By IPS Correspondents
BULAWAYO, Mar 4 2004 (IPS)

A silent revolution, with far-reaching political and social implications, is underway in Zimbabwe. In many divisions of the public service including the judiciary, and state-run companies, military men are on the ascendant.

Their upward march is so swift and focused that one member of their ranks is in the running for the position of vice-president, currently vacant. If the appointment goes through, it will place an ex-general in line to succeed President Robert Mugabe.

And the list goes on. The head of Zimbabwe’s dreaded intelligence service is a former brigadier. Two judges are ex-military, and one of the eight provincial governors is a former general.

Other key civilian posts taken up by former soldiers include that of secretary in the Ministry of Transport (the appointee was previously a colonel). The head of the state grain procurement agency, the Grain Marketing Board (GMB), is an ex-military man, as is the commissioner of the prison service.

In a cabinet reshuffle last month, Mugabe appointed four soldiers to ministerial or deputy ministerial positions. The military’s tentacles are so widespread that one of the two “assessors” helping a High Court judge decide the fate of opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai has the rank of major. Tsvangirai is currently on trial for allegedly plotting to assassinate Mugabe ahead of the 2002 presidential election.

Less evident – but perhaps more important – is the scope of the military’s influence further down the bureaucratic chain.

Many depot managers at the GMB are ex-soldiers. And since 1998, when the prisons department was turned into a commissioned service similar to the police and army, military men have been appointed in senior positions, much to the chagrin of long-serving officers.

“It’s demoralizing as everyone is looking to be promoted,” remarks a junior prisons officer.

Analysts believe that Mugabe has a variety of goals in appointing soldiers to civilian posts. Political survival is undoubtedly one of his aims – and in this respect the strategy appears to have paid off.

On the eve of the 2002 presidential election, senior officers released a statement saying that the military would not support a president who lacked liberation war credentials – a clear reference to Tsvangirai. Former defence force chief, General Vitalis Zvinavashe, reiterated this partisan stance in his valedictory speech made last December.

Political commentator Themba Dlodlo of the National University of Science and Technology says Mugabe also has his retirement prospects in mind.

“For him to survive after his rule he needs to have these people in power because they are his supporters and they cannot prosecute him for the atrocities he has committed in the country,” Dlodlo told IPS.

As far as opposition member of parliament and shadow Minister of Defence Giles Mutsekwa is concerned, the president’s motives are even more complex. He believes that drawing the military into civilian life has the effect of enmeshing it in Zimbabwe’s political and economic crisis, “so that as the economy collapses, those in the military will also be blamed”.

Since the start of 2000, food production in Zimbabwe has declined significantly – in part because of a controversial programme aimed at redistributing land owned by minority white farmers. Some of this confiscated land has been allocated to black peasant farmers; however, high-ranking officials have also been accused of helping themselves to several of the best properties. Aid agencies are now gearing up to distribute food aid in Zimbabwe for the third successive year.

Other aspects of Zimbabwe’s economy are also in decline, leading to mass unemployment and inflation that tops 600 percent.

But, while officers may be specialists in guns, grenades and fighting battles, they generally lack the skills or training to take over civilian functions. “Why they are allowed to lead these organisations purely because they were generals or colonels, surprises me,” Mutsekwa says.

Dlodlo agrees: “Theirs is a rule by force and that will not lead us anywhere.”

He notes that the ease with which military men have slipped into leading positions may have a lot to do with the fact that the ruling ZANU-PF itself is less a political party than a paramilitary organisation. “You can see from the way they behave, and how they act, they’re still operating as though they’re guerillas.”

Most of Zimbabwe’s top brass are veterans of the 1970’s war against white minority rule and are fiercely loyal to ZANU-PF.

With new recruits to the army now coming from the country’s infamous youth training camps, there appears to be little hope that the military will turn into an impartial body at any point in the near future.

The camps, which have been in existence since 2001, are portrayed by government as places where school leavers are imbued with patriotic values. However, critics maintain the camps are used to transform youths into militants who terrorise government opponents.

Preparations for the 2002 poll and the 2000 parliamentary election were marred by widespread violence, most of it aimed at supporters of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change.

Excerpt: