would come back home. At a time of their deployment in the DRC, the Zimbabwean soldiers were themselves challenged by the war context. There were everyday threats of rebels backed by Ugandan and Rwandan armies. In addition, there were food shortages and it was difficult for soldiers to communicate with their girlfriends and families at home (see Maringira, 2016b). There was ultimately no communication between them and their commanders on how the war situation could be improved (Maringira, 2016a). The war was in itself political, and the motives why Zimbabwe deployed soldiers to the DRC were unknown to them. The soldiers who were deployed in that war were never briefed by their commanders about the nature of the enemy, including enemy strength. However, a soldier is not allowed to question his/her superiors or commanders; doing so will be regarded as indiscipline. None of the deployed soldiers had a complete story about the war, about why Zimbabwe, a country which does not share a border with Congo, was involved in this war. Again, soldiers deployed for long periods of time without returning home. Much of what these former soldiers said on why this war was fought is based on rumours that circulated among themselves. There was no formal communication between the soldiers and their commanders about the Congo war. Until today, the Zimbabwean government has remained silent about it. Interestingly, no soldiers, even those still serving, have attempted to question why they fought in that war in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Hence the soldiers fought in the war with no knowledge of why they were involved in the DRC war. However, it is not the purpose of this chapter to dwell on these. In their narratives about the Congo war, the issue of lack of food even among the Congolese soldiers was said to be rampant, and it is of interest in this chapter. One of the soldiers talked about how the Congolese army was fed, when we deployed in Congo, the soldiers there were not really soldiers, and was a band of thieves, and scavengers, they were not fed, but they used their gun to feed themselves, rob civilians, and force civilians to give them food. (Charlie Romeo) This reveals to us how in some ways the Congo war practices, in particular those of the Congolese soldiers were carried in the Zimbabwean army barracks. For Papa Whisky, ‘the Congo army was a rebel army in all its practices, be it food provision and combat clothing and army equipment’. It is

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important to note that the view that the Congo army was more of a rebel army was premised on how the Congolese army acted and solved the problems it faced in the context of war. In a situation where the Congolese army had no food in the deployment, they used force to extract food from the civilians. It was an army of intolerance, an army with a lot of disregard for and of its own citizens. For them the war was meant to loot from the civilians. The Congolese state had completely forgotten that its soldiers would need to be fed. The Congolese soldiers relied on their own initiatives, that of using force on civilians to provide them with food. In October 2002, the Zimbabwean National Army withdrew from the war. There were many reasons why the Zimbabwean National Army withdrew from the DRC war (see Maringira, 2016b). But what is important to note is that at the time, in 2002, Zimbabwe’s economy was experiencing a high inflation rate embedded in a broad political and economic crisis. Thus, the withdrawal from the DRC war coincided with a political and economic crisis in Zimbabwe. On their return to Zimbabwe the soldiers found it difficult to live and survive in the barracks (Maringira, 2017a); I return to this in the next sections. But the ways in which the Zimbabwean army responded to lack of food in the barracks was akin to the Congolese soldiers’ practices in the DRC war. It was a practice of ‘the gun will make me survive’. I use the gun in its metaphorical sense as a representation of power but also as a space in which we can begin to understand how power was enunciated and understood at a time when the soldiers experienced food shortages in the army barracks. When soldiers were made to look for food like scavengers, it was a form of emasculation, made to eat substandard food and spend the day toiling there in in the barracks, while uncertain of what they would eat in the next day in the army barracks.

Barrack kitchen arrangement On entering the barracks, soldiers are told that they are not supposed to cook and worry about food. Instead the army provides all the food which they want. The reason for this is twofold: first, the army is interested in retaining the soldiers’ focus for duty to and for the state, that they only have to do military duties while their food is provided. Second, the barracks are built in a way that there is no space for soldiers to cook for themselves. The available cooking spaces are organised in the canteens, sergeants’ and officers’ mess which are structured according to ranks in the barracks. For example, the private soldiers’ canteen is for the private soldiers, and the corporals’ canteen is for the lance corporals and full corporals. They eat separately in their respective canteens, and the table qualities on which they eat from differ widely. Thus, while in the private soldiers’ canteen, soldiers sit on wooden benches, while the corporals sit on wooden chairs. The private soldiers have a shoddy entertainment room. The television is hardly working; if it does, sometime no one controls what is being watched. It is a tragedy. No one

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knows where the tv remote is stored. The entertainment room is always quite noisy. There are no chairs to sit on. No one controls the other because the private soldiers are generally of the same rank. It is difficult to instil discipline in the entertainment room. The tv can be left on throughout the night. No one is held accountable. In the barracks, there are more private soldiers than any other rank. However, surprisingly, their entertainment is worse off than anyone else’s in the barracks. The private soldiers’ barrack places of living and sleeping is not as organised as other spaces in the battalion. The private soldiers and corporals live in an open-space barrack which is like a classroom – spaces are only divided by single beds of each private soldier. They live and sleep in close proximity to each other. When sleeping one can actually see and hear another private soldier snoring. There is no privacy – they bathe in the same bathroom and dress in the same barrack room. They do duties to clean, sweep, and shine the barracks. They use and share the same toilets which they clean up and shine. There are no bathing tabs. In many cases the hot water for bathing is always hard to come by. The showers are sometimes broken and hardly repaired. Each barrack has a corporal who lives in it, commanding his troops even when they are sleeping. He makes sure they do not make noise when sleeping and they adhere to military standing orders. Every morning each corporal ensures that all his troops in the barracks are up, and if there is anyone sick, it is the responsibility of the corporal to report to the platoon sergeant, who then takes it up to the company sergeant major, and up to the platoon commander, and if it is a serious sickness, it is reported to the company commander and battalion commander alike. However, the ways in which life is lived in the private soldiers’ barracks is quite distinct from the sergeants’ kitchen and sergeants’ mess. The sergeants’ mess is an out-of-bounds area to all private soldiers and corporals. The food in particular, for example, in the morning, breakfast was a typical English breakfast: a piece of bacon, sausage, fried and /or scrambled eggs, yoghurt bread with butter, and of course a cup of tea with fresh milk. At lunchtime, beef or chicken is fried, served with vegetables and a fresh apple for dessert. Of course, with fork and knife on the table, though, some will not use them. It was a lunch to remember because even at home soldiers could always talk about it. The army was an army which catered to the soldiers. The sergeants sit on well-wooded chairs. However, the sergeants’ mess is also arranged according to ranks: sergeant, staff sergeant, Warrant Officer Class 2 (WO2), and Warrant Officer Class 1 (WO1). If, for example, there is more than one Warrant Officer Class 1, the warrant officer whose appointment is a Regimental Sergeant Major (RSM) has more privileges in terms of being given well-cooked food and more pieces of meat. He normally sits in front of the table, often on a couch. In the sergeants’ mess there is a bar with a television on the wall. Often private soldiers serve in the bar, cook in the mess, and clean the mess. There is also a separate sitting room, with couches in which the sergeants and other warrant officers relax after eating. However, even sitting in the entertainment

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room is structured by ranks and appointment. The couches are arranged in rows. The Warrant Officer Class 1 sits in the front row and directly by the tv. The WO1 chooses to tune to the tv station which he wants to see, and the whole sergeants’ mess has to see that tv station. Even if the WO1 goes out for a while, nobody dares to change the channel without authorisation from the WO1 himself. Apart from that, sergeants do reserve their comments on talks and debates on certain tv stations. If any sergeant comments about the tv station or debates on the tv irritate the WO1, then such comments can be used to victimise him at parade square. The sergeants’ mess has a big swimming pool, but of course they do not know how to swim in it or to maintain it. For those who try to swim, they just swim like they are in a river. None of the sergeants and warrant officers have had swimming costumes. It is something they do not pay attention to. In terms of sleeping arrangement, each of the sergeants and other warrant officers live in separate rooms furnished with single beds and drawers and wardrobes. The sergeants’ mess has a separate garden in which they grow vegetables, tomatoes, and green beans. They eat fresh vegetables from this garden. The weeding, watering, and gardening is done by those private soldiers executing their punishment: those who would be late at work and /or parade. However, the officers’ mess was a quite distinct place and experience; it was a hotel in the barracks. Outside it, there is a serviced swimming pool with bubbling water. Some of the officers knew how to swim and swimming costumes were provided by the army. There were flowers around it. There was a well-maintained lawn. It was well-irrigated. The officers’ mess building has big glasses, and white curtains, on curtain rails. In order to enter, one has to press a button, and inside, the bell rings and the person inside answers on the phone. Only those invited and /or officers are allowed to enter. Inside you meet the chief chef and soldiers dressed in white aprons all working inside the officers’ mess. The chief chef and other soldiers working inside the mess are well trained in hotel catering. In this case their hotel catering is in the officers’ mess. When one approaches the officers’ mess, especially towards lunch and /or supper, you could smell the savoury aromatic, that is the smell which is both spicy and pungent, as well as flavoursome, and aromatic, sweet, pleasant, and wholesome. Like the sergeants’ mess, the officers’ mess is well organised and structured according to ranks. The sitting arrangement is defined by rank as well as appointments. In the officers’ mess, the tables are arranged according to rank: the 2nd lieutenant is the lowest rank and sits at the lower table, followed by the lieutenant, army captain, major, and the lieutenant colonel at the high table. The sitting arrangement is not only about food but how power is structured in the barracks. So the officers’ mess, sergeants’ mess, and troops’ canteen are not only spaces in which we can only talk about food and arrangement in eating, but it is a space in which power is defined and ordered. The officers’ mess defines it all – it is the centre of power which controls the barracks. It is the epitome of power and politics. The lieutenant colonel has his own table where his food is served. He can choose

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to eat alone and /or invite whomever he desires to eat with. If he is absent from the officers’ mess, nobody dares to eat from his table. It is a sacred table, a table of power and politics. It is a table that represents the state in the barracks in the sense that state politics are discussed therein. The lieutenant colonel can eat with his batman, an assistant to his duties, usually a private soldier and /or a corporal. The moment the corporal is picked and becomes a batman of the lieutenant colonel and of the battalion commander, the corporal assumes power more than soldiers of his rank and other officers in the barracks. The corporal can appropriate and execute power in the name of the battalion commander and /or the lieutenant colonel. The other spaces in the officers’ mess remain dominated by and inhabited by other ranks such as majors and captains. Usually, no officer will go out of the officers’ mess if the battalion commander has not ordered them to do so. This is because the battalion commander can choose to utilise the mess as a place of orders for any other military activities in the barracks. It is therefore an offence to eat and decide to go out without the battalion commander’s orders to do so. Hence sleeping is at the discretion of the battalion commander. Thus, while the officers’ mess is a ‘hotel’ in the ways in which food is prepared and eaten and how officers sit on couches, there are some ways in which the soldiering practice of discipline, command, and control are ingrained in the officers’ mess. Therefore, the barracks is a diagram of power (Foucault, 1977). In the army, hunger was unevenly distributed and structured in the barracks. In a situation when the supply of food in the barracks was low, the food was only for the commissioned officers. At a time when hunger was experienced in the barracks, at first the officers’ mess could have breakfast and lunch, while the troops canteen could not. When there was a continuous lack of food in the barracks, only the battalion commander had his food reserved, ten per cent of the food. That is if there were 100 loaves of bread in the barracks for soldiers, 10 loaves were reserved for the battalion commander. This 10 per cent practice was also common on meat supplies. If there was 200 kg supply of meat, 20 kg was reserved for the battalion commander. This was to ensure that if there was no food, the battalion commander could rely on his different 10 per cent of food on different food items. However, at a time when there was serious starvation, when the state could not provide any more food, the 10 per cent was no more to be found. It is important, therefore, to note that the ways in which the food was provided for the soldiers, ranks were important on who gets what.

Quartermaster: keeping and stealing army rations The quartermaster is a place where soldiers’ food and all other military equipment is kept and accounted for. Military combat uniforms and patrol boots are also kept in the quartermaster store rooms. Again, rifles as well as magazines for ammunition are also kept therein. It is therefore important to understand how the quartermaster functions within the barracks, as well as for military operations. The quartermaster is, therefore, a central and strategic

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place and appointment in the army. In terms of military combat uniform clothing, the quartermaster is responsible for ordering it for the soldiers according to the number/strength in the barracks. On receiving the orders, the quartermaster is also responsible for issuing soldiers with the combat uniform, as well as patrol boots, including military socks, vests, shorts and even military underwear. If the soldier’s uniform is torn and /or wears off, the soldier would have to come back to surrender the torn uniform in exchange for a new one. The same happens even for patrol boots, as well as surrendering torn military underwear for a new pair. However, during the crisis in the barracks, exchanging for a new uniform was never easy. When soldiers wanted to exchange for a torn combat uniform and even underwear, the soldiers had to bribe the quartermaster so as to be issued with such. It was at the discretion of the quartermaster to exchange the torn uniform because a soldier may be told that underwear for exchange was not in store. The quartermaster also issued the base bed, mattress, and military blankets, including sheets. Each soldier has to sign an acknowledgement that he/she has received the these items for military purposes. When the blankets are worn out, they are surrendered and exchanged in the quartermaster. If any soldier loses the combat uniform and /or blankets, including the underwear, the quartermaster will garnish his salary equivalent for the cost of it. Apart from that, the quartermaster keeps the rifles for each soldier. When soldiers are attested and go through and complete military training in the army, they each are issued with a rifle identified through a serial number. That rifle belongs to a particular soldier and no one else would be issued that rifle. The idea is to be able to account for each rifle breakages in the barracks during and after use. Each soldier is therefore responsible for ensuring that his/her rifle is clean. Again, military helmets are kept in the quartermaster: they work hand in hand with the rifle. Whenever soldiers are deployed, they are issued with a rifle, magazine, ammunition, and a military helmet. So ideally, the quartermaster functions as the central node in military day-to-day life of soldiers both in and beyond the barracks, in particular in operations. In terms of food, at a battalion level army rations/food is ordered from the brigade quartermaster to the battalion quartermaster. The food is ordered according to the strength/number of soldiers present in the battalion register. So once the food is delivered to the battalion quartermaster, it is then sent to the battalion kitchen for soldiers to eat. However, not all the food which is sent to the kitchen is cooked for the soldiers. Soldiers working in the quartermaster and chefs steal and sell food in the married quarters. The married quarters are houses in the camps where married soldiers live with their families (Maringira, 2017c). They are within the barrack cantonment, and they are out of bound to all soldiers who do not have families and /or live in the married quarters. It is often a rule in most barracks that those who live in the married quarters are not entitled to eat in the barrack canteen. Hence soldiers living in the married quarters have had to buy for themselves and their families. It is often expensive to buy outside in civilian shops, where

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prices are sometimes higher and unregulated. So those staying in the army married quarters had to buy stolen meat, sugar, bread, and cooking oil from the barrack canteen chefs and the quartermaster because it was relatively cheaper than buying from the supermarket outside the barracks. In this regard, the quartermaster and the chefs created a market for themselves through conniving with either the regimental police and military police in the barracks. The military police which was responsible for apprehending the quartermaster were now working in clandestine networks in stealing food which belonged to the soldiers in the barracks. The quartermaster and the military police were a cohort of thieves in the barracks. The cohort also included the cooks in the barrack canteen. At a time when the food was available, shortages of food were created by these cohorts through conniving with each other. In a typical good day in the barracks, a soldier is entitled to eat 400 g of meat per meal. However, if the quartermaster connived with the cooks in the kitchen, soldiers would only be given 100 g and the rest of the 300 g per soldier was sold in the married quarters. The quartermaster has the mandate to randomly visit different kitchens in the barracks, asking if soldiers are eating well, and any complaints are noted for improvement. However, at a time when there was a food crisis in the barrack canteen, the quartermaster was nowhere to be seen. The lack of food in the army barracks was evident and the dissatisfaction of soldiers was no longer an issue to question. But apart from the quartermaster, there were also other soldiers who worked on strategic positions which enabled them to steal military equipment and resell in order to buy food to sustain themselves in the barracks. The army medics operated in many scandalous ways: they could just write on their outpatient log book that they have treated so many soldiers and the drugs would be written off. They would then collect all the drugs and sell them outside the barracks. At that time the civilian hospitals were experiencing drug shortages, so in some way that provided a window of opportunity for these medic soldiers. Some of the medic soldiers became suppliers of drugs to civilian pharmacies. The money they got would either be used to cater for their own other problems at home but also to buy food to supplement in the barracks. Because the troop hospital was quite close to the married quarters, some of the medics would connive with the civilians living in the married quarters and provide them with drugs, and in return the civilians in married quarters would cook and provide them with cooked food. In addition, other soldiers like signallers, those working in the battalion headquarters transmitting army information and signals, had access to a telephone, an important issue because almost everyone wanted to connect with their family and girlfriends at home. At this time social media was not yet common: there was no Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter, and Instagram. Hence the only fast medium of communication was the landline phone call. In this regard, the signallers used their position as a resource to mobilise some money for themselves, including for food in the barracks. Those in the married quarters were given access to the phone in return for food. However, the

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chefs in the barrack canteen were made to serve the signallers with more food to the extent that the signallers ended up keeping the food for the next day. One signaller would be seen in the kitchen being served food – sometimes if there were two signallers working at the battalion headquarters, the chef in the kitchen would give the signaller the food equalling that of 8 to 10 soldiers. This was a way of forging and maintain scandalous networks at the expense of other starving soldiers in the barracks. There were also soldiers who were fuel attendants in the barracks. They engaged in criminal activities of selling fuel inside and outside the barracks. In the barracks they sold fuel to soldiers who had their own private cars. They could fill up 20-litre containers and carry them in the dark to sell in the barracks. Outside the barracks, they sold fuel to civilians for long-distance trucks which belonged to civilians. The soldiers who were fuel attendants took advantage of the fact that, outside the barracks, there were fuel shortages in the civilian locations; hence, they stole fuel to sell on the parallel market. In some instances, they could connive with the army truck drivers. The army truck drivers would fill in the army trucks’ tanks and then empty it on the market outside the barracks and come back for refuelling, and the practice became a way of life in the barracks. These strategic positions were also tied to the patronage system in the army barracks whereby a commander would put a soldier whom he trusted would give him a kickback. It is important to note that the junior soldiers who were involved in these networks with officers were even promoted above their ranks. So, it was a network of corrupt individuals in uniform at the expense of those who were outside those networks of thievery in combat uniform.

Empty canteens: 001 The canteens were almost empty; the army could not provide enough food anymore. Sometimes soldiers could not go to the kitchen for both breakfast and lunchtime. Food was only reserved for supper, which was predominantly pap or sadza served with boiled dry beans. Because there was no breakfast in the morning and no lunch, soldiers had to refer to this practice as an international telephone number: 001, that is, no breakfast (0), no lunch (0), and only one supper (1). At supper, soldiers ate pap served with fish heads only. This was surprising to the majority of the soldiers in the barracks because none of them would have eaten the rest of the fish, like the tail. Only the fish heads were supplied to the barracks. It was surprising who supplied these fish heads to the barracks. Some of the soldiers thought that the army was not buying these fish heads; instead, some companies were donating them to the soldiers. But the question was how would only a fish head be enough for a soldier for the supper? It is of import to note that the fish head was neither celebrated nor liked in the barrack canteen. The fish heads were salted and just boiled. In many cases there was no cooking oil to at least fry and add some tomato soup.

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Apart from fish heads, soldiers were also served with boiled beans: too much water, which was said to be soup with very little beans. In other words, soldiers ate boiled water with some beans in it. Even though the food was not tasty, some of the soldiers did bhizhu. In the military bhizhu means that soldiers would queue for food, get the food, eat and wipe their mouth, and then queue again like someone who has not yet eaten food and eat again. The practice became common as other soldiers devised other bhizhu ways such as bringing two plates in the kitchen canteen and lie to the canteen chef that the soldier had left his compatriot sleeping in the barrack room because he was not feeling well. What was also interesting is that even women soldiers were engaging in the bhizhu practice. Often the second plate would be food for the following day in the morning to deal with the 001 as outlined previously to at least eat that food in the morning. However, this would sabotage other soldiers because food was prepared depending on the number of soldiers in the barracks. This means that after bhizhu, some of the soldiers would not be able to get food in the kitchen and they were asked to try the following day. This was a sad but an ongoing practice indeed. In the barracks, soldiers could not just sit and helplessly observe starvation and hunger; instead, they devised ways in which to deal with the lack of food. One of the ways was to begin to cook for themselves, a practice which was never allowed by the barracks’ standing orders. The barracks’ standing orders are rules which guide soldiers’ activities within the barracks, such as no women are allowed in the barracks, no cooking in the barracks, no civilians are allowed in the barracks and areas close to it, no noise, and no dancing after 10 p.m. So, soldiers could not cook inside the barracks, but just outside it in the nearby bush, then eat there. What was interesting was that, in their cooking, soldiers had no pots. Some of the soldiers ended up stealing military steel helmets known as Ngongongo from the quartermaster storeroom and turned them into cooking pots. This was a serious offence, but soldiers could not help it and were prepared to face the consequences. Hunger was just terrible, to the extent that at first commanders were very strict about soldiers cooking in the barracks and anyone caught cooking in the barracks and /or just outside it was liable to punishment. However, visible hunger made the commanders acknowledge that soldiers could cook in the barracks, but of course it was not permitted. There was no order for soldiers to cook; it remained an offense to cook in the barracks or the nearby bush close to the barracks. So, soldiers made sure that they did not buy pots and /or bring pots from home because that would in a way legitimise their cooking, so instead they continued to cook in military combat helmets. It was a known offence by the commanders – it was a forbidden practice to cook in army helmets – but because hunger was now toiling in the barracks, the commanders had an unwritten acknowledgement of the situation. In some cases, soldiers had to bring food from their homes outside the barracks to supplement their barrack meals. They brought food such as biltong, traditional dried vegetables such as mufushwa wemushamba, munyemba,

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and munyivhi. In terms of status, mufushwa wemushamba is usually eaten by very poor people, those who cannot afford to buy meat. Mufushwa wemushamba are pumpkin leaves which are boiled, salted, and dried in the sun on a plastic mat. It usually takes at least seven consecutive days to dry it out. Usually, when one is cooking mufushwa wemushamba, it is mixed with peanut butter for it to be tasty and delicious. If one decides to put cooking oil in mufushwa wemushamba, the relish does not taste as it does when mixed with peanut butter. Preparing it, drying it out, and cooking it demands a lot of patience and expertise. Not everyone can cook mufushwa wemushamba. Often old women in the village are very good at cooking mufushwa wemushamba. But when soldiers brave themselves to bring mufushwa wemushamba to the barracks, it tells a story of not only starvation but also that of emasculation, and what I call the ‘domestication of soldiers in the barracks’. This was not what soldiers wanted and would have expected at a time when they joined the Zimbabwe National Army. It was also a kind of de-soldiering of what soldiers were used to be known of. In the Zimbabwean context, in particular, immediately after independence, in 1980, good quality food was known to be eaten in the army barracks. Now it was disheartening to see soldiers carrying mufushwa wemushamba, i.e. dried pumpkin leaves in their bags going back to the army barracks. In fact, in the 1980s and early 1990s, soldiers used to bring canned food and fruits from the barracks to their home places. Now it was vice versa. One of the soldiers, Alpha Romeo, notes that ‘I could not imagine myself carrying mufushwa wemushamba to the barracks; it’s unbelievable, but it happened’. Such a disbelief was drawn from the soldiers’ past of enjoying the barrack food, but now it was only of the past. For Charlie Mike, ‘my wife had to prepare food which I will eat in the barracks – she had to ensure that I survive in the barracks’. What is of interest here is how military wives were made to understand the soldiering life in the barracks, and how soldiers were to live, cook, and eat far away from home. The distinction between home and the barracks became blurred because military wives were to intrude into the feeding of soldiers while they executed the state duty. Life in the barracks was extended to the home area and appropriated by the military wives. Such a connection is often very silent in the literature on how in some ways military wives are a functional instrument in the ways in which the soldiers do their work for the state. This also helps us to engage with the Goffman’s (1961) idea of ‘total institution’, which tends to present the military as ‘total’ in itself, a space which is separated from the civilian eyes and understanding. However, in a situation where the barracks were subdued with hunger and starvation, military wives came to the fore and were made to understand that there was a food crisis in the barracks, hence the need to prepare some supplement, and this allowed civilians to peep into and have knowledge about the military way of life in the army barracks. The lack of food in the barracks was not and could not be a secret because soldiers carried with them information to their wives and partners.

