(New York Times)After months of violence, negotiation, pressure and reluctant compromise, opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai was sworn in on Wednesday as the prime minister of a Zimbabwean government in which his nemesis, President Robert G. Mugabe, still dominates the repressive state security forces.
The moment on the grounds of Zimbabwe’s state house in Harare, once the seat of colonial power in the formerly British-run territory, brought an inconclusive and ambiguous end to almost 11 months of confrontation and wrangling. Mr. Tsvangirai had claimed victory in elections last March, only to be declared the loser in a discredited run-off last June that he boycotted because of political violence. Mr. Mugabe was the only other candidate.
Shortly after the ceremony, Mr. Mugabe declared that “if yesterday we were adversaries, today we stand in unity,” Agence France-Presse reported. “We must build on this unity by turning our swords into plowshares,” Mr. Mugabe said.
But in a swipe at widespread human rights abuses in Zimbabwe under Mr. Mugabe’s regime, Mr. Tsvangirai told thousands of supporters at a rally that “political violence must end today.” Click on 'Read More.'
“We can no longer afford brother against brother because one happened to have a different political opinion,” he said, according to Agence France-Presse. “I can assure that the culture of impunity and violation of human rights must end, and it must end today.”
“It hurts that as we celebrate here today there are some who are in prison,” he said, referring to his own detained supporters. “I can assure you that they are not going to remain in those dungeons for any day or any week longer.”
In Wednesday’s ceremony, Mr. Tsvangirai and Mr. Mugabe stood opposite one another in the shade of a white tent bedecked with flowers. As head of state, Mr. Mugabe personally took the oath of office from Mr. Tsvangirai — an exchange that might once have seemed an improbable outcome to their acrimonious struggle.
Invited to take the oath, Mr. Tsvangirai raised his right hand and declared that he would ”well and truly serve Zimbabwe in the office of prime minister.” Around 300 invited dignitaries and diplomats looked on and applauded as the two men briefly clasped hands. Mr. Mugabe said: “Congratulations.” Mr. Tsvangirai offered Mr. Mugabe a fleeting smile.
Since the electoral crisis last year, Mr. Tsvangirai has been under pressure from neighboring countries led by South Africa, the regional power, to enter a government with Mr. Mugabe.
The rivals reached a formal compact to share power last September.
Despite that agreement, Mr. Mugabe and Mr. Tsvangirai fought a bitter political duel over control of key ministries, and the opposition leader failed to secure the influence he said he believed was his due.
Specifically, the two men clashed over control over Zimbabwe’s security forces. Finally, Mr. Tsvangirai dropped his demands for exclusive oversight of the police, agreeing to share control. Mr. Mugabe maintained his grip on other elements of the security forces, which provide crucial sinews of his power.
News reports said one of the guests at the ceremony on Wednesday was Thabo Mbeki, the former South African president, who mediated the September accord.
The presence of a Mugabe adversary in Zimbabwe’s government recalled the very first days of independence from white rule in 1980, when Joshua Nkomo, the leader of a rival nationalist movement during Zimbabwe’s struggle for independence, became the minister of home affairs.
But after a brutal crackdown on his followers in the western Matabeleland area, Mr. Nkomo’s influence was eroded when he was first demoted and then expelled from the government. Over several years, Mr. Nkomo’s party was fused into Mr. Mugabe’s ZANU-PF, leaving Mr. Mugabe to gather power exclusively unto himself. He became the country’s first executive president in 1988 with Mr. Nkomo acting as a largely ineffectual vice president until his death in 1999.
Mr. Tsvangirai finally agreed to join the new government late last month, bringing senior aides with him.
On Tuesday, Mr. Tsvangirai announced he would name Tendai Biti, his party’s secretary general, to serve as finance minister.
Mr. Biti, who has frequently denounced Mr. Mugabe as a dictator whose disastrous economic policies have impoverished the nation, fought against joining a government with Mr. Mugabe within the Movement for Democratic Change, the party Mr. Tsvangirai leads. Only last week, a judge withdrew the treason charges against Mr. Biti that had been derided by civic groups and independent analysts as trumped up.
In a sign of Zimbabwe’s unresolved political tensions — and of the authoritarian reflexes of Mr. Mugabe’s government — riot police Tuesday broke up a peaceful demonstration of some 600 members of Women of Zimbabwe Arise, assaulting some of them and arresting eight women and two lawyers. One elderly woman screamed as she was beaten and thrown into a moving truck. The demonstrators handed out roses and Valentine’s cards to onlookers.
The new government will usher in a different phase in the opposition’s decade-long struggle against Mr. Mugabe, 84.
Mr. Tsvangirai now faces the challenge of sharing control of the nation’s police, reviving Zimbabwe’s moribund economy and rescuing an increasingly famished, sick and impoverished population with a partner, Mr. Mugabe, whose security forces have viciously beaten Mr. Tsvangirai and thousands of his supporters over the past two years.
Even as the power-sharing talks were taking place, Mr. Mugabe’s government abducted dozens more opposition supporters, many of whom said they had been tortured.
Acknowledging the ambivalence of many of his supporters — and perhaps his own, as well — Mr. Tsvangirai said in a statement last month that the fight for democracy “is neither easy nor straightforward, and often we have had to change the fronts on which we wage the struggle.”
