Introduction
One of the major outcomes of Zimbabwe's Fast Track Land Reform Programme (FTLRP), implemented in 2000, was the way it transformed the rural authority structure (Moyo and Yeros 2005; Mujere 2011; Mkodzongi 2013). During the FTLRP, chiefs and war veterans became prominent in the rural polity owing to their role in leading land occupations (Chaumba, Scoones, and Wolmer 2003; Sadomba 2010). In some places local state structures such as Village Development Committees (VIDCOs) and Ward Development Committees (WADCOs), created post-independence in 1980 (Alexander 2006), became subordinated to war veterans and chiefs. However, the relationship between the two groups was dynamic. In some places customary authority was ‘usurped by war veterans’ (Chaumba, Scoones, and Wolmer 2003, 3) while in others the ‘authority and institution of chiefdom was not challenged’ (Moyo et al. 2009, 149).
The emergence of these local actors as part of a new rural authority structure (Mkodzongi 2013) has had a bearing in the way authority over land is claimed and exercised by the state and customary authorities. In some cases, the FTLRP has bolstered customary authority over land in Newly Resettled Areas (NRAs) formerly outside their jurisdiction.
Various studies (Alexander 2003; Chaumba, Scoones, and Wolmer 2003; Hammar 2003; Moyo and Yeros 2005; Sadomba 2010) sought to investigate the dynamics of rural authority post-FTLRP but mainly focused on war veterans’ role in leading land occupations during the FTLRP. Only a few studies (Moyo and Yeros 2005, 2007; Mujere 2011; Mkodzongi 2013) investigated the role of customary authorities, who together with war veterans led land occupations and allocated land as members of District Land Committees (DLCs) alongside local state bureaucrats (councillors and District Administrators). A few studies (Mujere 2011; Mkodzongi 2013) have highlighted how chiefs have become key players in the rural polity owing to their ability to deploy ancestral autochthony to recast their authority over NRAs. Chiefs have utilised the Traditional Leaders Act (Chapter 20: 17), which stipulates that all resettlement areas should be placed under relevant traditional chiefs or headmen. The ongoing indigenisation of foreign-owned mining companies popularised by the Zimbabwe African National Union Patriotic Front (ZANU PF) political party has further strengthened and popularised customary authority. In some places such as the Mhondoro Ngezi District, chiefs have become powerful political figures responsible for multimillion-dollar Community Share Ownership Trusts (CSOTs) created under the indigenisation programme. This new status is different from that which obtained immediately after Zimbabwe's independence in 1980 when the state sought to replace the chiefs with so-called democratic local state structures (Alexander 2006).
This new trajectory in the relationship between the state and customary authorities is yet to be fully investigated. Ethnographic data gathered from the Mhondoro Ngezi case study show that conflicts have emerged among the chiefs and with the state over how authority over land is claimed and exercised. The indigenisation of the Zimbabwe Platinum Mines (Zimplats) mining company in Mhondoro Ngezi has further intensified such conflicts centred on who owns the land endowed with platinum and who should control the CSOT.
This article utilises the political dynamics surrounding the indigenisation of Zimplats to show how authority over land is contested between the state and local chiefs. It relies on ethnographic data gathered in the Mhondoro Ngezi District of Zimbabwe to challenge some generalisations about the role of customary authority in post-colonial Africa, popularised by Mamdani (1996, 1999) in his pioneering work on the legacy of indirect rule. The article concludes by arguing that a nuanced approach, relying on a diversity of epistemologies based on empirical evidence, should be adopted in the way customary authority is conceptualised in post-colonial Africa.
Dynamics of rural authority after FTLRP
The truth is the government is going to give a lot of power to the chiefs. (Zimbabwe Deputy Minister of Local Government, quoted in Vijfhuizen and Makora 1998)
The FTLRP opened up former white-owned Large Scale Commercial Farms (LSCF) to customary authorities. The chiefs were important political actors during its implementation at district level. They emerged as key players within the rural polity with the ability to extend their jurisdiction to newly resettled areas, despite the earlier attempts by the government in the 1980s to dilute their authority through the creation of ‘democratic’ local state structures of authority such as VIDCOs, WADCOs and Rural District Councils (RDCs).
Since independence, the role of customary authority in rural administration has undergone dynamic changes worth examining to contextualise their current role in the rural polity. In the first decade of Zimbabwe's independence (1980–1990), state-making involved, inter alia, the creation of VIDCOs, WADCOS and RDCs as a way of ‘democratising’ the countryside after the liberation war (Tshuma 1997). At independence, ZANU PF village committees had assumed the role of rural administration after the retreat of the colonial state during the liberation war (Lan 1985; Ranger 1985). Before their disbandment, village committees exercised judicial authority and allocated land (Lan 1985, 210). Although these committees enjoyed local popular support, they were viewed by the new government as undemocratic and hence to be replaced by democratically elected local state structures.
The new government also proposed democratising the countryside by taking away the judicial and land-allocating power of chiefs, headman and kraal heads, thus making them ‘redundant’ in rural administration (Tshuma 1997, 87). According to Alexander (2006, 108), ‘in 1981, the Customary Law and Primary Courts Act replaced chiefs’ and headman's courts with elected presiding officers; in 1982, the Communal Lands Act gave district councils authority over land allocation, thus displacing the Tribal Land Authorities.’ In addition, a 1984 Prime Minister's Directive created village and ward development committees (Tshuma 1997, 86). The amalgamation in 1988 of ‘Rural District Councils (responsible for LSCF areas) and the District Councils (responsible for communal areas [CAs]) through the Rural District Councils Act, effectively subordinated traditional leaders under RDCs’ (Moyo et al. 2009, 146).
However, government policy towards traditional leaders was generally ‘ambivalent’ from the start (Tshuma 1997). On one hand, chiefs were being weakened and subordinated to RDCs, while on the other, policy pronouncements by politicians and government officials signalled the intention to ‘maintain state-backed custom’ (Alexander 2006, 163). According to, Tshuma (1997, 87), the ‘Lancaster House Constitution reserved 10 seats in the Senate for chiefs (section 33 (1) (c)’, and even after the abolition of the senate in 1989, the Constitution reserved 10 seats for chiefs. In addition, chiefs continued to be recognised in the Constitution with a responsibility to ‘perform the duties or functions as a traditional head of the community’ (Ibid., 87). Moreover, despite the withdrawal of their land-allocating authority, the salaries of traditional leaders were maintained; they were also allowed to sit as ex officio members of RDCs. They were better paid than elected councillors. The VIDCOs, who did all the ‘dirty work', did not get any salaries. This de facto rejuvenation of traditional authority was resented by local ZANU PF leaders, who viewed them as ‘undemocratic’ as ‘they were not elected by the masses’ (Alexander 2006, 110). However, efforts to dilute the authority of traditional leaders faced many hurdles. Although stripped of their land-allocating authority, they continued to enjoy popularity among their subject communities who continued to recognise their land-allocating powers.
While VIDCOs were meant to represent democratic decision making at a local level, they faced a wide variety of challenges which made their role in the countryside difficult. Although they were expected to implement government policy, they lacked real authority as they continued to rely on the central state for their funding and decision making (Alexander 2006). This undermined their ability to discharge duties. As William Munro (1998, 285) argued:
the reliance placed by the government on establishing VIDCOs and WADCOs as a fundamental nexus of control and consent in ‘capturing’ the countryside was more than a daring exercise in grassroots democracy. Its foundations lay in the relationship between an essentially coercive state attempt to reorganise rural society and the tenuousness of state hegemony in the countryside.
The result was that the creation of VIDCOs and RDCs led to an ‘institutional melange’ (Tshuma 1997, 90), all with competing authority over land. More importantly, chiefs remained key in rural administration allocating land, a role withdrawn and vested in RDCs.
In the 1990s, political developments in the countryside brought back traditional leaders to the centre of rural politics. Their position in rural administration was officially rejuvenated through the Traditional Leaders Act (Moyo et al. 2009, 147). There were many motivating factors for the ‘resurgence’ of traditional authority. These included, inter alia, rising poverty in the countryside due to recurrent droughts, landlessness and withdrawal of state support due to budgetary constraints associated with structural adjustment. The spectacular failure of World Bank-sponsored neoliberal macro-economic reforms in the early 1990s had the effect of undermining the legitimacy of the ZANU PF government among a restive peasantry. It thus co-opted the traditional leaders considered better placed than VIDCOs to mobilise the rural population in support of the ZANU PF political party, especially during elections (Moyo and Yeros 2007).
The onset of land occupations in 2000 which marked the implementation of FTLRP further emboldened customary authority. Chiefs in collaboration with war veterans became dominant political actors in the countryside leading land occupations and as members of DLCs. Where local state bureaucrats had assumed a prominent role in rural governance, they were once again subordinated to chiefs. Empirical data gathered in Gutu, Masvingo Province (Mujere 2011) and in Mhondoro Ngezi, Mashonaland West Province (Mkodzongi 2013) demonstrate that chiefs have instrumentalised ancestral autochthony as way of claiming land in the NRAs. Similarly, Moyo and Yeros (2007, 111) have highlighted how during the land reform, traditional leaders sought to influence the land reform policy ‘to the effect of extending their territorial control into contiguous resettlement areas'.
The authority of chiefs over land was further strengthened when the government officially allowed them to extend their authority to NRAs. According to Murisa (2013, 14), ‘in 2003, the Government of Zimbabwe (GoZ) issued a directive on local government which stated that, in terms of the Traditional Leaders Act (Chapter 20: 17), all resettlement areas shall be placed under relevant traditional chiefs or headmen’ (GoZ 2003, 4). This constitutional amendment gave chiefs the right to claim authority over NRAs and to appoint their proxies as headmen in the new territories. Furthermore, chiefs benefited materially from their new status and support from ZANU PF. They were given cars, tractors and farming implements for their role in mobilising rural populations in support of the land reform and the ZANU PF political party (Moyo and Yeros 2007).
More recently, the authority of chiefs was further enhanced by Zimbabwe's ongoing indigenisation of foreign-owned mining companies. As the ‘custodians’ of the land endowed with precious minerals, they have assumed an important role in the indigenisation of mines, and were central at state-sponsored events such as the official launching of Community Share Ownership Trusts (CSOTs). This has helped to legitimise chiefly claims of being varidzi venyika (owners of the land) to the general public and to the owners of mining companies operating in their territories. Chiefs are thus demanding a broader role in the implementation of the indigenisation programme (New Zimbabwe.com, February 24, 2012).
The importance of chiefs in the indigenisation process and rural politics is demonstrated by the fact that foreign-owned mining companies now have to consult them before starting any new extractive operations. Empirical data gathered in Mhondoro Ngezi show how local chiefs have instrumentalised their position as ‘representatives’ of their ancestors who must be consulted by mining companies before starting operations.
Chiefs have argued that mining interferes with makuva emhondoro (graves of royal ancestors) and can cause misfortunes such as accidents (even at mines) and droughts. Thus, the chiefs have demanded that rituals to appease such mhondoro should be done before mining starts. While these quasi-official rituals are embedded in local custom, chiefs have instrumentalised them to their benefit. These rituals are often contested among the chiefs within a locality, who compete to prove that they are the ‘genuine autochthon’ with a legitimate claim over the land endowed with minerals.
Interviews with chiefs and headman in Mhondoro Ngezi show that ritual performance has thus become an instrument to legitimise one's claim over land and exclude others. Since big money is involved in indigenisation particularly of mines, it is lucrative to be recognised as the ‘genuine autochthon’ as this entails being offered chiuchiro cha mambo (financial token of appreciation to the chief) and other material gifts by such mining companies. The dynamics of these autochthonic conflicts are explored further below.
Contested claims of ancestral autochthony in Mhondoro Ngezi
In Mhondoro Ngezi, three chiefs resident in the Communal Area (CA) took advantage of the FTLRP to recast their authority over ‘ancestral lands’ opened up by the programme. Although these chiefs have largely remained in the Mhondoro Ngezi CA, they have devised ways to claim authority over newly resettled land in former white farms. Chief Nyika acquired an A1 plot (villagised model) at the former Rockbar Ranch, where he built a second home but maintained his old home in the Mhondoro Ngezi CA. He now straddles between the two locations holding court sessions at both places. Chiefs Benhura and Ngezi did not acquire any land in the NRAs but remained in the Mhondoro Ngezi CA. However, they have made territorial claims over the NRAs. Both chiefs have devised creative ways of demonstrating ‘effective’ rule or ‘beneficial occupation’ (James 2006). Chief Benhura informally appointed his uncle who was allocated land at the former Damvuri Conservancy to act as a headman with authority to regularly hold court sessions.
In 1999, just before the onset of the land occupations, Chief Ngezi is reported to have conducted a spiritual cleansing ceremony at the future site of the Zimplats mines on the Mulota hills in the NRAs. According to reports in the local media, the chief conducted a bira (a ritual thanking ancestors) at the site of makuva emhondoro (ancestral graves) by the chemakudo shrine where he claims his ancestors are interred. The ritual was necessary to appease the spirits and to avoid ‘the wrath of the ancestors in the Mulota Hills’ (The Herald, May 27, 2007). Some informants interviewed argued that the ritual was controversial since it was meant to demonstrate that Chief Ngezi is a genuine ‘autochthon’ with a strong connection with the land where the mine is located and hence would benefit materially from such recognition (interview with Jeche at Damvuri, 12 September 2010). Both chiefs Nyika and Benhura boycotted the ritual, which they saw as a political ploy by Chief Ngezi to prejudice them of their nzvimbo (lands). They argued that as a Muuyi ‘stranger’, Chief Ngezi's ancestors had no spiritual power to cause accidents at the mine.