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Ma Off eZhara: time off because of hunger The army unequivocally acknowledged that within the barracks soldiers were engulfed with hunger, and it had a social and political toll on soldiers; hence, the military responded by allowing soldiers to go for a rotational time off of at least 21 days. So, basically three quarters of the battalion of soldiers could be on a time off. But in some instances, at the end of the time off, soldiers returning to the barracks were even given an additional time off. So, soldiers coming back from 21 days of time off would be awarded another 21 days’ time off again. This was the state approach of dealing with hunger in the barracks. But the greatest challenge for soldiers coming in and going back for another time off was transport fares. They could not manage it anymore, to travel in between the barracks and their homes. In a situation where soldiers were ordered to go for another time off but with no transport fares, a group of soldiers would just organise themselves and go on the main highway at night and hike civilian long-distance trucks to their respective destinations. The soldiers would not pay for the hike. Instead, they would show the driver their military identification cards, showing that they were soldiers, and some would even lie that they were on duty. For fear of what soldiers can do when they are often stranded, the truck driver would be left with no choice but to carry the soldiers. Some of the soldiers would go to the long-distance train, and when they were asked the fares, they would use the same tactic, produce their military identity cards, and ride home. Apart from this, some of the soldiers ended up either phoning the battalion company administration non-commissioned officers, popularly known as Admin NCO, a shorthand. The Admin NCO would either tell them to report for duty and /or stay at home for another 21 days. Such was a practice by and for soldiers to keep them on the register with salaries but without food in the barracks. The few soldiers left in the barracks would only be doing sentry duties, that is guarding the barracks and other important state points of interest. Inasmuch as soldiers were given time off because of the hunger in the barracks, the greatest challenge was that the practice put more pressure on an already ailing soldier in the barracks. So basically, ma off ezhara (time off because of hunger) was a relief for the state but remained a burden for the ordinary soldier who had to journey between home and the army barracks. Journeying in between home and the barracks came with a cost, and many of the soldiers could not afford it.

Outside the barracks: sustaining the barracks At a time when soldiers experienced a lack of food in the barracks, outside the barracks, there was a dire economic crisis in civilian locations, shops, and the streets. The economic crisis became worse in June 2007 when the then-former president Robert Mugabe forced retail shops to decrease their prices. The government was heavily involved in price monitoring and regulation of prices of especially basic commodities. This was viewed as ginya-nomics, a practice of using force on retailers to follow government policies on pricing, lowering down

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their prices. The result was that retail shops were unable to keep up their profit margin and be able to place the next order of basic commodities from the suppliers because they were now running at a loss. Hence retail shops became almost empty, with minimum foodstuff on the shelves. In some shops, the shelves were empty with not even salt. Thus, when basic food was delivered to some selected supermarkets, civilian people would queue for it. This provided a vantage for the soldiers who were on leave, as they began to control these queues in return for access to all the foodstuffs which people queued for, including sugar, cooking oil, margarine, and chicken offals. The soldiers would then resell these on parallel markets at a very high price – three times the original price in the shops. They would bring the little left to the barracks to sustain their lives in the barracks. Even in the barracks soldiers began to operate mini tuck shops from their barrack drawers. They could sell sugar to their compatriots and those in the married quarters. Selling sugar and other foodstuff in the barracks was an illegal practice which was ‘allowed’ to go on because almost everyone in the barracks ended up relying on those soldiers bringing food from outside the barracks. But sometimes soldiers in the barracks could not afford to pay the hiked prices on the sugar brought to the barracks by their compatriots. In such a situation, at least seven soldiers ended up contributing money to buy at least 1 kg of sugar. This is how the army in the barracks had fallen off: from the life of eating bacon to that of seven soldiers contributing money to buy 1 kg of sugar. The soldiers had become an army of contribution to survive. In a way, the poor and starving soldiers contributed to sustain the state, an issue which was a prerogative of the state itself. In some cases, the commanders tried to make initiatives within the barracks, they had to write down a list of soldiers – force number, rank, and name – and send it to, for example, sugar producers. The sugar producers would then respond by stating that the sugar has been allocated to the soldiers on the list. This was also the case on the maize meal list to the Grain Marketing Board (GMB). However, the greatest challenge was that even if the sugar and /or maize meal was approved, not all the soldiers would get it. If the sugar was delivered to the barracks, the officers and other non-commissioned officers would end up taking all that belonged to the junior soldiers. There was no way in which the junior soldiers would complain because if one tried to complain and /or if the commander thought that the junior soldier wanted to complain, then he/she would be in deep trouble. In the military if a junior soldier complains, that is regarded as indiscipline and disobeying of lawful command. This is a way of silencing the junior soldiers. The officers, including senior officers, would then collect much of the sugar and /or maize meal and later sell it at a higher price to the junior soldiers. Some of the junior soldiers became hunters in the nearby bushes, hunting antelope, hare, and wild birds. Some began to setup snares in the bush close to the barracks, and others caught mice. This was what men in combat uniform was made to do for the mere purpose of surviving in the barracks.

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Calling off parades and other military activities One way of responding to the hunger and starvation in the barracks was by way of calling off parades as well as other military activities. It is important to note that one of the ways in which the military keeps a soldier abreast of the military, army discipline, and control is through regular military parades. In fact, a soldier does not just wake up one day and go for a parade, but it has to be prepared for. Preparing for a parade includes washing the combat uniform, ironing it, and shaving the beard, head, chin and cheeks. Importantly, above all is the shining of patrol shoes. This is where the soldier’s discipline is tested, and it must be done with precision. The shoe has to shine like a shining light. The shoe has to be a mirror in the parade to an extent that, according to the regimental sergeant major, he must see himself through the shoe. However, while preparation of and for the parade is an important element in the barracks, there were changes to it, and in most cases, it was called off. The reason for this was because for a soldier to prepare for it, he/she has to buy shoe polish, cloth for polishing, brushes, and an iron. All of these required the soldiers to use their own resources to buy and prepare for the parade. Apart from that, being in the parade would require a soldier to have a good breakfast so as to be able to stand for inspection. However, because there was no breakfast in the kitchen canteen, troops could complain of hunger and other hunger-related diseases. Many would complain of terrible headaches and get to the barrack hospital on the day the parade was called for. The regimental sergeant major who was responsible for inspection ended up calling off the parades for fear that only a few enduring soldiers would be able to withstand the hunger. At one time, the RSM vociferously stated that, ‘I will not inspect soldiers who are hungry’. This was considered professional and considerate because starvation was well inscribed on soldiers faces and was everywhere in the barracks. Hence, it is important to note that hunger and starvation shaped the ways in which soldiering practices were enacted in the army barracks. In addition, the early morning road run was called off. This often happened in the early hours of each morning when soldiers were ordered to go for a morning road run of at least 10 km. Because the morning road run would require soldiers to go for breakfast after the run, it was hard for the army commanders to order soldiers to run and not provide the soldiers with breakfast. In some way, calling off the morning run compromised soldiers’ fitness. In addition, the Battle Fitness Test (BFT) run was abandoned. The BFT simulates the battle conditions and it often involves a 10 km run in 45 minutes, carrying a loaded rucksack, rifle, and sandbag, and wearing a helmet. In total soldiers had to carry 25 kg of weight. All these activities kept soldiers fit for combat duty. Other military skills training such as range shooting were also scaled down. Instead of going for range shooting on a monthly basis, soldiers were sometimes only going quarterly. The reason was

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because range shooting was an all-day activity, but since soldiers had no breakfast and lunch, it was hard for soldiers to go shooting with an empty stomach. Apart from that, certain military activities like retraining exercises were put on hold because there was absolutely no food for the soldiers engaging in such activities. It is well understood that the military survives through and by making its soldiers fit for deployment. However, it was well difficult to command soldiers and deploy them with no food in their backpacks. Other military tactical courses were reduced each year. Even though non-commissioned soldiers were encouraged to go for junior tactics courses and senior tactics, small arms courses, squad drills, and ceremonial drills to keep their tactical awareness for promotion, hunger made it difficult to achieve. However, the soldiers could not do as much of these courses as they would have anticipated. Instead, only a few members were allowed to go, and the duration of the courses was sometimes cut by a week or two. This would allow the army to serve the food rations while keeping at least some soldiers in the military courses. While soldiers were told that food shortages were a result of sanctions on the government of Zimbabwe by America and the rest of Europe, it was not clear how sanctions would have had an effect on the ways in which locally produced food such as maize meal could be understood. It was difficult to understand if the shortage of salt in the barracks was a result of sanctions. This is some of the politicisation of food shortages in the barracks. What was even worrying among the junior soldiers was that if one says, ‘there is no salt in the boiled beans’, it was considered as an act of mutiny. Soldiers were not supposed to raise real concerns about food problems and even the quality of food they eat in the barrack canteens. Those who complain were said to be influencing other soldiers in the barracks to protest against the state, an issue which was a serious offence in the barracks. None of the soldiers wanted to be labelled as such. Hence the best option was to remain silent but find out the possible ways to deal with such a terrible problem in the barracks.

Conclusion It is important to note that the lack of food in the barracks was a clear testimony of how ZANU-PF government was only driven by retaining power without the consideration of even its own support base – the military. While the lack of food was not unique to the military, it is imperative to understand that the military was the driving force behind ZANU-PF; hence, the majority of civilian people outside the barracks would assume that soldiers were better fed than any other population in the country. The chapter has revealed how the shortage of food in the barracks is a clear testimony of how the state had negated its own soldiers for politics.

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Promotion and demotion of rank*

Introduction Since the military is the core crux institution in Zimbabwean politics, questions arise such as: how would the army generals’ politicians be able to forge a political relationship with the civilian politicians? This chapter focuses on the ways in which the Zimbabwe National Army (ZNA) became an armed appendage of the ruling party and how such a practice dictated the ways in which soldiers were promoted and demoted in the army barracks. By definition, the military is an institution with a neutral code of conduct where the promotion and demotion of soldiers’ ranks is based on institutional professional conduct. However, in the ZNA, such criteria and practices have been openly politicised, based on patron-client relationship, between former President Robert Mugabe and the army generals, respectively. I analyse political speeches by serving army generals lionising the regime in power and denigrating the opposition political party – the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) that was led by the late Morgan Tsvangirai, now led by Advocate Nelson Chamisa. In analysing the generals’ support for former President Robert Mugabe, the chapter draws on ‘military patrimonialism’, when the military backs a ruling regime while opposing political reforms by opposition political parties because it has more to lose from such reforms (Lutterbeck, 2013). In their political statements, army generals threaten the opposition party before, during, and after elections, and in reality they demote post-independence soldiers who are perceived to be sympathetic to opposition party aspirations. Thus, the entrenching of politics in the army has explicitly categorised soldiers into (ageing) ‘war veteran’ soldiers, those who fought in the liberation struggle and are still in the army, and ‘post-independence’ soldiers who joined up in post-independence Zimbabwe. While the stories of post-independence soldiers who deserted the military and are now living in exile do not provide a complete narrative of the military, their reflections do provide a vantage point to understand the ways in which the ZNA remained an armed appendage of ZANU-PF. They reveal a hierarchy kept in place by the abuse of power by ZNA generals and other war veterans still serving in the ZNA, designed to suppress opposition politics and control

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the actions of post-independence soldiers in the barracks. The term ‘war veteran’ is used here to refer to guerrilla fighters who fought in the Zimbabwe liberation struggle and were later integrated in the new ZNA in 1980 at Zimbabwe’s independence. Even though soldiers who joined the army in post-independence Zimbabwe have been deployed and have fought in two war zones, the Mozambique war (1986–1992) and the Democratic Republic of Congo war (1998–2002), they are perceived, especially by the top structure of the army, as a different category of soldiers. In the barracks, and even in public, veteran soldiers ‘accepted’ such categorisation, whereas post-independence soldiers understandably ‘contested’ these (in)formal categories. This is so because if a soldier is classified as a ‘war veteran’, then they receive military and political benefits like promotion and recognition. Those classified as post-independence soldiers are often denigrated and regarded as ‘cowards’ and ‘sell-outs’ in the military barracks if they could not publicly support former President Robert Mugabe. The latter soldiers, whose stories form the basis of this chapter and are now officially classified as deserters, speak about their experiences and shed light on the ways in which the military hierarchy has deviated from professional ethics to dictate soldiers’ lives in the barracks and determine the promotion and demotion of soldiers. I focus on how this was played out and mediated in the army barracks through favouritism and the promotion of war veterans vis-a-vis the demotion of post-independence soldiers. In the following, I first reveal the ways in which military professionalism has been understood and contested and how African militaries and beyond have been politicised. In their own minds this category of disappointed former soldiers subscribe to Huntington’s ideal of what constitutes a professional military corps, dedicated to defending society and not swayed by a personal agenda, despite the changes in public political structures. It is a mindset that regards one’s personal political choice as private and the soldiery as neutral observers rather than actors, but who are obliged and willing to defend all citizens regardless of politics. They feel the army should be seen in this way by a new civilian command structure, even if its values are very different from those of its predecessor. I discuss the narratives of post-independence soldiers as to what they considered as the unprofessional practice of the army in promotion and demotion, thereby helping to reveal what they considered as professional conduct within the military barracks.

Political armies: Africa and beyond The active involvement of the military in politics is neither unique to Africa nor a new phenomenon to the Zimbabwean situation. Early scholars such as Huntington (1957) argue that, if military professionalism is to be achieved, the military has to subordinate itself to civilian politics, a practice which he calls, ‘objective civilian control’. Thus, while there is no doubt that military professionalism includes integrity, competence, obedience, honour, and trustworthiness of the military

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(Kohn, 2009; Sarkesian & Conor, 2006; Moskos, et al, 2000), in practice, it has become difficult to understand the concept. For Sarkesian and Conor (2006) military professionalism is characterised by at least two tiers: first, the relationship between the military and national leadership and second, practices within the military itself. This chapter is interested in both tiers, especially the ways in which the former affects the latter. Thus, while scholars such as Janowitz (1960) emphasised that the military is a ‘constabulary force’ that has an obligation to protect the citizens, Caforio (2007) maintains that the sole client of the military is the state. This is well supported by Barany (2012), who notes that the military is an important institution that States maintain. It follows that the military is torn and often journeys between protecting ordinary citizens and civilian political leadership. Thus, Kohn (1997:1) argues that ‘there exists no set of standards by which to evaluate whether civilian control exists, how well it functions, and what the prognosis is for its continued success’. This is quite clear in the Zimbabwean context, where, despite military subordination to civilian political leadership of former President Robert Mugabe, they still plunge themselves into politics and regularly ridicule opposition parties. For Alao (2012) Zimbabwean politics and the military have always been intertwined. The broad understanding of this continued military involvement in Zimbabwean politics can be framed around ‘patrimonialism’, a Weberian concept of a system of personal rule in which the leader dispenses benefits to subordinates in return for loyalty and support to stay in political office (Weber, 1978:1031). This is evidenced by army generals’ political statements in defending and supporting former President Robert Mugabe to perpetually remain in power in return for promotion and other extended and unaccounted for benefits. Similarly, in the Middle East Arab military officers have accentuated that politics was too important to be left to civilians, whom they saw as incompetent and corrupt (Rubin, 2001). This presents the three typologies of military involvement in politics: the military as ‘moderators’ where they support the government behind the scenes, as ‘guardians’, where they protect the government but can seize power if or when they feel threatened by civilian politicians, and the ‘ruler type’, who are ambitious and want to rule (see Perlmutter, 1969; Nordlinger, 1977). The ZNA fit in the second and third category because the majority of senior army officers resigned from their combat appointments to take over government positions as ministers and /or permanent secretaries. Drawing from Goffman’s (1961) idea of ‘total institution’, Rubin (2001) asserts that the military as an institution is isolated from the rest of society; hence, it regards civilian politicians as untrustworthy. Thus, the army regards civilians with hostility and threaten their political wills (Bill, 1969). In the Middle East, the military is at the centre of instituting or thwarting political change (Bill, 1969). Such actions reveal the involvement of the military in politics. However, Perlmutter (1969) argues that in fact it is the civilians who turn to the military for political support. Politicians keep senior army officers happy by rewarding them with privileges and incentives. This has also been the situation in Turkey’s politics, where incentives are used to keep military officers in

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tow to protect the civilian government (Tachau & Heper, 1983). Writing before the Arab uprising, Harb (2003:289) contended that a state of mutual accommodation existed, an unspoken agreement between the military and the government, i.e. the military interests and privileges would be met in exchange for army discipline and loyalty. In Egypt, as long as the military accrues its privileges, they have no public interest in politics (Albrecht & Bishara, 2011). But why is the military involved in politics? This question may sound naïve because as Finer (1965) claims, ‘Instead of asking why the military engage in politics, we ought to surely ask why they ever do otherwise.’ Military disengagement from politics, i.e. the withdrawal of the military from a direct role in everyday civilian politics, simply transforms soldiers into interested political actors (see also Harb, 2003). It is only in theory that the military can be said to have disengaged from politics. As Harb (2003) observed, even though there have been calls to re-professionalize the military in Egypt, army generals remained connected with politicians. Thus, for him military disengagement from politics is ‘hardly ever final or complete’ (Harb, 2003:274). For example, in Uganda, serving army generals and colonels have been appointed as ambassadors and /or as government ministers or principal directors of selected ministries (Tripp, 2010). For example, former General Aronda Nyakairima was Internal Minister (from 2003–2013), LieutenantGeneral Ivan Koreta was ambassador designate to a station to be announced, and Lieutenant General Robert Rusoke was an ambassador to South Sudan (Kasasira, 2014). The appointment and integration of the military into civilian government has to do with the military understanding of politics. In his celebration of military involvement in politics, Bill (1965) contends that because the military is well organised, well disciplined, and has the capacity to use force, it is politically well placed to claim political power in a situation where it sees fit. For Barany (2011) there is no institution that matters more to keep the government in power than the military. Harris (1965) suggested that the best way to keep the military loyal to the government was to involve them in politics. Like any other political actor, the military has institutional goals and interests to advance and protect (Barany, 2011). In Egypt, with the destruction of other political institutions (where the military had thrived over the years), it left the military as the only concrete institution to maintain political order (Karawan, 2011). However, the Egyptian military did not show awareness of the responsibility it had to take, to lead in political governance, and this was clear in its lack of transparency or constitutional amendments to prepare for new democratic elections (Albrecht & Bishara, 2011). In Lesotho, the military has been very much interested in politics but is now slowly changing to democratisation (Matlosa & Pule, 2001, 2003; Matlosa, 2005). But whether or not military involvement in politics is perceived as politically correct, it went against the grain of the professionalisation of the army which can be traced in several southern African countries, including Zimbabwe, to the work of the British Military Advisory Training team (BMATT). These officers were tasked to assist Zimbabwe in combining the two guerrilla

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armies of ZANLA and ZIPRA with the former Rhodesian forces into a cohesive and professional unit, as I explain later. While Huntington (1957) emphasised that professionalization of the military had to do with a complete subordination of the military to civilian authority, such a conceptualisation falls short in understanding the Zimbabwean military. In essence, the Zimbabwean military subordinates itself to the civilian government headed by former President Robert Mugabe, but that does not in any way make them a professional military grouping. In fact, the subordination of the military to the civilian government makes them ruthless commanders and interested individual actors in politics, denigrating opposition political parties, as evidenced in this chapter. Professionalising the military has to do with the everyday life of soldiers in the barracks, including interaction between officers of different ranks and files. Thus, the ways in which senior officers act and behave towards junior offices has to be understood as professional and ethical. In his definition of professionalism of the military, Perlmutter (1969) notes that this involves the establishment of specialised military training, building modern military structures, and maintaining a group of well-trained unified soldiers who have made the Army their career. While the author expands our understanding of what it means to have a professional army, it is still elementary in the sense that it emphasises more of the establishment of institutional structures rather than the everyday moral, social, and political conduct of soldiers, the rank and file in the army barracks, and even the ways in which promotion is done. Where there is efficient military training, it is not necessarily forbidden to take an active interest in politics (see Kamrava, 2000).

Political speeches: army generals Army Generals evidenced this deep relationship after 2000 when they publicly declared their allegiance to ZANU-PF (see Chitiyo, 2009; Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 2009; Tendi, 2013). This was so because the MDC had also presented major changes it would implement in the military once they were voted into power. For the generals, this was a threat to their power base – ZANU PF. Hence, the army generals defied the constitution of Zimbabwe, section 208 (2) and in particular the Zimbabwe Defence Act: Chapter 11:02, which states that the armed forces are supposed to be apolitical. In 2002, the late General Zvinavashe openly stated that he would only salute those who had fought in the liberation struggle (see Tendi, 2013). The liberation struggle narrative was in itself a metaphor to resist any other president with no liberation history. The assertion was clear, as the leader in power was President Robert Mugabe (and he had fought in the liberation struggle). This was a statement against Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the opposition party, the MDC, who had never fought in the liberation struggle. Such an attitude was extended to other uniformed forces, such as the Prisons Commissioner, Major General Paradzai Zimondi, and Police Commissioner General Augustine Chihuri (see McGreal, 2008). Their outspoken allegiance to ZANU-PF meant that soldiers who did

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not conform were subsequently punished – initially, mainly through demotion. This political mantra was constantly emphasised among soldiers in all ZNA battalions. Tango Delta notes, ‘when I was trained in 1986 by Colonel Lionel Dyck (former Rhodesian white officer integrated into the ZNA), politics was never part of our field craft lessons’. Thus, because of the growing popularity of the MDC, the army became the last lifeline of ZANU-PF. Whisky Papa contends that, ‘since I joined the military [in] 1986, I have never seen army generals talking politics on parade, more so presenting a political message to support ZANU-PF’. Such revelations provide a vantage point for us to understand how the MDC emerged as a strong political contender, an issue that prompted the military generals to be active politicians in combat uniform. Quoted in the state daily newspaper, The Herald, General Constantine Chiwenga, who later led the coup in November 2017 and became and is still the Vice President of Zimbabwe, emphasised that: I would not hesitate to go on record again on behalf of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces, to disclose that we would not welcome any change of government that carries the label ‘Made in London’, and whose sole aim is to defeat the gains of the liberation struggle. (Independent Foreign Service, 2009) The misplaced assumption by the general was that opposition politics in Zimbabwe was founded in Britain, hence his political efforts to block the will of the people through military threats. Such an explicit and unfounded political threat by the Zimbabwe Defence Forces general commander supported that former President Robert Mugabe was strongly backed by the army and Mugabe’s stay in power was now determined by the military generals – it was not a secret anymore. Importantly, the army general perceived opposition political parties as ‘made in London’, which was a tool to threaten civilians and junior soldiers who did not openly support former President Robert Mugabe. As noted by Whisky Papa, ‘it was quite difficult for us as soldiers, in our social conversations in the barracks – either you support President Mugabe or you denigrate the MDC’. Such an idea of shifting junior soldiers’ social talks into political conversations reveals to us that the military barracks became political spaces meant to serve the dwindling regime of President Robert Mugabe. But why is it that the Zimbabwe army generals were so deeply involved in politics at a time when the country was both in a dire economic and political crisis? There are at least three observations: the opposition political party, the MDC, was advocating security sector reform, i.e. the military was supposed to leave politics to civilians. Again, army generals benefited from the contested land reform programme, where they were allocated big tracts of productive land violently seized from white farmers in Zimbabwe, and feared that once the opposition came into power, they would lose their land. In addition, army generals’ conditions of service were strongly tied to their

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loyalty to President Robert Mugabe and public participation in politics, as Mike Tango notes: ‘generals were each allocated at least three cars, one luxury and two for their farms. In addition, generals had access to unaccounted fuel in the barracks, some [of] which was used on their farms’. This reveals to us that part of the reason why President Mugabe rewarded military generals was that it was also a kind of appeasement to a potential threat. In summary, the government under ZANU-PF and President Mugabe catered for army generals’ personal and family life. Hence, they were reluctant to support any political processes that would lead to a change in government. This is a typical clientele arrangement in which the political system displays a patron-client relationship with the military to retain power (Murphy, 2003; Weingrod, 1968; Ikpe, 2000). As Lutterbeck (2013:32) argues, ‘the reason why a military or security apparatus based on patrimonialism is more likely to oppose political reforms and regime change is that it has more to lose from such reforms’. In this case, President Robert Mugabe emerges as a ‘patron’ and the army generals as ‘clients’, cooperating in mutually beneficial practices as the former sought protection from the latter. This also serves to explain why serving army generals were continuously on a political rampage, engaging in unprofessional conduct by threatening the opposition political party, the MDC led by Morgan Tsvangirai. In order to show his political attachment and affiliation to President Mugabe, Major General Douglas Nyikayaramba (promoted in 2012) presented Morgan Tsvangirai, former prime minister and leader of the MDC, as a security threat. He underlined that: Morgan Tsvangirai doesn’t pose a political threat in any way in Zimbabwe but is a major security threat. He takes instructions from foreigners who seek to effect illegal regime change in Zimbabwe. Daydreamers who want to reverse the gains of our liberation struggle . . . can go to hell . . . they will never rule this country. (Voice of America, 2011) These sentiments were more political than being military, as the speech targeted the opposition political leader. But whether army generals’ threats to the MDC were a result of the internal dynamics in Zimbabwe or external influences remains a moot question. In his response to Zimbabwe army generals’ political statements, Tendi (2013) presents an illuminating argument. He argues that such political statements by Zimbabwe army generals are a response to external political influence and involvement of Western countries and the US in Zimbabwean politics since the year 2000 (Tendi, 2013). The generals’ political statements were made in response to Western media reportage and representations of President Robert Mugabe, who was universally portrayed as intolerant. From 2000, the EU and the US governments had imposed sanctions on President Robert Mugabe and his cronies in ZANU-PF, including some notable senior military officers. Moreover, the British Military

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Assistance and Training Team (BMATT) were withdrawn by Britain and efforts to professionalise the ZNA were abandoned. All these issues reportedly angered the generals and fed into their consequent harsh responses to opposition politics in Zimbabwe (see Tendi, 2013). While these arguments seem correct, I also argue that internal dynamics in the Zimbabwe military adds to our understanding as to why the generals behaved the way they did, constantly debasing the MDC. From the former soldiers’ stories, like that of Sierra Romeo, ‘generals and other war veterans in the army were fighting for their own career benefits like promotion’. Tango Alpha notes that ‘it was wellknown that from the rank of Lt Colonel to the General, they are political ranks’. Thus, the majority of Generals who openly threatened the late Morgan Tsvangirai (MDC opposition political party leader) were promoted. For example, Major General Nyikayaramba, the then-brigadier general and commander of 3 Brigade, made inflammatory statements and was within months promoted to the rank of major general and transferred to Army headquarters in Harare. Apparently, public threats to the opposition political party were a resource for promotion in the army. Similarly, in 2008, Major General Chedondo ordered soldiers to vote for ZANU-PF. In his speech at a parade he publicly said: We cannot be seen supporting a political party that is going against the ideals of a nation. ZANU-PF came by as a result of a liberation struggle, which saw many of the country’s sons and daughters losing their lives. As soldiers we must support ideologies that we subscribe to, I for one will not be apologetic for supporting ZANU [PF] because I was part of the liberation struggle. (Zimbabwe Daily) It is clear from these assertions that the army did have a political candidate of their choice, a candidate that has liberation credentials. Knowing that the opposition political party, the popular MDC, was mainly characterised by the young generation who had not fought in the liberation struggle, they were considered out of the political game. For Major General Chedondo: Soldiers are not apolitical. . .we have signed an agreement to protect the ruling party’s principles of defending the revolution. If you have another thought, then you should remove your uniform. The constitution says the country should be protected. . . .we shall therefore stand by our commander-in-chief, President Mugabe. (Sapa-dpa, 2008) In this speech Major General Chedondo used the history of the liberation struggle to generate support for Mugabe’s regime. This is what Ranger (2004a) refers as ‘Mugabe-ism’, i.e. the celebration of President Robert Mugabe as the Alpha and Omega of Zimbabwean politics (see also Tendi, 2008). In this case, it is soldiers in uniform who are supposed to vote for

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President Mugabe. The ZNA General’s statement that soldiers who opposed President Mugabe ‘should remove their uniform’ was not only for public consumption in the media – in practice, soldiers were made to understand that ZANU-PF dictated the ways in which the military had to function. The ways in which the constitution was incorrectly applied simply meant that the army was intolerant of the opposition political party. In fact, the constitution states that the military shall protect the (entire) nation, not ZANU-PF as a political party. The constitution does not in any way state that ZANU-PF will be protected from other political competitors, and ZANU-PF does not equate to ‘the nation’. However, for army generals, ZANU-PF comprised the ‘nation’ that had to be protected against any would-be political opponent trying to win votes in Zimbabwe. What should be noted is that the army generals were not alone in this clientelism. In a speech to a group of war veterans, President Mugabe confirmed the political ‘marriage’ with the military and thanked them for supporting his regime. He noted that ‘we are grateful to war veterans and the military for playing their role. We extended their contracts when they had expired so that they could assist us in fighting the opposition; we came out victorious’ (Mambo, 2016). It follows that while President Mugabe is defended by the military, he protects army generals’ positions and tenure in return. Thus, the confirmation by President Mugabe revealed a deeply seated historical relationship between the army and ZANUPF (see Alao, 2012; Chung, 2006; Mazarire 2011; Mhanda, 2011). The distinction between ZANU-PF and the ZNA is completely blurred. ZANU-PF overshadowed all structures of governance and all national institutions, especially the ZNA. The clientele relation still favours and prioritises army generals, viewed as the vanguard of the army and of the nation with President Robert Mugabe as the driving force. The aspirations of more recent recruits (post-independence soldiers) to serve their country were directly affected by the ZANU-PF infusion of national ‘politics’ to control life in the barracks. For these young soldiers, what was supposed to be a non-partisan and professional calling had become part of a political party construct in which soldiers were compelled to vote for ZANU-PF. The army had become a ZANUPF tool imbedded in politics and directed by politicians. Soldiers were coerced to openly support and proclaim ZANU-PF as their employer.

Promotion and demotion: the two armies in army barracks While civilians often perceive soldiers as a cohesive unit because they march and parade together, there are other profound differences drawn from character and a different understanding of politics. The narratives of my participants reveal that soldiers in the ZNA barracks were and continue to be divided between two categories: liberation veterans, and the soldiers who joined the army in postindependence Zimbabwe, who mainly hoped to pursue a professional military career. But to say these army deserters all supported the opposition political party, the MDC, would be a misrepresentation. Rather, these army deserters

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would also indicate that they supported neither the MDC nor ZANU-PF,- they were merely trying to be professional soldiers. The fact that they did not publicly support ZANU-PF or ridicule the MDC as their commanders did, was wrongly perceived as support for the opposition party. As revealed by Charlie Mike, ‘I was never trained in politics, but the gun’. What these former soldiers considered to be professional training depended on their knowledge of weaponry, not politics. Their understanding of military professionalism is similar to Woodward and Jenkings’ (2011) assertion on the British serving and former soldiers, that it is defined around a military identity, which entails expertise and knowledge of surveillance of map reading, etc. Literally, for my participants, politics was a ‘foreign’ and unknown practice. For Alpha Bravo: There were two different armies in the Zimbabwe National Army. I remember the Brigadier telling the Brigade Sergeant Major that you must beat all young soldiers so that they can be disciplined. You must treat them roughly. I remember him emphasising that only war veterans must be respected but these other ones who are not war veterans, deal with them. (Alpha Bravo) The distinction between veteran soldiers and junior soldiers was made clear by senior officers in the military, e.g. the brigadier. The hierarchy of command was clearly used to ‘discipline’ young soldiers by beating them up. While veteran soldiers were shown respect in the army barracks, soldiers who joined the army in post-independence Zimbabwe were made to suffer. The whole idea of ‘dealing with them’ simply translated into the abuse of junior soldiers, making them realise their precarious position as the ‘other’ in uniform. They were targeted for exclusion from what any professional soldier should enjoy in uniform, i.e. professional conduct. This was also manifested through the politics of promotion in the army barracks. Whisky Papa emphasised that: There was favouritism with war veterans being treated like a Grade A army and the rest of us being Grade B, C, or D. The military must be cohesive; it must have a single identity. It must operate in a professional manner whereby abilities are the only things that should be considered in a person’s promotion. It should not be about duration in your military. (Whisky Papa) In a professional army, promotions are determined by expertise, ability, and education (see Perlmutter, 1969). They are based on meritocracy (Lutterbeck, 2013). But in situations where the military is politicised, ‘military patrimonialism’ overrules the professional code of conduct (see Murphy, 2003). The concept of ‘military patrimonialism’ reveals the ways in which political leaders redistribute resources to individuals and not to the institution, in return for loyalty and political support (Pitcher et al., 2009; Lutterbeck; 2013; Crouch, 1979). In this case distribution of such resources is driven by

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‘political favouritism and cronyism’ (Lutterbeck, 2013:32). In such a context, the promotion of soldiers is based on patronage. But it does not mean that those who practice this kind of patronage are not aware of professional conduct; rather, clientelism becomes a template for promotion to advance certain political agendas. As Lutterbeck (2013) notes, patrimonialism is individual, not institutional, but it becomes institutional when individuals entrench their thoughts, actions, and experiences in institutional practices. It reveals to us that military promotions in a politically volatile situation are wholly subjective. Thus, military patrimonialism is not just a ‘tactic’ or strategy employed at certain political moments; it is an ‘embodied’ practice (see Bourdieu, 1990) in military barracks, which leads men in uniform to act in specific ways. For Whisky Papa this was unprofessional because an army should promote individual soldiers based on merit. Look at it, it’s not about the type of people. If you have abilities, you are supposed to be promoted according to your abilities because this is a national institution. This is about national security. It’s not about allegiances. It is not about the period you have served in the army. When you join the army, you join a professional organisation in which your abilities are the reason for the promotion process, but that was no longer happening. We were now seeing two armies: there was the lesser army and the main army. Yet we are not saying that all war veterans were bad – no, no that’s not the case. There are a lot of good war veterans, very good guys, but they ended up also being made to believe that they are more superior, but that was never the case. (Whisky Papa) Many soldiers echoed the feelings of frustration, anger, and ‘othering’ in the ZNA. They questioned and criticised the army for having no uniform standard for promotion, as it was clearly stated in the Zimbabwe National Army promotion memoranda that to be promoted from the rank of corporal to sergeant, one had to possess military courses such as junior tactics and squad drills, and to be promoted from the rank of sergeant to staff sergeant, a senior tactics course had to be passed. To become a Warrant Officer Class 2, the successful completion of a ceremonial drill course was a prerequisite. Such promotion standards were not followed and, in reality, ZANU-PF politics took the lead in determining promotion. ‘War veterans’ were consistently promoted without having to complete and pass the necessary military courses. Tango Oscar, who was with the mechanised brigade, noted that: I had all the military courses, squad drills course, junior tactics, instructors’ course, ceremonial drill, and other cadre courses, but my promotion to sergeant was stopped – my commander said there are many war veterans waiting for this promotion. (Tango Oscar)

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When the army became de-professionalised, it negated professional and known ways of promoting soldiers. At one time, I worked in the battalion as a clerk, and one of my own observations was that by 2010 the majority of the ‘war veterans’ were already in their 50s. In reality, this meant that physically they were no longer able to endure the rigours of tactical military courses. Such courses were physically demanding, and few veterans could match the call. I remember some of the veterans in the barracks saying: takura hatichazvigoni, zvakuda imi vafana vechidiki (we are too old now, we can’t do anything now, and it is now for you, the younger generation). Even though they would say that, they were still demanding and waiting for their next promotion. They wanted to command, although they could not ‘work’ anymore. Another reason why war veterans could no longer attend military courses was that all tactics courses in the Zimbabwe National Army were conducted in English and the majority of veterans were largely unable to use English or write it at length (e.g. an A4 page). This was different from soldiers who joined the army in postindependence Zimbabwe, many of whom had done their ordinary level, including English as a subject. A few had done Advanced level studies – an entry qualification to university studies. In all tactical military courses, at the end of every week (for six months), soldiers had to write a test. If a soldier failed three tests, then he/she was returned to his/her unit. This was popularly known as RTU, i.e. Returned to Unit. Soldiers who returned to their unit after failing a military course were charged in terms of the Defence Act, Chapter 11:02 for ‘malingering’, i.e. a soldier not able to perform the duty assigned to him by a superior rank. In order to circumvent RTUs and being charged, army veterans covered each other’s backs, i.e. by not sending veterans to military courses, which would require them to write tests sets in English – because they almost always failed and could get charged as a result. It was also embarrassing for battalion members to see a war veteran carrying his trunk back to the barracks. Soldiers who joined the military after independence would gossip about the veteran’s return to the barracks. Within junior soldiers’ cohorts, they used to say, ‘so he thought English was easy, even in the military’. As a way of keeping veterans in the army, for example, when I was in the army in 2002, all ‘war veterans’ were given so-called ‘one-ups’ – i.e. automatic promotion to the next rank. When veteran soldiers were promoted, it comprised only a signal sent from headquarters with no promotion board attached to it. In usual circumstances, the promotion board confirms that promotion of soldiers was procedural – following recommendations from the battalion and brigade for army headquarters/careers approval. This non-procedural promotion was political and unprofessional, affecting the lives of junior soldiers in the barracks. Promotion of all veterans was in a way made to propagate the ‘preaching’ of the ZANU-PF political mantra in the barracks. In many ways civilian politicians were at the forefront in directing and dictating the ways in which the military acted and behaved in public. This

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includes distortions of what a professional army should look like, with promotion-based political affiliations, rather than ability. While in the army, as elsewhere, promotion is a symbol of success and competency, in the Zimbabwe National Army promotion had become a signifier of political fidelity to the ZANU-PF regime. Political loyalty became the key determinant of promotions. For Dandeker et al. (2006:162) the ‘definition of a veteran provides the context within which the government responds to the needs of veterans’. It therefore meant that loyalty and patriotism were conceptualised in terms of history and allegiance to ZANU PF. It was not about what a soldier could do for the army, but how he (or she) had contributed to ZANU-PF victory and the party’s ability to stay in power. Even though the professional assignment of the army is to provide national security, the Zimbabwe National Army stood-out as a political actor, mainly as the protector of a political party in power. For ZANU-PF, the idea was to deal with the current political challenges in and outside the army by utilising the army itself (see Chitiyo, 2009; Tendi, 2013). Liberation struggle veterans were promoted to maintain the ZANU PF veterans’ presence and influence in the army. While many of the war veterans were neither able to read nor write, their ‘legitimacy’ for promotion was substantiated by their participation in the past liberation struggle and the current propping up of President Robert Mugabe in power. Promotion for soldiers who joined the army in post-independence Zimbabwe was perceived as endorsing the opposition political party led by Morgan Tsvangirai, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). Contrastingly, the advancement of ‘war veterans’ was seen as a victory for Mugabe and ZANU PF. Reflecting on how promotion was done, Bravo Charlie reiterated that: Jah, there were rampant promotions because younger soldiers were now becoming corporals, sergeants, deciding all those things. The other guys (war veterans) were remaining at the bottom and then they said, no, we fought for this country, we need promotion. You could see that commanders said to themselves, for us to be able to retain this army, let us take these uneducated men, let us take these ‘extra loyal’ people who give the army a political standard and make them commanders of these ‘other ones’ who are professionals so that we maintain a certain Hitler doctrine [laughing], that was now treatment of the army. So, the end result was that the promotion system became distorted. The morale went down because of this. (Bravo Charlie) Even though junior soldiers were marginalised in the military promotion system, their narratives display knowledge of a professional army. In a way, their narratives are a counter to unprofessionalism. While ZANU-PF had for all intents imposed its political practices in the army barracks, junior soldiers stood out as another category of soldiers, men who stuck to what they believed in, namely professionalism. The ways in which war veterans in the

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army departed from competency and adhered to a partisan style of promotions had social and military implications, such as low morale. In the military, morale is a lynchpin in keeping soldiers going – either in war or in the barracks. It brings hope even in times of crisis. In military life, morale may be understood in two ways. It primarily reflects the cohesion of soldiers within the unit/barrack (Ulio, 1941). An army which cares for its soldiers can be said to have ‘high morale’. Low morale ‘shatters’ the occupation of a soldier. It depletes the soldierly spirit, i.e. the desire to protect the nation, to execute combat duties as expected by the state, in the face of possible death. Thus, morale is an ‘inner spark’. Once a soldier is demoralised, everyday routines in the barracks are affected. Like good morale, a lack of morale is seemingly ‘contagious’. When competent soldiers are promoted, the rank and file are reassured that they are in good, capable hands. It also gives them the hope that they have a chance be promoted in the future. They feel appreciated. While promotion strengthens the morale of soldiers, demotion (being stripped of a rank) brings humiliation (and pain) in the army barracks. In the ZNA demotion was a political technique of exercising power meant to intimidate soldiers and make them subservient to ZANU PF. Charlie Mike was demoted and stripped of his rank because he was suspected of being an MDC supporter. Following is his ordeal when he appeared before the brigadier general’s military orders: Actually, you know these political commanders, when they saw us, they saw a small soldier, a boy soldier, like a young soldier; they don’t treat you as a soldier, but as an MDC soldier. So, when you go for the orders, the superior orders, they see politics in you, so instead of him [brigadier] giving you a fair trial, he puts you on the side of the opposition political party. Even if you are supposed to get a fair sentence, they give you a harsh sentence because of that. You see, that is what happened to me. When I went for his orders, when he saw me, you know, he saw an MDC soldier, so when I went before him, he actually gave me a harsh sentence. He demoted me to a rank of a private. I was a corporal and he sentenced me to 21 days in detention barracks [i.e. army prison where soldiers are subjected to harsh punishment]. (Charlie Mike) This excerpt reveals that the harsh sentence of Charlie Mike for a minor military offence was a result of him being suspected of being an MDC supporter. This was despite there being no evidence of Charlie Mike’s support for the MDC. But what is evident in his narrative is that, when the military became politicised, military courts became spaces of settling political scores. They ceased to carry out professional conduct of orders and instead introduced purging practices in the barracks, which had become sites of ‘correcting’ and whipping ‘junior’ soldiers into what veteran soldiers believed in, i.e. vehicles propagating ZANU-PF policies and President Robert Mugabe. But

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military discipline and punishment also revealed how politics influenced professional institutional practices in the army and the ways it damaged its capacity to function as a unified force (Rubin, 2001). Charlie Mike used ‘boy soldiers’ or ‘MDC soldiers’ to distinguish himself from the Brigadier. If MDC soldiers existed in the barracks, such a distinction simply invites us to think also of ‘ZANU-PF soldiers’ in the army barracks. It follows that the ways in which a soldier is understood depends on one’s war history and which war he fought in. If one fell outside ZANU-PF’s liberation history, then he was perceived as an ‘MDC soldier’. They were also easily demoted – especially if ‘war veterans’ regarded them as politically disloyal.

Conclusion The chapter has revealed the ways in which the Zimbabwe National Army has become and remained politicised in and outside the army barracks, deviating from the professional conduct expected of the military. While in the Zimbabwean context the military is under civilian rule and government leadership, this does not mean army generals are professional soldiers. Thus, military professionalism is not only about civilian domination of the military, but professionalism has also to do with the daily life of soldiers in the barracks, the ways in which they are promoted and demoted, perceived, and understood by the commanding hierarchy. The politicisation of the military affects military cohesion – senior and lower ranking soldiers in the military barracks. In situations where the military supports the regime in power, their interests are safe-guarded in return. Importantly, the paper has argued that rather than thinking that it was a given for all soldiers to support ZANU-PF and former President Robert Mugabe, ZANU-PF had to work quite hard to convince junior soldiers to support them. This was made possible through successive generals’ visits to battalions and public speeches in which they threaten the MDC. The chapter has revealed to us that, as evidenced in early post-independence military involvement in violence, the Zimbabwean military has never been professional, and this was perpetuated in the post-2000 political and economic crisis when the MDC became a political threat to ZANUPF and President Robert Mugabe. The fact that the army deserters whose narratives are presented in this paper reveal contentious relationships with their commanders indicates that this might not be a complete narrative of the practices within the ZNA. However, their narratives provide a vantage point through which we can understand ways in which the ZNA has remained political, partly for their own benefit in a crisis-ridden country.

Note * This chapter is drawn from the following article: Maringira, G. (2017) ‘Politics, privileges, and loyalty in the Zimbabwe national army’, African Studies Review, 60(2): 93–113.

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Introduction This chapter examines the ways in which the military infringes the social and political rights of soldiers who joined the Zimbabwe National Army in postindependence Zimbabwe. I explore the prosecution and punishment of soldiers through the draconian Defence Act: Chapter 11:02. The chapter contribution stems from a ‘rights’ perspective, which emphasises the right to freedom, justice, and protection, which is usually quite silent in the military. But the moot question is, how do we translate soldiers’ concerns into practice without compromising the so-called ‘state security’? Drawing from the Zimbabwean National Army (ZNA), this chapter presents and discusses what soldiers perceive as inhumane within the military, particularly the application of Chapter 11:02 of the Zimbabwe Defence Act (ZDA) and the ways in which punishment is executed. Even though the issue of human rights is seen as encompassing the rights of men, no attention has been paid to soldiers as citizens whose rights should be respected and accorded status. In this chapter I present the oppression of individual soldiers’ liberties in the military, and how the Zimbabwe Defence Act has been employed and deployed to suppress soldiers’ socio-political rights. The abuse of soldiers through the Defence Act is widespread and quite intentional. While the military turns civilians into soldiers for the purposes of fighting in a war, the ways in which the military disciplines and punishes soldiers is sometimes beyond the expectation of justice. On joining the military, soldiers are mostly unaware of the draconian law which guides the military. Once they are in it, it becomes difficult to resist the military codes forced upon them by a hierarchy of commanders. Those soldiers who resist the military codes acted upon them are seen as undisciplined ‘cogs’. Being a soldier is synonymous to living in a world of rigid ‘cults’ where command and order is the daily routine. The increasing visibility of soldiers as perpetrators exists alongside the invisible soldier as a victim (see McGarry & Walkate, 2011). Writing about Russian soldiers in WW1 and WW2, Layton (1999) reveals what he calls ‘military victimhood’, through the ways in which soldiers lived their lives in war and even in the barracks. According to Toney and Anwar (1998), regimentation and control

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characterise all soldiers’ activities and impinge on their individual liberties. However, the military has constituted and legitimated practices and policies that are inhumane (Maringira, 2017b). The military has practiced such rituals to the extent that soldiers have been made to believe that what is wrong is right, and what is right is wrong. The human rights of soldiers have not been respected; indeed, human rights have been neglected in the military. I deploy a Foucauldian analysis to understand the ZDA as used and applied in the ZNA against the will of the soldiers in the conduct of their duties inside and outside the barracks. For Foucault (1977:129) ‘the agent of punishment must exercise a total power … the individual to be corrected must be entirely enveloped in the power that is being exercised over him’.

Military court martial The very fact that the military operates in secrecy makes it difficult to understand how military court martials operate because they are hidden from civilian domains. Military court martials are situated within army barracks serving as punitive institutions for soldiers. Often the operations and procedures of court martials are mostly known to military personnel. The military judges, who are soldiers themselves, prosecute other soldiers under the draconian Defence Act. Since the military is a typical Weberian bureaucratic institution which is hierarchical (Weber, 2013), the process to bring a soldier to court martial is a tedious one. As revealed by Alpha Yank, I witnessed many of my colleagues ordered to go to court martial. It takes more than a year for the whole process to be complete. When the process is said to be complete, the trial is far from being fair. There is no legal representation for soldiers. The complaint about military court martial is on the ‘procedure’ itself, which is said to be long and often incomplete at a time of trial. Military court martial proceedings are generally too long, and the procedure makes it difficult for detained soldiers to challenge their detention (AFriMAP & OSISA, 2009). The indefinite detention of soldiers while awaiting court martial is in conflict with the constitution. For Alpha Yank, ‘you get detained and nobody cares, commanders see it as part of the punishment even before you are found guilty of the offence’. This speaks to the ways in which the Defence Act goes against the constitution in punishing its members. As Way (2012) notes, the state views soldiers as existing outside the norm of society, subjected to hefty punishment which evokes or even exceeds punishment. Punishing before trial is seen as part of ‘soldiering’ and disciplining. There is therefore confusion between what is considered as ‘being military’ and that which is ‘lawful’. It therefore means that the military prioritises punishment over what is lawful for soldiers. The military is only interested in disciplining its members, with less consideration of them as citizens with rights. This is why Segal (1986)

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refers to the military as a ‘greedy institution’, one which is only interested in its members’ attention while paying less attention on what surrounds them. Thus, in understanding the infringement of soldiers’ rights, the duration that a case takes for trial and ‘legal representation’ is a cause for concern. Asking why soldiers fail to have legal representation on military court martial, Alpha Yank emphasised that the failure was based on ‘institutional character’ and ‘affordability’. What constitutes ‘institutional character’ seems interesting here, as it reveals different characters at play within the army barracks. Institutional character has its precedence because soldiers understand the military as an institution which does not give in to the views of outsiders. In this case outsiders includes lawyers, journalists, and other human rights actors. Hence, soldiers going through the court martial procedures and processes are made to believe that engaging a lawyer on their cases is merely an unfruitful procedure. Again, because the military appoints senior officers as judge advocates of the court martial, there is little space for a fair trial in court.

Incompetent military prosecutors/judges The former soldiers spoke about the presence of incompetent judges on the military court martial bench. The understanding of what constitutes ‘incompetent’ was interesting as this relates to the ways in which the military appoint prosecutors/judges for the court martial. Oscar Romeo notes that, You cannot say that they did not go to school, but they failed us as junior soldiers. We thought the court martial is a reasonable court, but surprisingly, they are biased towards other senior officers. What constitutes ‘competent’ and ‘incompetent’ for military judges is very subjective. However, former soldiers invite court martial to be impartial, serving all armed forces rank and file. As Trapani (2011) notes, military justice suffers from institutional weakness, staffed by unskilled legal staff who lack the interpretation of the law. Tango Papa talked about what he views as the continuity of colonial repression which still existed in the military. For him, When you are in the military, you feel like you are not yet independent; in fact, even the military judges are like gods – they make us work in fear; there is no independence in the military. The criticism against the military judges is that military judges do not even bother to listen to soldiers and their testimonies. This is what I can call ‘militarisation of the judiciary’, i.e. the ways in which the courts are understood through the perspective of the military. Hence, Way (2012) argues that the practices governing court martial are vague and uncertain – they are too severe in prosecuting and too ignorant on the reality of issues at hand. Thus, soldiers who underwent the court martial stand believed that they were rushed

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to give testimonies and at the end of the day all evidence was torn apart. In another different case, military judges were accused of postponing cases without any meaningful verdict at the end. Thus, drawing from all these pressing issues on the military court martial, it is quite evident that there is a bold distinction between court martial and civilian courts. Such distinctions help us to understand the military jurisdiction over its members of the armed forces as nothing but a continuation of repression of men deemed to serve the nation.

Distinction between court martial and civilian court The issue of civilian courts refers to courts which are specifically presided over by civilian judges. The procedures of military court martial are highly militarised. This does not necessarily mean that the law is totally forgotten, but the practice of it within the military is one under scrutiny. As Way (2012) notes, the court martial and civil courts differ from structure to practice. Whilst there are many other differences between the two, a few will be noted here to reveal to us the ruthless nature of the court martial in prosecuting its members of the armed forces. The court martial is composed of the uniformed judges, often arranged in terms of ranks and in most cases, there are very few arguments in legal proceedings within the bench. This is quite distinct from the civil court system, where the police, prosecutor, and magistrate/ judge represent distinct interests. The court martial applies punishment very brutally and imposes arbitrary judgements, which infringes upon the rights of soldiers (Way, 2012:4). Thus, Way (2012:4) questioned: ‘how much therefore is to be regretted that a set of men, whose bravery has so often preserved the liberties of their country, should be reduced to a state of servitudes [sic] in the midst of a nation of freemen?’ It is quite difficult to swallow the question because the men and women in uniform who are viewed as protectors of the state are abused through the military court martial. The majority of soldiers interviewed spoke against abusive military prosecution. As noted by Alpha Romeo, Being a soldier does not mean that you have to go through [a] different justice system. Imagine in civilian courts they don’t deal with these very minor issues, like absent from work for a day or two. We understand there is discipline, but there is also the law. In the military its AWOL and you go through hell. The comparison made here is drawn from the practice of law and discipline in the military. The military views discipline as the linchpin; hence, commanders do whatever it takes to maintain it. Hence, for these former soldiers there is a distinction between law and discipline. While the military works on order and command, in civilian courts, soldiers think there is space for defending oneself. Thus, the ways in which soldiers are punished in the military, sometimes through battalion/commanding officer’s and brigade/brigadier’s orders and

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the court martial, are characterised by and dominated by rank rather than evidence on the case.

The Zimbabwe Defence Act Chapter 11: 02: interpretation and punishment It is quite astonishing in the Zimbabwean context that even though the Constitution of Zimbabwe was changed in 2013, the Zimbabwe Defence Act (Chapter 11:02) of 1972 remained unchanged. While the Zimbabwe National Defence Policy (ZNDP; 1997) governs the structure and functions of the defence forces overseen by the Minister of Defence, the ZDA remains an oppressive prosecution tool to litigate soldiers in the army barracks, as discussed here. Thus, for Holmes (2007:345), ‘soldiers face an essential paradox of soldiering’ in which soldiers find themselves being both perpetrators of violence and victims of the same state they serve. It follows that soldiering can be a dangerous and bad experience (McGarry & Walkate, 2011). As Ruggiero (2005:251) contends, while doing their duty, soldiers are victimised by the state. The moot question is: what is so unique with the military that enables them to have their own jurisdiction to prosecute its own members and more so to even extend the jurisdiction to civilians in times of a so-called ‘siege’? If the military is bestowed with military court martial jurisdiction and has its own court, there is no doubt that the majority of foot soldiers who undergo these procedures have their social and political rights violated. However, thinking of rights for soldiers as citizens and military discipline for the operation of the armed forces is quite problematic, as actors outside the military are not always aware of the pain soldiers go through in their call of duty. Soldiers who absent themselves from duty are charged under section 15(2): Any member who (a) absents himself without leave; or (b) without reasonable excuse, fails to attend for any parade or duty; shall be guilty of an offence and liable to imprisonment for a period not exceeding two years or any lesser punishment. (Parliament of Zimbabwe, 1972: 46) The punishment of two years imprisonment is in itself harsh, especially for soldiers who fail to attend a parade. One of the former soldiers, Charlie Romeo, complained about the ways in which his officer commanding punished him after being charged under the previous paragraph, I was late for the parade, and I could not attend. The charge sheet was drafted, and I was marched before the officer commanding [OC], and I was sentenced to confinement in barracks [CB] for 10 days with harsh labour. It was difficult to comprehend. I was not given the opportunity to explain.

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Thus, in punishing the soldier, the military has hierarchies of prosecutions, from battalion level up to the court martial, which is the highest military court for soldiers. This illustrates that in the ZNA, at battalion and brigade level, soldiers are prosecuted, charged, and sentenced with no opportunity to defend themselves. Once a soldier is charged under the Defence Act, defending oneself is perceived to be undisciplined, which is also a chargeable offence as interpreted by the OC. When Charlie Romeo tried to explain before the OC that a police roadblock delayed him on his way to the barracks, the OC invoked section 14 of the Defence Act, which states that: (2) Any member who— (a) in wilful defiance of authority, disobeys any lawful command given or sent to him personally; or (b) whether wilfully or through neglect, disobeys any lawful command; shall be guilty of an offence; shall be liable to imprisonment for a period not exceeding two years or any lesser punishment. (Parliament of Zimbabwe, 1972) On disobeying of lawful command, an additional 10 days CB was added. This means that Charlie Romeo spent 20 days in confinement for failing to attend a single parade inspection. It was difficult for Charlie Romeo to appeal to the commanding officers (COs) in the same unit because the OC and the CO associate with each other, eating and drinking in the same officers’ mess while the junior soldiers are far away in their non-commissioned officers’ club. In any case, if a soldier appeals to the CO and loses the case, then the CO will sentence the soldier to the detention barracks (DB), which is an army prison manned and administered by the ruthless military police. One of the soldiers who at one moment was sentenced to 90 days DB in Bulawayo city at 1 Brigade sums it, ‘that is hell on earth’. He further explains that the DB is not a prison but is a torture place – detained soldiers have a day and night program. He notes that detained soldiers are ‘prisoners of war when there is no war’. For him, detained soldiers in the DB are enemies of the state. He reiterates, ‘detained soldiers are asked to clean and polish a tree’. It is against this background that the perceived undisciplined soldiers are not rehabilitated, but they are continuously punished without a realisation that these are citizens whose rights are also uphold by the constitution. The very fact that soldiers are detained under the Defence Act does not mean that they cease to have rights. It is, therefore, an issue of concern for those who preach human rights to have a consideration of these soldiers who continuously suffer in the name of the security of the state. At a time when Zimbabwe continues to experience political crisis, in particular the issue of legitimacy, spaces such as detention barracks become struggle spaces between those who wield power and those who do not. I, therefore, invite our understanding of the detention barracks not only as a space in which soldiers are

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detained and tortured but also as a political space, a metaphor of the Zimbabwean state that when cornered by the international community turns against its own soldiers and citizens in particular. While there are spaces for soldiers’ entertainment – clubs and bars in which soldiers drink and dine – there is no complete entertainment because if called for duty, commanders may choose to invoke section 17 of the Defence Act: Any member who (a) owing to the influence of alcohol or any drug or both— (i) is unfit to be entrusted with his duty or with any duty which he may be called upon to perform; or (ii) behaves in a disorderly manner; or (iii) behaves in any manner likely to bring discredit upon the Defence Forces; or (b) behaves in a riotous, disorderly or unseemly manner; shall be guilty of an offence and liable (i) where the offence was committed on active service, to imprisonment for a period not exceeding two years or any lesser punishment. (Parliament of Zimbabwe, 1972: 47) The previous paragraph reveals that it is difficult to separate the social from the military. In fact, the social can be heavily militarised through an invocation of the ZDA. An example of the difficulties of such military control was explained by Oscar Papa, who stated that, ‘you may want to drink like others, but you don’t know when the commander may decide to parade you, even during the weekend or at night. It’s a place where you don’t know what will happen next’. The majority of the former soldiers who stated that their freedom to drink was not guaranteed shared this view. Even in the barrack hospital spaces where the sick soldiers are supposed to be cared for, the military draconian law always visit them. Whether one is sick or healthy, army commanders can still invoke the Defence Act. Section 16 states that soldiers can only be sick if the commander believes it is so. As defined in that section, a soldier can be said to be malingering, i.e. any member who (a) feigns sickness or disability, (b) injures or causes himself to be injured by any other person with intent thereby to render that other member unfit for service, (c) injures another member, whether or not at the instance of that other member, with intent thereby to render that other member unfit for service, or (d) with intent to render or keep himself unfit for service, does or fails to do anything whereby he produces, prolongs, or aggravates any sickness or disability shall be guilty of the offence of malingering and liable to imprisonment for a period not exceeding two years or any lesser punishment. Lima Delta, who failed to join the other soldiers in the morning for the commanders’ run, was charged and punished. He stated that, I was just feeling dizzy that morning and I could not afford to run, I explained to the troop medic, but it did not make sense to the commander. He just said I will be charged, and it happened –14 days in CB.

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What is not clear here is how a soldier can be said to be ‘feigning’ sickness and how one can prolong a sickness for the purposes of rendering him/herself unfit for service. To be sick is, therefore, presented as being ‘cowardly’ in some way. As such, the soldier’s medical condition is under the surveillance and control of commanding officers. This reveals the ways in which soldiers are commanded rather than prosecuted, especially at the battalion level. Whilst there are criminal/civil procedures followed in civilian court, with evidence provided, this is quite different than what happens at the battalion level, where an immediate commander officer and /or officer commanding with no knowledge of law and its application charges and sentences a soldier. Because the military prioritises rank more than the knowledge any member of the force possesses, commanders who lack the interpretation of the Defence Act find themselves wrongly prosecuting their members. In fact, there is a huge distinction between being a senior commander and having the ability to interpret the Defence Act. The distinction made here between rank and knowledge of the law is very important in helping us to understand the ways in which soldiers are subjected to what is thought to be known by commanders versus the interpretation of the law as constituted in the Defence Act. What is even more problematic is that soldiers are aware of the lack of knowledge their commanders have, yet they cannot challenge them in uniform. If they do, especially under charges, this is regarded as insubordination of command and order, an issue soldiers always avoid at all costs. It is known by soldiers that in the barracks the military orders are not questioned, even though soldiers do not agree with them. Commanders are and can be wrong, but their wrongdoing is not contested even in their absence. What this, therefore, entails is that military prosecution is similar to what I call ‘constitutional surveillance’, a practice which is unjust and goes against soldiers’ rights as citizens. According to Way (2012), commanders knew offenders within the barracks. The idea of knowing offenders produces an image of undisciplined soldiers. The military punishes soldiers who are also sick and admitted in the military hospital. As noted by the Act: (b) being a patient in any hospital, wilfully disobeys any lawful direction concerning his hospital or medical treatment given to him by any member of the hospital staff within whose hospital duty and authority it is to give such a direction; or (c) contravenes or fails to comply with any provision of any order, of which it is his duty to have knowledge, or regulation; shall be guilty of an offence; (4) Any member who commits an offence— (a) in terms of subparagraph (2) shall be liable to imprisonment or any lesser punishment: Thus. . .provided that if the offence is one in terms of subparagraph (b) of subparagraph (2) and it was not committed on active service the period of imprisonment shall not exceed two years. (Parliament of Zimbabwe, 1972: 46)

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The Act is punitive in the sense that it presents soldiers as passive recipients. It does not understand that the sick person rather than the one administering the drug experiences being sick. Thus, even if soldiers react to a specific drug, it will be up to the nurse and /or doctor to decide whether or not to continue with the medication. Through ruthless military punishment, soldiers are ‘made’ in specific ways for certain purposes which go against their will. As Way (2012) maintains, the Defence Act only works for those who are in positions of authority – responsible for the order and command in the army, but not for soldiers on which it is enacted. There is no rationality of punishment. For Way (2012) military punishment exceeds social norms. This assertion invites us to understand the military prosecution and punishment on its members as outside the scope of what is expected of them and in societal norms. The punishment of soldiers in the barracks is one which is harsh and irrational. It is irrational in the sense that very minimal indiscipline does invite harsh punishment. Section 69 interprets punishment and execution of sentences in different categories. There is punishment which is done through loss of privileges, solitary confinement, and loss of salary. The punishment also includes ‘field punishment’. In this regard, according to section 69, ‘field punishment’ means punishment which—(a) shall consist of such duties or drills, in addition to those which the offender might be required to perform if he were not undergoing punishment; and (b) shall consist of such loss of privileges; and. . .‘stoppages’ means stoppages of pay; (c) may include confinement in such place and manner and such personal restraint to prevent the escape of the offender; as may be prescribed. (Parliament of Zimbabwe, 1972: 23) The ways in which punishment is defined is not just physical, but one which strips the soldier of his social and economic support systems. However, punishment is different depending on whether the soldier is a commissioned or non- commissioned officer. According to section 70, for commissioned officers: (1) Subject to this Act, the punishments which may be imposed on an officer by sentence of a court martial are—(a) death; (b) imprisonment, with or without labour and with or without solitary confinement and spare diet; (c) cashiering or the cancellation of his commission; (d) forfeiture in the prescribed manner of seniority of rank in the Defence Forces and additionally, or alternatively, in the corps to which the offender belongs; (e) a fine or, in default of payment, imprisonment referred to in paragraph. (Parliament of Zimbabwe, 1972: 23)

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Acts that are demeaning of the rank and the person of the officer characterize this form of punishment because at one point it takes away the status of the officer and also the economic base of the officer. It is important to note that commissioned officers draw much prestige from their rank and the responsibility to command other ranks. According to section 71, the punishment of other ranks, that is, non-commissioned officers, has to be understood as follows: (1) Subject to this Act, the punishment which may be imposed on a noncommissioned officer or a soldier by sentence of a court martial are— (a) death; (b) imprisonment with or without labour and with or without solitary confinement and spare diet; (c) discharge with ignominy from the Defence Forces; (d) in the case of a warrant officer, dismissal from the Defence Forces; (e) detention for a term not exceeding two years; (f) for an offence in terms of this Act committed on active service, field punishment for a period not exceeding ninety days; (g) in the case of a noncommissioned officer, reduction to the ranks or any less reduction in rank; (h) in the case of a non-commissioned officer, forfeiture in the prescribed manner of seniority of rank; (i) a fine or, in default of payment, imprisonment or detention referred to in paragraph (b) or (e); (j) in the case of a non-commissioned officer, severe reprimand or reprimand; (k) where the offence was committed on active service, forfeiture of pay for a period beginning with the day of sentence and not exceeding ninety days; (l) where the offence has occasioned any expense, loss or damage, stoppages. (Parliament of Zimbabwe, 1972: 24) While there are some similarities in terms of punishment, it is notable that there are some huge differences especially when the soldier is dismissed with ignominy. What this means is that as a form of punishment, a soldier is dismissed without any benefits. There will be no pension and /or other benefits, which the soldier has been contributing to and for his social welfare, such as housing programs. Apart from this, it is notable that often soldiers experience double punishment or even more. For instance, the Defence Act notes that: where a non-commissioned officer is sentenced by a court martial to imprisonment, detention, or field punishment, he shall also be sentenced to be reduced to the ranks: Provided that— (i) if the court martial fails to sentence him to be so reduced, the sentence shall not be invalid but shall be deemed to include a sentence of reduction to the ranks; (ii) where the operation of the sentence of imprisonment or detention is, in terms of section seventy-four, wholly suspended, the court martial may specify that the sentence of reduction to the ranks shall only take effect if the offender is committed to undergo the sentence of imprisonment or detention; (5)

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Stoppages shall not be imposed for any offence where a fine has been imposed; (6) Where any person has been sentenced by a court martial to detention and is subsequently sentenced by a court martial under this Act to imprisonment, any part of the sentence of detention, which has not been served, shall be remitted; (7) Without prejudice to the validity of any sentence of detention imposed, no person to whom the sentence relates shall be kept continuously in detention in terms of this Act for more than two years; (8) Where a member is sentenced by a court martial to pay a fine, the court may order that the amount thereof be deducted from that member’s pay in such instalments or otherwise as it may determine. (Parliament of Zimbabwe, 1972: 25) The court martial has a huge discretion in terms of prosecution and punishment because it is the highest military court, which is dominated by soldiers themselves prosecuting other soldiers. The court martial has the jurisdiction to hear all the cases committed by men and women in uniform. It can therefore be argued that the court martial itself can to a certain extent deploy its jurisdiction for political purposes, especially in the context in which ‘unruly’ soldiers are perceived as enemies of the state. This, therefore, means that where the court martial does not specify all other forms of punishment as directed by the Act, the soldier can still get punished even after the court had adjourned. While the constitution of Zimbabwe emphasises the right to life as a human right issue, there are problems when it comes to the Defence Act and the ways in which the death sentence is executed. According to section 75 of the Act: (1) Subject to subsection (2), where a sentence of death passed by a court martial is to be executed in Zimbabwe, that sentence shall be executed in the same manner as a sentence of death passed by the High Court; A sentence of death passed by a court martial—(a) which is to be executed outside Zimbabwe; or (b) if the President so directs, which is to be executed inside Zimbabwe; shall be executed in private by a firing squad; (3) The constitution and functions of a firing squad referred to in subsection (2) shall be as prescribed. (Parliament of Zimbabwe, 1972: 26) In this age of humanity and where human rights are celebrated around the world, the Zimbabwe Defence Act still emphasises that ‘death shall be executed in private by a firing squad’. This is the most heinous act in the modern day. Why would a firing squad be a sufficient way of enacting and deploying punishment? It is important to note that this is a form of colonial adaptation which has seen itself in the Act. The Act itself is a colonial product, which needs to be scrapped without hesitation if we are to be considered humane. Not only does the military make soldiers believe that any inhumane act perpetrated against them is legitimated, but even the civilian community has been led to believe that the military can perpetrate violence against soldiers

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without pressing any charges against them. In the military, human rights language like ‘torture’ and ‘victim’ does not exist; rather, such language is deliberately substituted by the so-called ethics of soldiering, i.e. NO pain, NO gain! Thus, pain is celebrated as the foundation of disciplining a soldier. Those not able to withstand pain are denigrated, as India Papa explains: It is always like that – when you fail to execute an order accordingly, the Warrant Officer will just say: Hey you Miss PUSSY, come here with your ANUS! While the use of derogatory and belittling language in the barracks is understood as an instrument of discipline, Foucault (1977) presents it as a ‘machine for altering minds’. There is also no option to respond, as any response is perceived as an undisciplined act. The language of respect for soldiers does not exist. Of significance to note is that death is a form of punishment and sentence that the Defence Act insists on in all the offences which threaten the existence and continuity of an authoritarian state. As noted, section 40 stipulates that: (2) Any member who communicates with or gives to the enemy information useful to the enemy shall be guilty of an offence and liable—(a) if the offence was committed with intent to assist the enemy, to suffer death or imprisonment or any lesser punishment; (b) in any other case, to imprisonment or any lesser punishment; (3) Any member who, without authority, discloses, whether orally, in writing, by signal or by any other means whatsoever, any information useful to the enemy shall be guilty of an offence and liable to imprisonment or any lesser punishment. (Parliament of Zimbabwe, 1972: 43) It is, therefore, important to note that the military is much more interested in punishing and encouraging discipline. It is also an offence to witness another soldier committing an offence and fail to report it. As noted in paragraph 4 of the Act: Any member who, being aware or having reasonable grounds to suspect that any other person is committing or intends to commit any—(a) offence in terms of paragraph 2; or (b) offence in terms of subparagraph (2) of paragraph 3; fails to report without delay to a superior officer the facts within his knowledge concerning the activities or suspected activities of such other person shall be guilty of an offence and liable to imprisonment or any lesser punishment. (Parliament of Zimbabwe, 1972: 43) Again, the military does emphasise bravery to the extent that those who are not brave are punished. It is, therefore, an offence not to be brave – to face-off

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against the enemy. Anytime a soldier abandons and /or runs away from the enemy, that is regarded as cowardly behaviour. Thus, according to section 5 of the Act, Any member who— (a) when before the enemy— (i) leaves the post, position or other place where it is his duty to be; or (ii) abandons or throws away his arms, ammunition, equipment or tools; in such a manner as to show cowardice or otherwise behaves in such a manner as to show cowardice; or (b) when before the enemy, induces any other member who is before the enemy to contravene subparagraph (a); shall be guilty of an offence and liable to imprisonment or any lesser punishment. (Parliament of Zimbabwe, 1972: 43) It is also an offence to be captured by the enemy. Hence, section 6 states that: Any member who—(a) through disobedience to orders, want of precaution or wilful neglect of his duty, is captured by the enemy; or (b) having been captured by the enemy, fails to take or prevents or discourages a member or any other person captured by the enemy from taking any reasonable steps which are available to him, or as the case may be, to that person to rejoin the Defence Forces or any other Military Force; shall be guilty of an offence and liable to imprisonment or any lesser punishment. (Parliament of Zimbabwe, 1972: 43) So, it is also an offence not to prevent other soldiers to be captured, and the Act spreads risk to soldiers.

Offences on morale One of the greatest linchpins of the military, in particular soldiers in the barracks. is to ensure that they are a happy armed group of men. But it is not always easy to keep armed men happy because the determinant of happiness is not only the social and political environment in the barracks. Happiness for men who spend all their days and years holding arms also depends on the political environment in which they are a part. And we at this moment have to agree that politics is about the construction of a particular ideology. As ideology is made existent through the flow of information, so is morale. So, the ways in which information circulates in the barracks influences the ‘barrack mood’, in this case morale. It is an offence for a soldier to say, ‘I am not happy today’. Of course, one can confess his/her feelings and /or mood at work in civilian organisations, but not in the military. The soldier is supposed to always be happy and convey as well as share happy information with other soldiers. In this regard, the military values the ways in which information is relayed and conveyed from one rank to another. Often the ways in which information

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travels in the barracks is hierarchical. Information is top-down. The commander informs and /or instructs his soldiers. Thus, according to section 7: Any member who spreads, whether orally, in writing or by any other means whatsoever, reports relating to the operations against the enemy of— (a) the Defence Forces; or (b) any other Military Forces; or (c) any part of the Forces referred to in subparagraph (a) or (b); being reports calculated to create despondency or unnecessary alarm, shall be guilty of an offence and liable to imprisonment or any lesser punishment. (Parliament of Zimbabwe, 1972: 43) This is important to note because in the age of social media, it becomes even more difficult to share information about what is considered gossip. Any information that is shared among soldiers becomes difficult because it might not be verified before it is shared. It is assumed that information which is harmful to soldiers can create despondency and ultimately mutiny. The greatest challenge in the social media world is often the source of what may be considered ‘harmful’ information. The issue here is that the military is much more interested in protecting the state rather than the soldiers themselves. If information is said to be harmful, then it is not harmful to the soldiers or to the military institution itself, but it is considered harmful to the state. The state is therefore interested in protecting itself at the expense of soldiers’ lives, even their social lives.

Mutiny It is widely known that soldiers have the capacity to resist and revolt against the regime they serve. However, regardless of the difficulties that soldiers face in their daily life in the barracks, revolting against the regime they serve is regarded as an offence. Soldiers are the guardians of the state, especially in authoritarian regimes, but interestingly in such regimes, soldiers are the greatest threat to the state. Thus, driven by their grievances, soldiers can converge and mobilise each other to revolt against the regime in power. Hence, when a group of soldiers rebels against the legitimate government and /or authorities in power, it is considered as mutiny. According to section 8 of the Defence Act: (1) Any member who—(a) takes part in a mutiny—(i) involving the use of violence or the threat of the use of violence; or (ii) having as its object or one of its objects the refusal or avoidance of any duty or service against, or in connection with operations against, the enemy or the impeding of the performance of any such duty or service; or (b) incites any member to take part in such a mutiny, whether actual or intended; shall be guilty of an offence and liable to suffer death or imprisonment or any lesser punishment; (2) Any member who, in a case not falling within subparagraph

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(1), takes part in a mutiny or incites any member to take part in a mutiny, whether actual or intended, shall be guilty of an offence and liable to imprisonment or any lesser punishment. (Parliament of Zimbabwe, 1972: 43–44) The wide definition of mutiny in the Act provides us with a vantage point in which we can begin to understand how the state trusts and depends on soldiers but at the same time also fears the threat that the soldiers wield. It is evident from the Act that for any offence which seems to threaten the state, offenders face the death penalty. Again, the broad definition of mutiny to include the refusal by soldiers to perform a task and /or execute an order and the failure by other soldiers to stop mutiny and /or prevent it is also defined as an offence. Thus, section 9 of the Act states that: Any member who, knowing that a mutiny is taking place or is intended— (a) fails to use his utmost endeavours to suppress or prevent it; or (b) fails to report without delay that the mutiny is taking place or is intended; shall be guilty of an offence and— (i) if his offence was committed with intent to assist the enemy, be liable to suffer death or imprisonment or any lesser punishment; (ii) in any other case, be liable to imprisonment or any lesser punishment. (Parliament of Zimbabwe, 1972: 44) The Act punishes those who engage in mutiny but also those who are not able to suppress it. It is, therefore, important to note that the Act is very harsh, as it does not specify how soldiers can suppress those wielding guns and other weapons. It is not always that all soldiers have guns in their hands. In peacetime, soldiers can spend the whole month or even more without their hands holding a gun. So how would they stop a mutiny if it happens? The purpose of the Act is to punish even those who do not commit the offence. It is also important to note that even in times of peace, the military is always vigilant in its protectionist approach of the state. Hence, the Defence Act continues to guide soldiers to act in specific manners. Soldiers, for example, guard military premises and important state institutions like the state house. There are, therefore, ethos on how to guard such central state institutions and political infrastructure which comprises the state. Hence, section 10 states that soldiers who commit guard duty offences are liable for punishment. As noted by the Act, (1) (a) any reference to a member on guard duty shall be construed as a reference to a member or to a member of any other Military Forces who is posted or ordered to patrol or is a member of a guard or other party mounted or ordered to patrol for the purpose of— (i) protecting any persons, premises or place; or (ii) preventing or controlling access to or egress from any premises or place; or (iii) regulating traffic by road or rail

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Of import is the fact that the military does not guard everyone and patrol everywhere in the country. The military guard and patrol where the state interest lies. In this regard, the idea of protection of the state is quite central. The issue of guard duties signifies that the state is very much interested in soldiers who sacrifice their lives for the survival of the state. Thus, any of the soldiers who sleep on duty while they are expected to be alert are punished. In addition, (3) Any member who—(a) assaults a member on guard duty; or (b) by act, word or gesture, wrongfully compels a member on guard duty to let him or any other person pass; or (c) wrongfully evades a member on guard duty; or (d) in any manner whatsoever, prevents a member on guard duty from doing his duty; or (e) occasions false alarm to a member on guard duty; shall be guilty of an offence; (4) Any member who commits an offence in terms of this paragraph shall be liable to imprisonment or any lesser punishment. . . (Parliament of Zimbabwe, 1972: 44) Notably, guard duty has to be understood as a duty which compels soldiers to act in a specific manner. While guard duty gives soldiers power and authority to determine who enters and who goes in and out respectively, it is a way of monitoring soldiers’ capacities to protect the state and its interests. For soldiers who loot, they are punished by the Act. According to section 11: Any member who—(a) steals from or with intent to steal searches the person of anyone killed or wounded in the course of warlike operations; or (b) steals any property which has been left exposed or unprotected in consequence of warlike operations; or (c) takes, otherwise than for the services of the Defence Forces or any other Military Forces, any vehicle, equipment or stores abandoned by the enemy; shall be guilty of the offence of looting and liable to imprisonment or any lesser punishment. (Parliament of Zimbabwe, 1972: 44) The Act also punishes insubordinate behaviour. According to section 12: (1) In this paragraph— ‘superior officer’, in relation to any member, means an officer or non-commissioned officer of superior rank and includes an officer or non-commissioned officer of equal rank but greater seniority while

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exercising authority as such member’s superior; (2) Any member who— (a) assaults; or (b) wrongfully points a firearm at; or (c) draws any weapon against; a superior officer, shall be guilty of an offence. In addition, (3) Any member who—(a) behaves in a threatening or insulting manner towards; or (b) by word or conduct, displays insubordination towards; or (c) behaves with contempt towards; a superior officer, shall be guilty of an offence; (4) Any member who commits an offence in terms of subparagraph (2) or (3) shall be liable to imprisonment or any lesser punishment: Provided that, if the offence—(a) was not committed on active service; or (b) being an offence in terms of subparagraph (1), was not committed against a superior officer exercising authority as such; the accused shall not be liable to imprisonment for more than two years. (Parliament of Zimbabwe, 1972: 44) However, through the Act, their superiors also protect subordinates from the assault and ill treatment. Thus section 13 of the Act states that: Any member who— (a) assaults; or (b) wrongfully points a firearm at; or (c) draws any weapon against; or (d) otherwise ill-treats; any member who, by reason of rank or appointment, is subordinate to him, shall be guilty of an offence and liable to imprisonment for a period not exceeding two years or any lesser punishment. (Parliament of Zimbabwe, 1972: 44) It is, therefore, understandable that soldiers find it difficult, if not impossible, to reintegrate into the civilian community to which they belonged before as ‘humans’. Scholarly writing tends to blame soldiers for not being human enough upon leaving the military, with very little understanding of what the military has done to the lives of these men. My argument is that it is not the soldier per se but the military, as an institution, which has legitimised certain ways of being and doing that do not tally with the civilian world. In this chapter, I invite a human rights perspective to be brought to bear on the lives of soldiers in the barracks. The practices outlined previously in the Defence Act are considered beyond the scope of human rights lawyers for at least four reasons. First, the military is a closed cantonment system; hence, whatever happens is by and for soldiers. Second, in cases where human rights lawyers hear of incidents of mistreatment, it is ignored as part of soldiering. Third, soldiers are trained to be silent about army practices, as they are perceived to be part and parcel of being in the military. Fourth, soldiers view themselves as being too macho to speak about pain to lawyers whom they perceive as civilians. The soldiers’ individual bodies are the recipients of this ruthless form of punishment. According to Foucault, ‘the body is caught up in a system of constraints and privations, obligations and prohibitions’. For Foucault, ‘the systems of punishment are to be situated in a certain political economy of the

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body’. Thus the ‘correction’, ‘control’, and transformation from a civilian into a soldier focuses on the utility and docility of the body. Foucault provides us with the ways in which society thinks about military training and practices as normal processes for soldiers, whereby pain and punishment are normalised for soldiers. The body of a soldier is perceived as one that ‘belongs’ to and is ‘owned’ by the military, during and after military training, where whistles are blown to make the body work. This is a mistaken understanding of soldiers. Soldiers are human beings: if we understand soldiers as citizens, men and women in need of human rights – including freedom of expression, association, and choice – it can help us in our engagement with the human rights discourse. If scholars continue to present the soldier’s body as a ‘military body’ and an ‘organisational body’, then soldiers will continue to be deprived of their bodies by this subjection of their human bodies. In the military, the recruit ‘is stripped of the support provided by the home world arrangements’. For Zurcher (1967) civilians join the military guided by the freedom of choice – a freedom that cannot be tolerated once in the army. This is what Foucault refers to as the ‘political investment of the body’, i.e. the body itself is dominated by senior officers and subjected to the will of the military. According to Hockey (2002), the ways in which the military works is akin to a perpetual conveyor belt proceeding at a hectic pace which controls the body. For Goffman (1961) soldiers are not supervised; rather, surveillance is employed to oversee if everyone does what is expected of him. Foucault refers to this as ‘techniques of punishment’, whereby the total person is shaped ‘into . . . a disciplined cog in the military machine’. Similarly, Foucault (1977) argues that ‘the power exercised on the body is conceived not as a property, but as a strategy, that its effects of domination are attributed not to appropriation, but to dispositions, manoeuvres, tactics, techniques and functioning’. Because of the ways in which the military controls its members’ prosecution and punishment, with no intervention from and by human rights activists, soldiers are often left with limited choices when they are victimised in the barracks, except to desert. Soldiers who desert the military are punished under section 15 of the Act: (1) Any member who deserts shall be guilty of an offence and liable—(a) if the offence was committed whilst he was on active service or under orders for active service, to imprisonment or any lesser punishment; (b) in any other case, to imprisonment for a period not exceeding two years or any lesser punishment. (Parliament of Zimbabwe, 1972: 46) Army desertion is oftentimes driven by soldiers’ dissatisfaction with the institution. As noted in the case of my participants, desertion was very political. The military is interested in controlling its members even when members attend civilian institutions. Thus,

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(2) Any member who—(d) being required to attend an educational institution, whether civilian or otherwise, fails to attend thereat or absents himself therefrom without leave; or (e) knowingly makes any false statement for the purpose of obtaining or prolonging leave; shall be guilty of an offence and liable to imprisonment for a period not exceeding two years or any lesser punishment. (Parliament of Zimbabwe, 1972: 46) So, under this Act, it is an offence for soldiers studying at a university and /or civilian institution to absent themselves. So, what is interesting is how the military discipline has to be carried beyond the barracks into civilian institutions. The idea of controlling soldiers outside the barracks is to ensure that soldiers are in themselves co-opted and hoodwinked into the statist ideology, that of thinking that the soldiers serve the state even when they are not in uniform. For soldiers who steal, section 18 states that: Any member who—(a) steals; or (b) knowing it to have been stolen, receives; or (c) wilfully abandons; or (d) wilfully destroys or damages; or (e) wilfully fails or wilfully omits to take any reasonable steps to prevent the destruction of or damage to; any State property or service property shall be guilty of an offence and liable to imprisonment or any lesser punishment. (Parliament of Zimbabwe, 1972: 47) The state seeks to protect the property that belongs to it, including the wild animals in game and national parks. Section 19 states that: (1) Any member who—(a) by negligence, causes damage to any State property or service property; or (b) fails to take proper care of any animal or bird of the State which is in his charge; or (c) fails to take all reasonable precautions to safeguard arms, ammunition or explosives of the State which are in his possession; shall be guilty of an offence. (Parliament of Zimbabwe, 1972: 47) However, what is surprising is that during the economic crisis in Zimbabwe, especially after 2000, the army also suffers from the economic crisis in the country. The military embarked on killing national parks animals, those protected by the state. However, none of the senior commanders were arrested for doing this. Drawing from section 20 of the Act, Any member who—(a) steals; or (b) knowing it to have been stolen, receives; or (c) wilfully damages; or (d) without permission improperly uses, takes or removes from the control of the owner or lawful possessor; any property belonging to a member shall be guilty of an offence and

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But what is striking is that the state only arrests and prosecutes soldiers when they are acting on their individual capacities to enrich themselves. In certain circumstances where, for example, the state, acting through its armed appendages of the military, had been involved in the illegal mining of diamonds in the Chiadzwa diamond area (see Maringira & Nyamunda, 2017; Nyamunda & Mukwambo, 2012), soldiers committed injustices including damaging the environment, but none of the soldiers were arrested.

Conclusion It is uncommon in the human rights discourse to talk about or have an agenda on soldiers’ rights as human rights. The reasons are at least twofold: soldiers are perceived of as perpetrators of violence, particularly political. The fact that they are also victims is a marginal story and, in many cases, non-existent in the civilian human rights discourse. Second, there is very limited access to the barracks where soldiers lead their everyday lives; hence, the general perception is that all is well in the combative world of soldiers. Both these reasons are misguided if human rights organisations are to engage with soldiers as humans whose rights have been and continue to be infringed upon in post-colonial Africa. A major question, therefore, is what should be done to address the rights of soldiers without compromising their soldierliness, and how can this be done? At a policy level, the military has to be constituted within the broad definition of the freedoms stipulated in the constitution. Human rights organisations should be permitted to conduct educative workshops with military commanders in order to make them aware of what it means to respect the rights of others, in particular their subordinates. This will go a long way towards building and capacitating a respecting and respectable army – an army that respects itself, the self, and others, namely civilians.

7

Dreaming the military Re-living the barracks in exile*

Introduction The army deserters have been previously deployed internally in Zimbabwe to beat up and deal with civilians protesting against former President Robert Mugabe’s regime. The army deserters contend that they were given orders by their commanders to repress civilians and keep them under control, as this was important for the whole national project – a project that they now see as a ZANU-PF project. For Papa Oscar it was not out of his own volition. It was the state that made the soldiers perpetrators of political violence. The state made the soldiers justify the use of violence as their ‘work’. From a Weberian perspective, the modern state legitimises the soldiers’ use of violence as a way to protect its own political interests and govern with an iron fist (see Torpey, 1997). In some cases, soldiers were deployed in the cities during the night so that the journalists from the private media would not be able to see what was happening and report on it. They would beat and maim civilians in their entertainment spaces: clubs and bottle stores. They could force civilians in public beer halls to sing songs praising former President Robert Mugabe. Oscar Papa, an army deserter, recited a song which they forced civilians to sing. It was a song that admonishes civilians to desist from politics: Iwe zvenyika Jojo chenjera. . .Jojo siyana nazvo. . .Jojo unozofa. . .hahaha Jojo. . .vamwe vedu vakaenda nepamusana penyika unozofa Jojo [Jojo leave politics alone. . .we know some people just disappeared. . .this politics will kill you Jojo]. (song derived from musician Thomas Mapfumo) In this song, Jojo is a man reminded to desist from politics. Interestingly, this is not just politics, but Jojo is warned to stop opposing ZANU-PF and former President Robert Mugabe. Doing so will invite the wrath of the military. This is what Ranger (2004b) calls Mugabeism – celebrating former President Robert Mugabe as the only godfather of Zimbabwe. For

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Ranger (2004a) the celebration of Mugabe was ‘patriotic history’ because it denigrates opposition politics in Zimbabwe. It also divides the country between sell-outs and ‘patriots’, whites and blacks, while representing ZANU-PF and former President Mugabe as Zimbabwe’s Alpha and Omega, i.e. the past and the future. In exile the fear is twofold. They fear that civilian migrants from Zimbabwe may seek revenge for what the soldiers did to them in Zimbabwe. Hence, the fears result in army deserters being very reluctant to disclose their past as soldiers. Second, the army deserters fear being tracked down by the military police and military intelligence from Zimbabwe. This chapter focuses on how the army deserters respond in their present life in exile to their past military experiences as both perpetrators and victims of their involvement in the political violence in Zimbabwe. The chapter analyses how army deserters continue to relive and re-enact their military past lives in exile in South Africa. Hence, the chapter reveals the different ways these army deserters deal with their military past in two contrasting but also complementary spaces: the intimate space of camaraderie and the public space of the Church. Thus, the chapter examines the complementarities and contradictions between these two spaces in the way the army deserters frame the problems they have and deal with their military past. In the former space, the camaraderie, army deserters relive the barracks in different ways, greeting each other through their former ranks and reenacting and re-invoking barrack parade moments, among others. In the camaraderie, their socialness in exile is dominated by ‘military language’ that recreates their time in the barrack. The language used invokes a particular ‘military register’, which allows them to humorously recognise and bond with each other. This is distinct from the church, where they are made to believe that their past military life was a life of the devil. In the church, they disguise themselves, appearing to others as regular migrants toiling in the city. Hence, through prayers, they are made to seek redemption, a practice intended to receive healing and deliverance from the soldierly spirit. The chapter examines why army deserters’ search for social and spiritual healing support is experienced as incomplete as they struggle to reconcile both approaches to healing. In order to understand the ways in which the army deserters’ journey between two different but complimentary spaces of healing, I use the concept of ‘transmigrants’ (Lomsky-Feder et al., 2008). Drawing on this term, in exile, army deserters can be depicted as hybrids or amalgams. They were both inside the church but also outside of it, they have lived and understood the church sphere, and, as continual migrants, they are journeying through the church and try to overcome the limitations of that sphere in the sphere of the camaraderie. The soldiers’ past trajectories provide a vantage point though which we can begin to understand the ways in which they understand their military past in exile. Attending to how these army deserters enact their past barrack life in exile in relation to spaces illuminates the contextual embeddedness of their military past.

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Soldiering in church The growth of Pentecostalism, especially among migrant communities in South Africa, saw the majority of army deserters partaking in the activities of the church in search of healing and deliverance from what was viewed as demonic – the past military lives of these men. It is important to note that at a time when they were in the army, some of the army deserters were already Pentecostal members, hence they carried with them the beliefs of Pentecostalism in exile. The Pentecostal churches in which the army deserters preach the gospel of healing and deliverance comes with blessings (Núñez, 2015; Maringira et al., 2015). Healing, as proposed by Pentecostal churches, goes hand in hand with the promise of economic prosperity (Maxwell, 1998). Army deserters continue to experience nightmares, seeing dead people in their dreams, including those they had killed. For Vysma (2011) the dream is not a re-experience, but it is a ‘category of experience’. Because the dream is presented as a category of experience in which the here and now interacts with the military past, the telling of the dream to others consolidates the military identity. In the spiritual realm, the pastors interpreted the army deserters’ dreams of their military past as the result of evil spirits whose influence can only be undone by the Holy Spirit. The Pentecostal language restricts the expression of these army deserters’ own stories. Thus, the current dreams at night make them realise the wrongs of their past deeds. This realisation becomes more pronounced once they engage themselves in church encounters with pastors. This is one of the motives why the army deserters had to seek deliverance – to be delivered from the spirit of killing, which they contend continues to torment them. One of the former soldiers, Oscar Papa, revealed that: We killed in the name of the state, but the dead bodies’ spirits do not go to the state. They torment me. I have problems; I don’t sleep in the night. I try to live a good life but it’s difficult to plan my future. I am completely disturbed. This is why I seek spiritual intervention. In situations where the army deserters could neither understand nor comprehend the experience, failing to sleep and being unable to achieve their set goals would push them to seek spiritual help in the church. As India Tango notes, ‘sometimes I will be dreaming about being chased by civilians I beat and sometimes being hunted by the military police’. The dreams are a reality of what these army deserters did at a time when they were serving soldiers. The army deserters’ dreams of people they beat up represents the agency of spirits and what the spirits can do to men who used to wield guns. The spirits can be understood also as power of the weak. I call them ‘power of the weak’ because at a time when the civilians were beaten, maimed, and killed by soldiers, they could not fight back. However, many years later they are fighting through and in dreams, tormenting the men who used to hold state power.

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Charlie Mike notes that ‘the fact that one could kill and remain immune to prosecution makes one feel [sic] having a guilty conscience for the rest of one’s life.’ But the church is not only about spiritual freedom – it is also about finding new friends. As noted by Charlie Romeo: There are a couple of good people in the church. But is difficult to tell them that I was a soldier. I do not want to be judged because of my past military life. That background is for me and those who knew me. Even though these army deserters struggle to talk about their past military lives, there is a desire to find new friends. The friendship in church is somehow fictitious as compared to the camaraderie which is cemented by the past barrack life. But the motivation to go to church and sometimes make friends is driven by the enjoyment of moments of ‘spiritual freedom’, as revealed by Tango Delta, ‘when I go to church, that very night I sleep like a new born baby. I sleep very well. But other days I re-experience the nightmares: seeing the dead again’. This reveals the temporality of healing and deliverance, that the spirit subsides and re-emerges. The quote also shows us that being a member of the Pentecostal church is not enough to receive total deliverance, but one has to continuously pray in the church. Thus, while Pentecostalism (Van Dijk, 1997; Meyer, 1998; Tankink, 2007; Hunt, 2000; McGovern, 2012; Jones, 2012) has been presented as a space of belonging which creates social and spiritual bonds that deals with fear and distrust, the army deserters resist total church integration in the family of migrants. The army deserters selectively choose from their biography what can be shared and what should be kept secret. While Meyer (1998) talks about a ‘complete break with past’, healing for the army deserters is only temporal; past military experiences are difficult to break. Apart from that, the Pentecostal church also encourages its members to give testimonies. The testimony is a spiritual space in which those who have been delivered and or blessed talk about their past and how their lives have changed over time since their visit to the church. Testimony is also a ‘spiritual disclosure’ which instrumentalises social and spiritual relationships in the church. But in the event that the army deserters give a testimony, they do not talk about their past as soldiers. That military past is deliberately omitted. The military past, as noted, is and has to remain hidden from other members of the church. The army deserters’ past is only confided to the church pastor. This is only during counselling sessions. However, the counselling does not take the conventional form but spiritual. It is spiritual in that the army deserters are made to understand that the spiritual world exists and that they are experiencing the devil. The spiritual counselling is a divinely inspired session, as it appeals to a ‘whole variety of type of distress and sickness’ (Hunt, 2000:80; see also Stolz, 2009). The spiritual practices done in church includes consistent prayers and fasting which help in confronting the devil forces, including those associated with political violence. In their encouragement for

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fasting, the pastors in Pentecostal churches use the language of fighting to destroy the devil responsible for the events in their past lives. Apart from prayer and fasting, the church makes use of ‘spiritual objects’ like a ‘spiritual handkerchief’. The handkerchief contains spiritual power, and as such, it contributes to the effectiveness of the act of healing and deliverance of the dark military past. Participating in church activities and being involved in church practices is a spiritual commitment of the soul and the mind to reconnect with the spiritual realm. The army deserters talk about the importance of being involved in other church activities such as church choir and as ushers, among others. This is a precondition to be healed and ultimately saved from being tormented by the devil. It is after individual sessions with pastors that army deserters think differently about their involvement in Zimbabwe’s political violence. Barrack life and soldiering practices are then viewed as the devil incarnate. In identifying the nightmares which the army deserters experience as caused by some ‘external force’, it reveals that the problem therefore resides outside the men. The pastors help the army deserters to understand their predicaments within the discourse of the devil, hence the blame is therefore shifted from the individual to the devil. In framing the dark military past as the ‘devil’, it helps these army deserters to deal with feelings of guilt. Thus, the army deserters are encouraged to forget the past so as to embrace the future, a common Pentecostal church practice and spiritual orientation (see Meyer, 1998). However, what is intriguing is that, outside the church, these army deserters re-create their own social spaces in which their past lives are talked about and these men view themselves as different from civilians. In such social spaces, they laugh and smile about who they are.

Perpetuation of the military past: socialities in exile On meeting other former soldiers, Alpha Romeo posed a question whether there were any other ‘gun men’ (meaning soldiers) around the city of Johannesburg. Charlie Mike replied, ‘There is a battalion of soldiers here’. The term ‘battalion’ is used as a metaphor to represent not only numbers (of at least 1200 soldiers), but it evokes the idea of a cohesive unit of soldiers who found themselves dispersed in a foreign city. In telephone conversations, the army deserters identify themselves through a phonetic alphabet. In one of the conversations I could hear: ‘X-ray Quebec, this is me. Do you hear me, over?’. ‘Whiskey Yankee, send over, you are fives.’ The quote, ‘Do you hear me, over?’ was used at a time when these army deserters were serving as soldiers in the barracks and in war. It is often used when communicating through army radios for signal information in the war context. The word fives means that ‘I can hear you clearly, please go ahead.’ Such humorous greetings, characterised with ‘military language’, dominated their conversations. This encoded language which was employed as a security

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code in the barracks was now used to recreate military bonds in exile. It is difficult for anyone who is not trained as a soldier to understand the content of the conversation. The coded military language is understood by soldiers who have been trained to use it and to avoid being understood by the enemy trying to intercept their signals. The code itself carries contextualised deepseated meanings. When these army deserters employ the coded military language, it invokes the past barrack moments and helps in strengthening the past bonds. When they meet, they are devoted to talk more about their military past, and almost no reference is made to their present lives in South Africa. Talking about the past allows an uncensored story to emerge, one that helps these army deserters to understand why they were part of a military that continues to torment its own soldiers and the citizens. In some ways, this is what the military past does: it creates ‘codes of remembrance’. However, the army deserters acknowledge that talking about the past barrack life is also an emotional experience in which the intimacy of the military past is re-enacted. It reveals that even after many years in the military, the guns might be left behind, but the concreteness of the experience remains alive. Such military stories are indeed the only assets that soldiers have; the telling and sharing among themselves becomes a social language. The barrack is a social instrument which produced an experience, and in the present it reproduces soldiering memories and emotions that emerge in the telling of stories. Theoretically, this tells us that the barrack is not only a space in which the soldiers are produced and sedimented, but it is also an emotional space which produces particular social and political attachments and detachments. When army deserters talk about the barracks, they do so in two ways: immediacy and reflection (see also Hynes, 1999). The immediacy of barrack life is when army deserters talk about the here and now of and about the barracks. In such moments, army deserters talk about the barrack spaces: parade square, how they drill, drill formations, main gate, assault course, range, quarter master, and their military equipment. They also talk about the troops club, what they drank, troops canteen, what they ate, and how it tasted. Again, they also talk about their heroic moments as brave and welltrained men, contrasting themselves with civilians. This is the immediacy of the military past. However, many years after deserting the army, they give detailed and thick meanings of the barrack in which they lived, and when detailing these meanings, they enter in a reflection mode about the barracks. For Hynes (1999), some years after the war, soldiers experience complex feelings of guilt, defensiveness, and nostalgia about what they did. When reflecting about the barrack life, they no longer pay more attention to vivid images of the troop canteen. Instead, they give deep meaning to what the barracks did to them and what they did in the barracks. It is no longer only about what the partisan military commanders did to them, but why they were partisan. Such

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questions are not only about barrack life – they are now profound political questions about the ways in which the military relates with and to the state. The army deserters ask rhetoric political questions about their commanders. The questions help them to reflect on their past lives as soldiers sometimes in contradictory ways: heroes and victims of barrack lives. Thus, even though army deserters continue to hold on to their military past in camaraderie spaces in a nostalgic way, they feel at the same time betrayed by the same army they served. Such a contradictory remembrance of the past contributes to their continued suffering in the present. On the one hand, the men celebrate that life as heroes.

Camaraderie spaces Soldiers are socialised to carry the task in groups. This is the source of teamwork in the military and it creates a particular friendship which is forged through resistance. For army deserters, the social spaces of camaraderie have a historical trajectory which evolves and can be traced to time in the barracks and war. Hence, the military makes soldiers work in groups for a political purpose, to drill a particular ideology – that of defending the state at all costs. The camaraderie means lasting friendship, especially for soldiers once deployed together in war. The military trains soldiers in specific ways to work collectively as a winning team. In this regard, individual thinking and ability is discouraged and collectivity is celebrated. In the barracks soldiers march together in groups: they parade together, run together, sing together in unison, eat together, and they sleep in close proximity to one another. The goal of the army is to instil what Maringira (2016c) referred to as the military spirit, one which is inculcated through drill exercises and hanging out together in the barracks. The military inculcates a ‘willing spirit’ (Harrison & Laliberte, 1994). Through the everyday activities in the barracks, an unbreakable military bond is forged (Dowling, 2011). According to Hynes (2001) some marriages do not last as military bonds do. This contributes to soldiers seeing themselves as different from others. The idea of military bonding was vividly described in one Canadian soldier’s words: You have a bond. You have a bond that’s so thick that it is unbelievable! . . . It’s the pull, it’s the team, the work as a team, the team spirit! I don’t think that ever leaves a guy. That is exactly what basic training is supposed to do. It is supposed to weed out those who aren’t willing to work that way. . . . And that’s the whole motivation – that when somebody says we want you to do something, then you’ll do it. You will do it because of the team, for the team, with the team and because the team has the same focus. (Harrison & Laliberte, 1994:28) It is the ‘thickness of the bond’ and how unbelievable it is that makes it last long. It is the military which purposefully enhances the making of a bond

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which is made possible because the military life emphasises living separately from civilians, wearing a distinct uniform, having a barracks hospital, shops, and club – all facilitate closeness among soldiers. The military institution is jealous of its members. It does not want to share its codes of conduct, ethics, principles, professional values, and beliefs with the civilians. For Segal (1986:10) the military is a typical ‘greedy institution’ which depends for its survival on the loyalty, membership, participation, and commitment of its members. This is why the military drills its members to understand the institutional ideologies which guides it. For Winslow (1994) the military discourages and suppresses individual effort and invests all military resources into the group. The ways in which that military bond is carried into an exile context reveals how the military past has been embedded in army deserters’ lives. The bond forged in the military is a resource in exile life. It is an ‘exile resource’ in which army deserters draws on to cement their future. Yankee Sierra stated, ‘my military buddies makes [sic] me feel comfortable’. This reveals the military as a ‘greedy institution’ (Segal, 1986:10), i.e. it thrives on the loyalty of its members to each other and to the state. Thus, military bonding is just more than what we think friendship is (Hynes, 2001). Here a distinction between friendship and military bonding is made. While friendship is just about hanging out together, military bonding raises above race, ethnicity, language, and other cultural differences. As Hedges (2012:7) notes, ‘war gives a sense that soldiers can raise above their divisiveness. . . .’ The social bond is embedded within an individual soldier for the group survival. Military bonding produces a particular nostalgia, which includes wistful military past reminiscing of the old yesteryears of barrack life. It follows that bonding captures the emotion of the experience, draws you into the scene, and makes you feel like another soldier is your blood brother and that leaving other soldiers behind (e.g. on the battlefield) is heart-rending (Maringira, 2016b). In his description of the camaraderie in exile, Sierra Papa used the bodily metaphor of the bums. Our togetherness is like the life of bums. You know bums, right! They are always together. The bums present figurative meanings. Bums represent what it means to be a soldier, living with other fellow military buddies. The socialities are humanised. Bums are a representation of comradeship. This is what Wenger (1998) referred to as the ‘community of practice’, where in particular those soldiers hangout together because they have common interests and beliefs. Thus, military bonding has to do with the emotion of the past and the present. So, the emotional military experience draws army deserters into the camaraderie space and makes them feel like blood brothers. The camaraderie is a ‘safe space’ created by these men’s social and past military resources (see also Gibson, 2010). It is their own healing space outside institutionalised healing spaces such as the church. The sharing of jokes and humour in the

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camaraderie space compensates a bit for what the men lack in churches, where they cannot be open about their past.

Humour and jokes The camaraderie space shapes how these army deserters often talk to one another in a humorous and joking way. Their camaraderie is brought alive through the humour, which is a shared subjective experience of the past. What is important here to understand is how humour and jokes forged in the military get transferred in an exile context. But there is a distinction between jokes that are ‘innocent’ and those that are ‘aimed’ (Freud, 1976). In the former, in his/her joke telling, the teller does not direct the joke at anyone, but in the latter the joke is directed at a specific person. For Bolton (2009) joking is not as natural or spontaneous as it may be presented, but it tells a hidden story about the individual or group. Similarly, Plester (2009:585) notes that ‘fun, though enjoyable, is not necessarily funny’. Thus, people employ jokes to express ideas which if expressed in other contexts might be criticised. Hence, jokes provide the space to deny their seriousness. So, what is important is how the joke is told. According to Heath (2012:15) ‘humor is more than just funny stories, puns, or physical pranks; it is a complex, multifunction. . .skill that can, if properly applied, reduce stress. . .’ Their social conversations are characterised by humour. Of import to note is that humour is told in a language the audience understands. According to Hatch and Ehrlich (1993), humour is a way of communicating, often accompanied by laughter and or smiles. Often the way of communicating is important in humorous conversation. For army deserters, when talking about their commanders, they often imitate their voices and actions. It is the imitation of the voice that may be humorous rather than the content of the conversation. Even though these men had deserted the military as victims of the army, they draw humour in those moments. Thus, ‘what makes, humour funny is the juxtaposition of incongruities and the recognition of contradiction and incoherence’ (Hatch & Ehrlich, 1993:518). For these army deserters, humour is explicitly a representation of their past military experiences, even when the past is fractured. The barracks are characterised by boredom, and humour helps soldiers to live in such situations. The army deserters re-enact the humour which their military instructors related during military training: ‘All recruits must shave their heads and the smoothness must be like the bums of a newly born baby’ (Alpha Sierra). Retelling the military training humour make soldiers laugh but also to view themselves as survivors of painful moments. For Holmes (2000) humour can be used to reinforce power relationships, but of course in a more bearable way. Military training humour make the recruits feel a sense of belonging to the military. Humour in the military wades off the boredom of combat, and it thrills the barrack life. In the barracks, drills, parade square inspection and commanders-run, battle fitness are the core monotonous activities; hence,

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humour carries them through these rough days of their lives. So, humour is the centrepiece that underlies soldiers’ morale. For Israeli soldiers, Sion and Ben-Ari (2009) note that humour allowed a release from boredom and the repetition of the daily experiences in the barracks, such as drills, parade inspection, and sentry duties. Thus, humour is very contextual and referential. It is contextualised in the sense that the teller of the joke is well aware of the audience to which he is speaking to. It is highly referential because the army deserters know one another and more importantly they have a shared military history of the past. The past becomes a source and sustains these men’s stories often in profound ways. Hence, there is a historical reference in the joke. For Lamm and Meeks (2009) how jokes are shared may be affected by age differences, background, and culture. Thus, in any joke and humour telling, what is important is the decoding of the humour, i.e. the audience should be able to understand the social and even the political structures in which the joke is embedded. Humour is central in making these soldiers share their everyday experiences of the exile city in more funny ways (see also Maringira et al., 2013). In that regard, jokes are able to deal with the social and political anxieties by ‘letting off the steam’ (Collinson, 1988). Humour can ‘take away’ or ‘rub-off’ difficult moments. Thus, for these army deserters, ‘humour turns the long days of frustration and disappointment into liveable experiences. Thus in such circumstances, humour shifts monotony into lively moments. It produces sentiments of togetherness. . .and solidifies social entities’ (Sion & Ben-Ari, 2009:28). In this regard humour compliments and contradicts some of the undignified jobs that the former soldiers do – waiters and security guards. Therefore, for Sion and Ben-Ari (2009), humour creates an in-group status which is acceptable to members of the group.

Between justification and remorse The army deserters do not blame themselves for what they did in terms of violence, but the politicians limit their possibilities to act in humane ways. Hence the blame is externalised to politicians. Theoretically, the externalisation of the blame perpetuates the victimhood of these army deserters. The politicians created a different political order in terms of what was allowed, justified, and lawful – very different from the code of conduct of a known professional army. For them, soldiers were duty-bound to commit violence; it was an order. The violent actions were seen as the ‘duty-call’ of a soldier. In reality, politicians were in charge and not the law. The army deserters juggle between justification and remorse. While they celebrated themselves as soldiers with pride, most of them now realise that there is a dark side to their past engagements as soldiers. It is mostly at night that they struggle to come to terms with their past military activities. In daylight, they glorify their military past in their own camaraderie group, whilst at night their military past experiences become nightmares in which the people

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they had beaten up and killed chase them in their dreams. At night, the men feel they are being haunted by the evil spirits of those they killed or abused who are now taking revenge. In a way, they struggle to justify their military past and the moral order that reigned in the military. Even though the church does not offer complete healing, it has become a space where these former soldiers find relief of their troubled and fractured military past.

Military skills: the only resource on the labour market Early research on ex-soldiers in post-conflict societies arose from the scapegoating and social anxiety associated with them (Gear, 2002; Cock, 2005; Mashike, 2007). This kind of thinking around ex-soldiers was driven by a fear that ex-soldiers were a danger to a post-conflict society and a threat to peace (Cock, 2005; Harris, 2006). However, the thinking has been challenged by the assertion that although ex-soldiers have held on to their military skills, the media has sensationalised ex-soldiers’ involvement in crime in a post-conflict society (Mashike, 2007). Military skills are not always problematic skills. Thus, while these army deserters acknowledge that their military past continues to haunt them, it is important to note that not everything that happens in the military is evil. The army deserters agree that they have military skills which are marketable in South Africa. The skills are mostly in the private security companies where some of the army deserters work in armed response units. Hence, even though existing literature on soldiers leaving the military view these men as sources of violence (Hoffman, 2011; Harris, 2006), I argue that they are also sources of peace. Scholarship fails to pay attention to the resourcefulness of ex-soldiers’ skills (Maringira & Carrasco, 2015). Thus, in the absence of written qualifications, the army deserters use their military-trained bodies to animate and maintain their military skills. The trained body gives a market value to their military skills that enable them to survive in the present. The ways in which military skills are employed and get redeployed in the security industry illuminate how military skills can transit through and from the barracks to an exile context. Hence, the fact that army deserters continue to have a nostalgic thinking, viewing themselves as distinct soldiers and not as civilians, is important in substantiating their embodied skills in this context. This not only demonstrates the endurance of a military past but also the embodied nature of the gun knowledge and military discipline. Their use of military language, in particular how they continue to respect each other’s rank and salute each other, buttress the existence and meta-presence of their disciplined military skills. The knowledge of knowing the gun is fundamental (Maringira, 2018). It is fundamental in the sense that it is not only about ‘knowing’, but it is about the embeddedness of the skill of the gun in the soldier’s mind. In terms of analysis, I do understand that anyone can have the knowledge of the gun, on how it operates, stripping, assembling, shooting, and killing, but what is

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unique about these army soldiers is that the knowledge of the gun is drawn from a specific form of training where gun operation is the mandate of soldiering. For the army deserters, they were trained in the gun, and the knowledge of the gun comes along with training which forms a soldier, the making of a ‘warrior hero’ (Woodward, 2000). The knowledge of the gun is transposed in an exiled context and habituated. Thus, through the habituation of the skills of using the gun, the military past is also perpetuated. It is important to note that what makes these army deserters stick to their skills of knowing the gun has to be understood within the broad framework of military training which emphasises a particular being. The ways in which soldiers are made produces social resources for these army deserters who continue to hang on to their past military socialities, a bond created in combat.

Conclusion The chapter examined how the camaraderie and the Pentecostal church offer different and seemingly contradictory forms of support which the army deserters nevertheless try to integrate in their lives. Their past is understood differently in these spaces. In church the men feel remorse about the past, while in the camaraderie their military past is celebrated. By moving between these two spaces, the past military life is dealt with in different ways. For these army deserters, the fear of being haunted contributes much to the incompleteness of healing in both spaces. What is lacking are the preconditions needed for a more sustainable healing. The main call from these men, especially those who had deserted, is to be granted political amnesty. Amnesty, they strongly believe, will pave a way for meeting other needs, such as the reunion with their families, compensation, and recognition for their participation in war and a pension for their service. Leaving aside for the moment the risks of amnesty for those who have committed atrocities, amnesty may indeed be the main factor in the process leading to a more sustainable decrease of the bad memories that haunt the former soldiers than is possible in their present living situation in exile. However, it seems to us, more is needed to support soldiers in their struggle to come to terms with issues of morality, in particular guilt that haunts them in their dreams and issues of transmigration between the sphere of post-combat civilian life and the sphere of military life the men want to preserve.

Note * This chapter draws on the following book chapter: Maringira, G., Richters, A. and Núnˇ ez, L. (2015) ‘Between remorse and nostalgia: haunting memories of war and the search for healing among former Zimbabwean soldiers in exile in South Africa, In Hamber, B., Palmary, I. and Nunez Carrasco, L. (eds), Healing and Change in the City of Gold, pp. 79–100. Springer.

8

Mobilising the coup in the barracks

Introduction There have been continued debates on the November 2017 Zimbabwean coup, in which former President Robert Mugabe was ousted by the military, led by General Constantino Chiwenga, now the Vice President of Zimbabwe. These debates have sought to respond to what led to the coup and how it was possible to plot and execute a coup against a president after 37 years of loyalty. In this chapter I do not seek to talk about what happened during the coup because most of the events were on public television, the internet, and social media, with video clips circulating, in particular about what was happening in the streets and sometimes at the state house. Instead, what I seek to do here is to reveal what happened in the barracks rank and file, in particular what the commanders did to mobilise soldiers long before the coup. So, what I am doing here is only revealing some of the events pertaining to the ways in which soldiers were made to understand their commanders’ politics. Following what has been happening in the barracks, as indicated in Chapters 3–7, it was well-nigh possible that the ways in which the military was so deeply in politics and political power would remain problematic for civilian politicians. Here I explore two main events which were very critical in 2003 and 2007 in the barracks: the director of military intelligence and director of military police campaign in the barracks and the General Constantino Chiwenga crusades in the barracks, respectively. All the events were very political. At the time when these events were conducted none of the soldiers were aware that the generals had a political motive, that of mobilising soldiers to rally behind them. All that was said was to sensitise and order soldiers to pay attention to the commanders in terms of politics. So, the mobilisation of soldiers in the barracks helps us to understand how soldiers were made to rally behind their commanders in the barracks in the guise of supporting former president Robert Mugabe. In mobilising the soldiers in the barracks, the army general was strategically positioning himself and his cohort closely around former President Robert Mugabe. With such political support and mobilisation by the army general, former President Mugabe never saw himself being thwarted by the men in combat uniform.

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Director of military intelligence in all the barracks In 2003, the director of the military intelligence corps visited all the battalions in the Zimbabwe barracks. This was a surprise visit because such \ an army appointment was never present in the barracks. It is an appointee who spent most of the time at army headquarters attending to other pressing issues, in particular intelligence gathering for the state. It was also difficult for soldiers working in and at the battalion level to understand why such a senior officer, the director of military intelligence, would come to visit ordinary soldiers in the barracks. What is it that he wanted to tell and /or hear from the soldiers? It is important to note that none of these questions were answered formally by the immediate commanders in the barracks, nor was there an attempt to do so. Only rumours pervaded the barracks, with ‘barrack news’, i.e. news originating and pilfering through the barracks, that the director military intelligence wanted to hear the problems soldiers were facing. Despite such ‘barrack news’ characterising the barracks, it was all difficult to understand why the director of military intelligence would be interested in ordinary soldiers’ problems. How would he solve them? It was very interesting how, in those moments, soldiers in the barracks tried by all means to caution each other about the visit of the director of military intelligence. One of the soldiers, Alpha Romeo, notes, ‘we just told each other that, we have heard that the director [of] military intelligence was a very difficult man, and if you ask political questions, you will be in deep trouble’. This was echoed by one of the war veterans in the barracks who stated that, ‘if you ask him any question, you will be inviting what you don’t know’. These were warning words, quite intimidating and very cautionary. On his visit, soldiers had polished their shoes, dressed well, and readied for the parade. The regimental sergeant major had prepared his troops for the parade. However, on instruction from the director of military intelligence, the venue for the meeting was said to be in the troops’ canteen dining room. All the soldiers were ordered to sit and relax. This was quite surprising because often when high-ranking senior officers were coming to meet and address troops, the parade square was the space to meet. The parade square was an open space, often tarred. Soldiers would then be addressed while standing in the parade square, even if it was hot and /or raining. Thus, being addressed while seated was something soldiers were not used to. This was the chief intelligence officer’ tactic, to present himself as an understanding and tolerant person – doing the opposite of what soldiers thought about him. This was part of intelligence gathering, presenting the self as quite humane and tolerant, portraying a good image. After all the soldiers sat down, the director of military intelligence was introduced by the battalion commander as an astute but friendly chief intelligence officer. The battalion commander did not say exactly what the director of military officer had come to do and what kind of message he had for the troops in the barracks. Instead he stated that, ‘allow me to hand over to the

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director [of] military intelligence officer, who has brought something good for us from Harare’. The army headquarters is stationed in Harare. It is also where the state house is situated. It is also where the headquarters of the political party in power is situated. So, it was not clear where exactly in Harare something good was coming from. It was also not clear whether something good was coming for every soldier. The director of military intelligence started by greeting each of the soldiers in a more civilian way. He said, ‘makadii henyu mauto eZimbabwe?’, meaning ‘how are you Zimbabwean soldiers?’ It was a way of forging a relationship, a way of comforting and easing tension in the troops’ canteen dining room. He well understood that the soldiers were subjectively questioning him: who are you, and why are you here? He answered those question as he progressed with his talk to the soldiers in the troops’ canteen. With respect, he took off his military hat, and put it on the table which was before him. Instead of standing by the podium given to him, he decided to walk around the room, where soldiers were seated. He began to tap some of the soldiers’ shoulders, greeting them and asking how their work was in the barracks. Of course, they all said work was fine and they were enjoying it. No one would have expected any other answer other than that. On reflection, he was interested in how troops would express themselves more than the answer to the question. That would give him a sense of the mood in the room. While he was moving around where soldiers were seated, he just spontaneously burst into a liberation song: Zimbabwe nyika yedu yababa, Zimbabwe nyika yamadzitateguru, meaning ‘Zimbabwe is a country of our fathers, Zimbabwe is a country of our ancestors’. The director of military intelligence was leading the song, holding a small stick in his right hand, while his left hand was in the combat trouser (denim) uniform pocket. Without being told to sing along with him, every soldier followed and began to sing in unison. The song was repeated over and over again. Apparently, there were a lot of emotions in the troop canteen where the meeting was held. The song was not just a song – it was reminding soldiers of where they belong and what they had to fight for: Zimbabwe. It was a song of reassurance, that Zimbabwe is theirs. By rooting the country in its ancestors, it meant that none was supposed to question what they do with Zimbabwe and those who live in it. Of course, ordinary soldiers could not understand all this, but it is important to analyse these issues which are embroiled within the song itself. The director of military intelligence then began to tell a story of himself and his experience in the army, and how he came to where he was. He presented himself as a heroic, disciplined, and ingenious soldier. It was a long history, all of which cannot be presented here. He then talked about politics in the Zimbabwean context in 2003. Surprisingly, he did not talk much about the opposition political party but spent much of his time zeroing on how the military is an important arm in Zimbabwean politics. He presented the military as the sole institution which understands politics best in Zimbabwe. The soldiers, in particular those who had not fought in the liberation struggle,

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were said to be in need of being taught politics, on how the military operates in the Zimbabwean political context. Those who had fought in the liberation struggle needed to be reminded of what it meant to be part of politics while retaining the soldier character. This was without a doubt the political education and political reorientation of soldiers in the barracks. One of the soldiers who attended the meeting remembers what the director of military intelligence said. In his statement, he said ‘there is nothing that stops soldiers from doing politics. It’s not a crime to be political. We are political. He did a ZANU-PF slogan’. This was meant to reorient soldiers because generally, and in particular according to the constitution, Zimbabwean soldiers are not allowed to be political. The slogan was meant to initiate junior soldiers into politics. By emphasising that it was not criminal for soldiers to be political, the director of military intelligence was somehow ‘legitimising’ what was contrary to the constitution of Zimbabwe. Interestingly, before he concluded his talk, he burst again into the same song: Zimbabwe nyika yedu yababa, Zimbabwe nyika yamadzitateguru. He then concluded by saying he would want to see a more united army, an army that works for each other and an army that pays attention to the order given by their commander. When soldiers left the room, there was silence after the speech and the visit by the director of military intelligence. Instead, as they walked to the barrack rooms, some of the junior soldiers were singing the song Zimbabwe nyika yedu yababa, Zimbabwe nyika yamadzitateguru. At least it helped to diffuse the emotions of the song and the visit by the director of military intelligence.

General Chiwenga visit In June 2007, the then general of the Zimbabwe Defence forces, now Vice President Constantino Chiwenga, visited all the brigades in Zimbabwe. This was the time when Zimbabwe was hit by an economic crisis. There was no food in supermarkets and other shops alike. The shop shelves were empty. In the barracks, there was no adequate food. Soldiers were struggling to find the next meal to eat. Soldiers’ salaries were just paltry. Thus, the visit by General Chiwenga was expected to address the needs of soldiers in the barracks. In one of the brigades, soldiers drawn from the three battalions were marched along the road to attend the parade to be addressed by General Chiwenga. It was around 9 a.m. when soldiers were marched to the brigade. Of course, none of the soldiers were aware of the agenda of the General Chiwenga parade. When soldiers were all in the brigade, they went straight to the brigade parade square, where they were made to first wait for the brigade sergeant major (BSM), who then came and ensured that all the soldiers were present. He first asked if there was any soldier who had any problem. Of course, soldiers had several problems: no money, food shortages, lack of combat clothing, etc. The BSM arranged the soldiers on how best they were going to stand when General Chiwenga arrived. The soldiers waited for five

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hours without General Chiwenga showing up. In between they went for lunch, and they were made to parade again while waiting for the General. There was no feedback on where the General was. Soldiers only depended on rumours in the parade square that the General was yet to leave his office. Finally, General Chiwenga arrived around 4 p.m. Before he passed through the main gate to the brigade, all soldiers were alerted that the general had arrived. He was driving in one of the latest cars. Many of the soldiers had not seen that kind of a car before. The brigade commander went to him. They first went into a briefing, and after an hour, the brigade commander came alone to the parade, where he told the soldiers that no one was supposed to ask the commander any questions. The brigade commander went on to say that, if there are any questions, soldiers should have asked him. The brigade commander went further to say that if the general asks soldiers to ask questions, no one is supposed to ask. He stated that the general knows what soldiers want, so it was not important for soldiers to ask him questions. When General Chiwenga came to the parade, the brigadier ordered the whole parade square in attention. Without questioning, the parade responded. The brigadier then handed over the parade to General Chiwenga. The general never asked soldiers how they were. He went into his political rampage on how soldiers must remember where they are coming from and to understand the government in power. He talked about his military history and his experience from the liberation struggle. He then reminded soldiers that he knew there were shortages of food in the barracks and salaries were not enough. On mentioning food shortages in the barracks and the issue of very low salaries, soldiers in the parade square raised their eyes. He then emphatically and vociferously stated that it was not for soldiers to complain that they do not have enough food in the barracks or salaries. Instead he notes that during the liberation struggle, he and other guerrillas had to survive on wild fruits such as monkey oranges, or Strychnos spinosa, including also eating horned melon, which is known as African horned cucumber. He went on to say that when it comes to salaries, this was not an issue because during the liberation struggle, guerrillas like him worked for their entire lives, with some passing on in the bush without being paid. For General Chiwenga guerrillas did not fight to be paid, but they only fought for one thing: freedom. So, for General Chiwenga, it was unheard of for soldiers to think about high salaries. For the general, it was supposed to be Zimbabwe first. It was difficult for soldiers to understand why a general would descend from army headquarters, leave his office, and drive for more than 300 kilometres, only to tell them to learn to eat wild fruits. The general did not give soldiers an opportunity to ask questions – he concluded his frenzied talk and left soldiers in the dark. When he finished, it was sunset, and soldiers made their way to the battalion barracks. It was quite difficult to contend with what the general had said in his parade. The majority of the soldiers agreed that there was no hope in the military.

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As the political crisis deepened in Zimbabwe, characterised by political divisions in ZANU-PF, the military could not wait any longer to intervene in politics and to rightly take over influential cabinet and presidium posts. It is not the purpose of this chapter to repeat what is already online on different sites, from social media and online news to briefs on the Zimbabwean coup. What is of import to note is that it was not at all surprising to see the military taking over influential posts in ZANU-PF and the government. Immediately after the coup, General Chiwenga took over as the vice president of the country, with the coup spokesperson, Major General Sibusiso Moyo, becoming the foreign affairs minister and former Air Marshal Perrence Shiri was appointed as the minister of agriculture. This was the penetration of army generals into active and direct politics and the running of the government.

Celebrating army generals in politics? On the day when former president Robert Mugabe was forced out, civilians together with soldiers were celebrating General Constantino Chiwenga, with placards written ‘Go, General Go’. The civilians were caught in a euphoria that Mugabe was gone and a new face would be coming in. Considering that former President Robert Mugabe was a long-time ally of the Zimbabwean military, no one expected that he would be overthrown by the military, but it happened. Mugabe had favoured the military as one of the bulwarks against challenges to his regime, so why would they then turn against a man who had for more than four decades protected their interests? Mugabe appeared to have been caught completely unaware by this turn of events. At the height of his presidency everything suggested that he enjoyed the absolute loyalty of the military, so what factors explain why the military toppled President Mugabe? Many observers and analysts within and outside Zimbabwe are still grappling with this question. Even though the military, through its spokesperson Major General Sibusiso Moyo, asserted that the army was targeting criminals around President Robert Mugabe, it is important to note that the intervention was more than just criminals. I suggest that one of the reasons for the actions of the generals was what they stepped in to stop what they perceived as a calculated attempt by a faction of the ruling party to exclude the military top brass from political power. Because of the history of liberation struggle in Zimbabwe, former liberation fighters turned generals in the post-independence era are hailed as heroes and wield significant influence or power. These generals also considered themselves the power behind Mugabe’s presidency and had access to all the privileges and perks that accrued from their strategic position within the Zimbabwean state. Some observers are of the view that the problem did not lie exclusively with the military but also with Robert Mugabe himself, who failed to live up to the ‘mutual agreement’ he had with the military top brass. According to this school of thought, when Mugabe showed support for a faction of the ruling ZANU-PF party led by his wife, Grace, he lost the loyalty of his erstwhile military allies who had provided him political leverage throughout his 37-year rule.

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Mugabe’s fall from power partly shows the role of the military as a formidable force in Zimbabwe’s politics. It is against this background that it should be understood that the greatest and most formidable challenge that the current President, Emmerson Mnangagwa, is to face will likely come from the military constituency. The reality of the military element in Zimbabwean political life means that President Mnangagwa will have to contend with the military generals if he is to consolidate his hold on power. While some pundits believe that President Mnangagwa is a close ally of the military, it is important to note the distinction between being an ally of the military and actually controlling them. Although it is well known that President Mnangagwa is a former guerrilla fighter, many forget that during the past 37 years he served as a civilian government official – as cabinet minister and more recently as a vice president to former president Mugabe. Expecting President Mnangagwa to behave like a military general or a dictator would be a miscalculation. He will have to strike a balance between the civilian factions of the party while managing the powerful military interests within the country. Equally significant is the fact that Zimbabwe’s military generals in the government will not behave as civilian politicians who prefer to debate over public policies and operate within the rule of law or live by civilian ethos and practices. It is also more likely that while the current vice president, retired General Constantino Chiwenga, may act as if he is a civilian, some of the practices of a military officer in politics will mark his behaviour in his new office. It should always be remembered that General Chiwenga spent most of his life in the Zimbabwe National Army as a commander – both in war and peace. How then can President Mnangagwa transform and ‘civilianise’ such a man? Unfortunately, president Mnangagwa has surrounded himself with army general cronies in his cabinet. Major General Sibusiso Moyo, the coup spokesperson, was appointed the minister of foreign affairs, Air Marshal Perrence Shiri is now the minister of agriculture, and the ZANU-PF commissar – Major General Engelbert Rugeje. The list is endless, as other army generals were appointed in other government ministries and parastatals. This is not saying that the behaviour of army generals in the Zimbabwean government is not compatible with civilian life, but considering the life the generals had lived as commanders in combat uniform, to imagine them becoming civilians would be expecting too much. President Mnangagwa is, therefore, faced with the challenge of transforming the office of the vice president (currently occupied by a former general), depoliticizing the military, and rebuilding a country ravaged by years of Mugabe’s policies. In the Zimbabwean political context in which former President Mugabe has been forced from power after 37 years, it will require committed and disciplined politicians to fix the economic and political challenges facing the country. However, another formidable challenge confronting the country is how to transform army generals such that they fully embrace and accept the tenets of civilian democracy. What we are likely to see in the current

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Zimbabwean politics will be characterised by a mixture of both military practices and civilian tendencies. Transforming the military’s role in the country’s politics will take some time and calls for continuous engagement, confidence building, and the strengthening of democratic institutions. As Zimbabwe journeys into a post-Mugabe era, the past political practices will continue to hunt the ‘new’. In this regard it is important to note that the ways in which the Zimbabwe soldiers do the work of political violence continues unabated. At a time when the majority of civilians thought that in the aftermath of former President Robert Mugabe the army would return to the barracks and let civilians lead politics, that did not happen. Instead, before the July 2018 election results were announced, on 01 August 2018, with full force, the army pounced on civilians. The loss of life led to the Motlante commission. Initially, during the Motlante Commission hearing, the then Brigadier Sanyatwe (later promoted to major general) denied that the soldiers killed the civilians on the streets of Harare. However, the Motlante Commission reiterated that the military had used excessive force which resulted in the death of six people, an act which the army did not deny at a time when the commission published its results. Again, shortly after the Motlante commission published its findings, in January 2019, the soldiers were back on the streets, clashing with protesting civilians. Commentators noted that the hope for many Zimbabweans who thought the fall of Robert Mugabe was the fall of the military was highly misplaced (see also Mahere, 2019). Instead the military involvement in politics was invigorated. With the directive of the minister of state security to mobile operators companies like Econet and Telone, the internet was shut down, with the whole country not able to connect on emails, Facebook, and social media. Analysts stated that the switching off of the internet was meant to spearhead the campaign for violence in the ‘dark’. Soldiers usurped police duties – they set up roadblocks, harassing civilians and sometimes frog-marching them in bursting and overflowing sewage water in the high-density suburbs (African News Agency, 2019). When the internet was reconnected, social media was awash with butchered bodies. It was alleged that the soldiers bashed and amputated the civilians and this resulted in a number of injuries, with some recorded deaths (Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission Report, 2019). There were also allegations of soldiers raping women in the course of doing political violence. The propping of such violence has to be understood within a broad spectrum of how rape can be used as a political tool to humiliate the perceived enemy of the state. Videos of soldiers beating civilians were circulating. Photographs of armed soldiers wielding guns on civilians’ doorsteps were circulated on social media. The opposition political party members of parliament of the MDC led by Nelson Chamisa were reportedly beaten up, maimed, arrested, detained, and handcuffed to court (Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission Report, 2019). In response, the UK called for soldiers to restrain from doing violence against its own citizens. Surprisingly, President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s own spokesman, George Charamba said that, ‘the

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response so far is just a foretaste of things to come’. It is assumed that the military will reign for a long time before there is another approach besides the rule of guns. However, a point to note is that junior soldiers continue to lack the basic and essential support for their life in and out of the barracks. So, in short, military violence in Zimbabwe is violence by the elite army generals.

Conclusion The military is nowhere near resigning from politics. The Zimbabwean coup of November 2017 has to be understood within the ambit of too much military interest in politics and how the army coerces and props itself in power. I argue that it is often easier to invite the military into civilian politics, but quite difficult to force them out of it. Once the military is in politics, when cornered by critics, protests, and activism, they always resort to the gun approach. The military does not offer any room for dialogue to resolve any political impasse. The gun is what the military understands better. It is, therefore, against this background that the military and politics are incompatible – the latter is for civilians.

Concluding remarks

This book has argued that while soldiers do the work of political violence in a political crisis-ridden country, the state has to work hard to mobilise soldiers into a particular political ideology. While upon joining the military, soldiers view it as work, political actors see them as a support base for their political party. However, in mobilising soldiers the state punishes those who disobey political orders from their political commanders and reward those who obey such orders. The forms of punishment vary from detention to demotion over which the political commanders preside over. It is the same political commanders who oversee, recommend, and approve the promotion of those who obey political commands. In this regard army desertion is presented as a way of responding to the political ordering of soldiers in the barracks. The book, therefore, contributes to our understanding of the lack of professionalism in African armies and soldiers in postcolonial barracks. It is, therefore, important to understand that even though the military can juggle politics, lionising the regime in power, soldiers can be very dangerous to the same regime in which they serve and prop up power. This was very evident in the Zimbabwean situation, whereby the military has for more than 37 years been very openly supporting former President Robert Mugabe, and later ousted him through a military coup. So, it is, therefore, important to note that the military is a very dangerous institution which should be watched closely in terms of its interest in political power. If it happens that the military can publicly support a regime in power, it should be one of the leaders of a coup in the future. This has been the case in Zimbabwe and many scholars and practitioners have never envisaged it.

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Index

Page numbers followed by ‘n’ refer to notes. agency, of soldiers 31–32, 33 Alao, A. 60 Alexander, J. 2 amnesty, for deserters 104 Anwar, S.N. 73–74 Argentina, military involvement in politics 28 Arkin, W. 15, 21 army generals 5, 27, 29; political speeches of 60, 62–66; in politics 110–113; promotion of 36, 65 Baldauf, S. 30 Barany, Z. 60, 61 barracks: detention 78–79; director of military intelligence, visit to 106–108; kitchens, arrangement in 45–48; village deployments and 31, 32; see also hunger, in barracks; married quarters; military coup of November 2017, and barracks Barrett, F.J. 14 battalion commanders 48, 106–107 Battle Fitness Test (BFT) run 56 Ben-Ari, E. 102 bhizhu 52 Bill, J.A. 61 Biti, Tendai 5 blankets 49 Bolton, S.C. 101 Border Gezi program 9 brigade sergeant majors (BSMs) 39, 108 British Military Advisory Training Team (BMATT) 3, 9, 61, 64–65 Brown, A.D. 11 Caforio, G. 12, 36, 60

camaraderie spaces, deserters in 94, 99–101 canteens 45–46, 51–53 Chamisa, Nelson 1, 58, 112 Charambastate, George 112–113 Chedondo, Martin 65 chefs 49, 50, 51 Chibaya, Z. 112 Chihuri, Augustine 62 Chiwenga, Constantino 63, 105, 108–110, 111 Chung, F. 28 churches, deserters in 94, 95–97 civilian courts, vs. military court martials 76–77 civilian institutions, soldiers attending 90–91 clientelism 66, 68 collective punishment 20 commands: circumventing 25–26; obeying 11, 21, 24, 78 communities of practice 100 confidentiality, for recruits 17 Conor, R., Jr. 60 constitutional surveillance 80 corporals: barrack of 46; canteen of 45; duties of 46 Coser, L.A. 31 counselling sessions, for deserters 96 coups see military coup of November 2017, and barracks court martials see military court martials cowardice, punishment for 48–85 cronyism 68 Dabengwa, Dumiso 2 Dandeker, C. 70

126

Index

death: sentences 83, 84; during training 20 deep freezing 16 Defence Act 2, 6, 37, 62, 69, 73, 74, 77–85; absent from duty 77; battalion level prosecution 80; capture by enemy 85; civilian institutions, soldiers attending 90–91; commissioned officers, punishment for 81–82; cowardice 84–85; death sentence 83, 84; desertion 90; detention barracks 78–79; dismissed with ignominy 82; double punishment 82; failure to report an offence 84; and freedom to drink alcohol 79; guard duty offences 87–88; information, flow of 86; insubordinate behaviour 88–89; looting 88; and military court martials 83; mutiny 86–87; non-commissioned officers, punishment for 82; obeying command 78, 80; rationality of punishment 81; sick soldiers 79–81; sleeping on duty 88; state property, protection of 91; stealing 91–92; see also prosecution, of soldiers Democratic Republic of Congo: army, as rebel army 44–45; conflict, deployment of soldiers in 3, 9, 29, 34–35, 43–45; desertions in 30 demotion, of soldiers 58–59, 63, 71–72; see also promotion, of soldiers derogatory language 14, 15, 84 desertion/deserters 2, 5, 28, 29, 30–31, 93–94, 98; amnesty for 104; in camaraderie spaces 94, 99–101; in church 94, 95–97; counselling sessions 96; humour and jokes 101–102; immediacy of barrack life 98; juggling between justification and remorse 102–103; knowledge of guns 103–104; making new friends 96; military skills 103–104; nightmares 95, 97; and political victimisation of soldiers 31–42; and politics 66–67; punishment for 90; reasons for 30; reflection of barrack life 98–99; socialities in exile 97–99; telephone conversations 97–98; testimony 96; as transmigrants 94 detention: barracks 78–79; of soldiers 30, 74, 78, 82–83; see also punishment director of military intelligence, visit to barracks 106–108 discipline 8, 10, 11, 21–25, 39, 41, 67, 72, 73, 76, 84; techniques of 8, 23, 26, 90; see also punishment

Dobrofsky, L.R. 15, 21 dressing, military 21 drill instructors 21, 22 drills 9, 11, 21–22, 99 drugs, stealing of 50 Dyck, Lionel 9, 63 economic crises 5, 54, 91, 108 Egypt, military involvement in politics 61 Ehrlich, S.B. 101 entertainment rooms 45–47 Eritrea, desertions in 30 European Union (EU) 64 families: interaction of soldiers with 32; and military 31 Fantina, R. 30 fasting, of deserters 96–97 favouritism 59, 67, 68 field punishment 81 Finer, S. 61 flogging 14, 23 food see hunger, in barracks Foucault, M. 8, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 19, 21, 22, 24, 27, 32, 33, 74, 84, 89, 90 fuel attendants 51 functional surveillance 32 Gezi, Border 26n1 Gilbert, A.N. 30 ginyanomics 5, 54–55 Goffman, E. 8, 11, 12, 23, 53, 60, 90 guard duty offences 87–88 guerrillas 2, 28, 59, 109; ZANLA 40 Gukurahundi 3, 9 guns 18–19, 49, 103–104 Hanke, S.H. 5 Harb, I. 61 Harris, G. 61 Hatch, M.J. 101 hazing 16, 18 healing, for deserters 94, 95, 96 Heath, J.D. 101 Hedges, C. 12, 100 helmets 49, 52 Higate, P.R. 19, 41 Hinojosa, R. 13 Hockey, J. 17, 25, 26, 90 Holmes, J. 77, 101 human rights 73, 74, 78, 83, 84, 89, 90, 92; see also Defence Act; punishment humour, of deserters 101–102

Index hunger, in barracks 1, 5, 43; bhizhu 52; boiled beans 52; bringing food from home 52–53; calling off parades and other military activities 56–57; and Congo war 43–45; empty canteens 51–53; fish heads 51; Grain Marketing Board (GMB) 55; kitchen arrangement 45–48; ma off ezhara 54; military wives 53; outside the barracks 54–55; politicisation of food shortages 57; quartermaster 48–51; and retail shops 54–55; self-cooking 52 Huntington, S. 27, 59, 62 Hynes, S. 98, 99 hyperinflation 5, 45 information, flow of 85–86 inspections: of recruits 22–23; of soldiers 39 insubordinate behaviour 88–89 integration, military 8–9 jambanja 4 Janowitz, M. 60 Jenkings, N. 18, 67 Joint Operation Command (JOC) 4 jokes, of deserters 101–102 Jones, J.L. 5 judges, military 74, 75–76 justification, of deserters 102–103 Kabila, Laurent 44 kitchens, arrangement in barracks 45–48 Kohn, R. 60 Koreta, Ivan 28, 61 labour market, military skills of deserters 103–104 Lamm, E. 102 land reform programme 63 Layton, S. 33, 73 legal representation, for soldiers 75 Lesotho, military involvement in politics 61 looting 88 Lutterbeck, D. 64, 68 McGregor, J. 32 Mafikizolo soldiers 27, 28–29, 30, 31–42 malingering 69, 79 ma off ezhara 54 map reading 25 marching 21–22 Maringira, G. 99

127

married quarters 49–50, 55 Masuku, Lookout 2 Mazarire, G.C. 28, 40 Mbanga, W. 112 medics, army 50 Meeks, M.D. 102 Meyer, B. 96 Mhanda, W. 28 Middle East, military involvement in politics 60 militarisation, of judiciary 75 military: bonding 99–100; courses, for promotion 68–69; culture of 12, 14; as greedy institution 31, 75, 100; instructors 10–11, 14, 15; language of 21, 94, 97–98, 103; parades 40; patrimonialism 58, 60, 67, 68; skills, of deserters 103–104; spirit of 99; victimhood in 33, 73; see also drill instructors; training, military military coup of November 2017, and barracks 105; army generals in politics 110–113; director of military intelligence visit 106–108; General Chiwenga visit 108–110 military court martials 74–75, 78, 81; and civilian courts, distinction between 76–77; of commissioned officers 82; of non-commissioned officers 82–83; and punishment 83 military equipment 18, 48; stealing 50; and training 18–19 Mnangagwa, Emmerson 111, 112 morale: in military life 71; offences on 85–86 Motlante Commission 112 Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) 1, 5, 6, 26n1, 29, 32, 37, 38, 39, 58, 62, 63, 64, 65, 70, 112 Moyo, Sibusiso 110, 111 Mozambican National Resistance (RENAMO) 3 Mozambique conflict, deployment of soldiers 3, 9, 29 mufushwa wemushamba 53 Mugabe, Robert 2–6, 8–9, 27, 32, 35–39, 54, 58–60, 62–66, 70–72, 93–94, 105, 110–112, 114 Mugabe-ism 4, 65, 93 Museveni, Yoweri 28 mutiny 86–87 Muzondidya, J. 4 Ndebele people 2, 9–10

128

Index

Ndlovu-Gatsheni, S. 4 Newlands, E. 23 Ngongongo 52 nightmares, of deserters 95, 97 Nkomo, Joshua 2, 9 November 2017 military coup see military coup of November 2017, and barracks Nyakairima, Aronda 28, 61 Nyikayaramba, Douglas 64, 65 oaths, during training 10 objective civilian control 59 obstacle crossing 20 officers’ mess 47–48 one-ups (promotion) 69 Operation Murambatsvina 4 pain: and discipline 84; and training 16, 19, 90 parades 39–40; failure to attend, punishment for 77; and hunger 56–57 parade square 11, 21, 22, 106 patrimonialism 58, 60, 67, 68 patrol boots 49 Pentecostalism 95, 96–97 Perlmutter, A. 60, 62 Plester, B. 101 political investment, of body 14, 90 political speeches, of army generals 60, 62–66 political technology, of body 15 political victimisation see soldiers, political victimisation of political violence, soldiers as perpetrators 93, 112; see also desertion/deserters politicisation: of military 4; of military parades 40 politics, military involvement in 27–28, 59–62, 66–67; army generals, political speeches of 62–66; distinction between veteran soldiers and junior soldiers 67, 68; guardians 60; moderators 60; patron-client relationship 58, 64; rulers 60; victimisation of soldiers see soldiers, political victimisation of; see also military coup of November 2017, and barracks power: of army generals 110; and body 23, 24, 90; and demotion of soldiers 71; and derogatory language 15; and flogging 14; and humour 101; and kitchen arrangement 47, 48; and punishment 17; and recruitment 10;

and surveillance 32; and training 13, 14, 15, 17 private soldiers: barrack of 46; canteen of 45–46 professionalism, military 8, 27, 29, 59–60, 61–62, 67, 70 promotion, of soldiers 58–59, 66–72; see also demotion, of soldiers prosecution, of soldiers 73–74; Defence Act 77–85; distinction between court martial and civilian court 76–77; incompetent military prosecutors/ judges 75–76; knowledge of law, of commanders 80; and military court martials 74–75; see also Defence Act; punishment punishment 8, 10, 11, 13, 19, 39, 73–74, 89–90; and agency of soldiers 33; and barracks 33; chitigu 41; collective 20; for commissioned officers 81–82; death sentence 83, 84; Defence Act 77–85; double punishment 82; field punishment 81; military court martials 74–75, 76, 83; for military instructors 14; mutiny 86–87; for non-commissioned officers 82; offences on morale 85–86; and politics 71–72; rationality of 81; for recruits 17, 18–19, 20, 22, 23; for soldiers 1, 39, 40, 71–72; techniques of 8, 23, 26, 90; see also Defence Act quartermasters 48–51 Raftopoulos, B. 4 Ranger, T. 4, 65, 93–94 range shooting 19–20, 56–57 rank and file, hierarchy of 11, 71 rations, keeping and stealing 48–51 recruitment, military 8–10; civilian mentality, stripping/shrugging 10–21; of illiterate rural-based youth 9; see also training, military regimental sergeant majors (RSMs) 39, 46, 56, 106 remorse, of deserters 102–103 resignation, of soldiers 29–30, 34, 37, 40 Returned to Unit (RTU) 69 rewards: for senior officers/army generals 60, 64; for soldiers 1 Rhodesian Security Forces 3 rifles 18–19, 49 role dispossession, in training 13 Rubin, B. 60 Rugeje, Engelbert 111

Index Ruggiero, V. 77 running exercises 17–18, 56 Rusoke, Robert 28, 61 salaries, of soldiers 5, 30 Sanyatwe, Anselem 112 Sarkesian, S. 60 security industry, deserters in 103 security sector reform 63 Segal, M.W. 31, 74–75, 100 sergeants’ mess 46–47 Shils, E. 30 Shiri, Perrence 111 Shona language 9–10 Shona people 2, 9–10 shooting, training for 19–20 signallers 50–51 Sion, L. 102 skiving 26 sleeping: on duty 88; during training 16, 17 social media 86 soldiers: agency, of 31–32, 33; attending civilian institutions 90–91; demotion of 58–59, 63, 71–72; deployment in Mozambique conflict 3, 9, 29; detention of 30, 74, 78, 82–83; interaction with families 32; inspections of 39; legal representation for 75; Mafikizolo 27, 28–29, 30, 31–42; as perpetrators of political violence 93, 112; promotion of 58–59, 66–72; resignation of 29–30, 34, 37, 40; rewards for 1; salaries of 5, 30; voting by 33–35; women 20, 52; see also private soldiers; prosecution, of soldiers soldiers, political victimisation of 28–31; arrests 41; campaigns 31; censorship 39; command structure 37–38; interaction of soldiers with family 32; parades 39–40; political orientation of soldiers 32; radio/television stations and newspapers 39; red caps and t-shirts 38; refugees, soldiers as 37; resignation 29–30, 34, 37, 40; rights of soldiers 36; village deployments 31, 32; voting by soldiers 33–35 South Africa see desertion/deserters Southern African Development Community (SADC) 44 Special Investigation Branch (SIB) 29 speeches, of army generals 60, 62–66 spiritual freedom 96 spiritual objects, for deserters 97

129

state property, protection of 91 stealing: punishment for 91–92; of rations 48–51 Strachan, H. 11 surveillance 32–33, 90; from above 32; constitutional 80; functional 32; political 27, 29, 31; of recruits 16, 21, 22, 23 telephones, access to 50–51 Tendi, B.M. 64 testimony, of deserters 96 Thornborrow, T. 11 Toney, R.J. 73–74 total institution 8, 11, 31, 53, 60 toyi-toying 40 training, military 8, 9, 24–25; body, transformation of 13, 15, 16, 19, 22–23, 90; cadet 9; circumventing commands 25–26; civilian mentality, stripping/shrugging 10–21; confidentiality for recruits 17; death of recruits 20; deep freezing 16; derogatory language 14, 15; drills, discipline, and military dressing 21–25; first day of 10, 12–13, 15, 16; flogging 14, 23; general duty soldiers 9; guns 18–19; hazing 16, 18; head shaving 15, 16; human faeces, handling 16; humour 101; initiation 15; and manhood 15; military grammar 11; obstacle crossing 20; and pain 16, 19; range shooting 19–20, 56–57; role dispossession 13; running exercises 17–18, 56; sleep 16, 17; soldiers as killers 12; women recruit soldiers 20 Trapani, A. 75 truck drivers, army 51 Tsvangirai, Morgan 1, 5, 6, 26n1, 40, 58, 62, 64, 65, 70 Turkey, military involvement in politics 60–61 Uganda: desertions in 30; military involvement in politics 28, 61 uniforms, combat 49 United Kingdom, desertions in 30 United States: desertions in 30; sanctions 64 veterans see war veterans village deployments, and barracks 31, 32 violence, political: soldiers as perpetrators of 93, 112; see also desertion/ deserters

130

Index

voting, by soldiers 33–35 Vysma, M. 95 war veterans 59, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 72 Way, P. 74, 75, 80, 81 Wenger, E. 100 Williams, J.A. 36 Winslow, D. 100 women soldiers: bhizhu practice by 52; recruits 20 Woodward, R. 18, 19, 24, 40, 67 Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army (ZANLA) 3, 9, 28, 40, 62 Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) 1, 3, 4, 6, 8, 9, 26n1, 27, 28, 35, 58, 93, 110; and army generals 62, 64, 65, 66; and demotion of soldiers 71; and hunger 57; and political victimisation of soldiers 31, 32, 33–34, 36, 37–38; presidential run-off (2008) 33–34; and promotion of veterans 69, 70; see also politics, military involvement in Zimbabwe African Patriotic Union 3 Zimbabwe African People’s Union (ZAPU) 2, 9

Zimbabwe Army Pay and Records (ZAPAR) 29 Zimbabwe Defence Act (ZDA) see Defence Act Zimbabwe Military Intelligence Corps (ZIC) 29 Zimbabwe National Army (ZNA) 1, 2, 8, 27, 28, 58, 60; and Congo war 44–45; deserters from see desertion/ deserters; distinction between veteran soldiers and junior soldiers 67, 68; formation of 3, 8–9; and loyalty of soldiers 31; political victimisation of soldiers see soldiers, political victimisation of; professional ethics 29; promotion and demotion of soldiers 66–72; and ZANU-PF 66 Zimbabwe National Defence Policy (ZNDP) 77 Zimbabwe Patriotic Revolutionary Army 3 Zimbabwe People’s Revolutionary Army (ZIPRA) 2, 9, 62 Zimondi, Paradzai 62 Zurcher, L.A. 14, 16, 90 Zvinavashe, Vitalis 62