Since the mining operations began in 2000, kupira vadzimu (ancestral appeasing ceremonies) at the Zimplats mine are fiercely contested among the three chiefs from the Mhondoro Ngezi CA. These rituals have ignited debates about who is muridzi wenyika, ‘genuine autochthon', among the chiefs and hence who should be compensated by the mine for its operations. The mine has had to deal with political pressure from these chiefs, each claiming to be the ‘genuine’ owner of the land. It was forced to build houses for all the chiefs and to periodically invite them to attend major events at the mine such as the commissioning of new equipment and expansion projects. These visits often involve chiefs being given material gifts in acknowledgement of their ownership of the land and mineral resources. Given the conflicts among the three chiefs, the mining company has had to play a complex political balancing act, making sure that it does not alienate any chief in favour of others to protect its business interests, as noted by a Zimplats employee:1
The chiefs are benefiting from mining as Zimplats has built them houses. The problem is that all the chiefs claim to be the owner of this area. This means the mine has to make sure they are all looked after to avoid political problems in the future. (Interview with Zimplats employee at Bandawe, 26 September 2010)
Conflicts among the chiefs over the ownership of the NRAs are further complicated by the vague historical boundaries among the three chieftaincies which are loosely marked by two rivers (Ngezi and Muzvezve). These rivers both flow westwards from the Mhondoro Ngezi CA towards the contested territories. Chief Nyika's territory is located to the south of the Ngezi River, which forms a boundary with Chief Benhura's territory, which is located between Ngezi River to the south and Muzvezve River to the north. Chief Ngezi's territory is located to the north of Muzvezve River. The major boundary challenge is that as these chiefs had no jurisdiction over the newly resettled areas before 2000, claims of ownership of such territories are difficult to authenticate without cadastral records. Moreover, histories of colonial land alienation, forced removals and voluntary migrations meant that boundaries of such chieftaincies have constantly changed as more land was alienated for European use. This makes it difficult to determine who the ‘genuine autochthon’ is among the three chiefs. Moreover, the government has generally been reluctant to demarcate such territories for fear of giving chiefs too much political power over the countryside.
The question of who owns the newly resettled territories depends on who you are talking to and their place of origin before the land reform. For example, during an interview, the headman representing Chief Benhura, based at the former Damvuri Conservancy in the NRAs, strongly argued that the land between the Ngezi and Muzvezve rivers was designated Benhura territory by the colonial authorities. According to such claims, the Benhura territory stretches from the boundary with Chief Mushava's territory to the east and down towards the west by the Bulawayo road near the town of Kadoma. However, such a claim is contested by the other two chiefs.
Chief Nyika claims to be a ‘paramount’ chief responsible for the area dating back to the colonial era. In an interview with a local paper (The Herald, October 8, 2011), he argued that:
I was the first chief in Mhondoro and all the others were all headmen who reported to me. It is sad that they are now neglecting me, yet I should be their overseer.
These contested claims among the chiefs demonstrate the problematic nature of autochthony since it is difficult to identify who is a genuine autochthon and who is not (Gershiere 2009). It is important to note that although chiefs can constitutionally make claims over land in the newly resettled areas, the government of Zimbabwe has been reluctant to survey and demarcate such territories in order to address local contestations over boundaries. Another challenge faced by chiefs in their quest to extend their influence to the NRAs is that most people in these areas were given land by the state rather than the chiefs. Such people have a direct relationship with the state, unlike their counterparts in communal areas. This means that in order to entrench and legitimise their authority, chiefs should first win the allegiance of their new subjects with whom most lack kinship. Many of these land beneficiaries came from areas further away from the Mhondoro Ngezi CA.
This nuanced situation shows that, although chiefs have become influential political actors after the land reform, they must manoeuvre around numerous bottlenecks to legitimise their claims over new territories. Again, local contestations over NRAs are entangled with wider state claims over land and natural resources under its indigenisation programme.
‘Indigenising’ the Zimplats mining company
The former white-owned commercial farms of Mhondoro Ngezi resettled under the FTLRP are located on the Great Dyke, a 550-kilometre-long layered geological complex known to contain Platinum Group Metals (PGM) and base metal deposits. The Zimplats mines are located on the Hartley Geological Complex (in Mhondoro Ngezi), the largest of the PGM-bearing complexes containing 80% of the known PGM resources in Zimbabwe (Impala Platinum 2014). In 2012, Zimplats was forced to comply with Zimbabwe's indigenisation and economic empowerment regulations. A brief background to Zimbabwe's indigenisation programme is necessary before exploring the political dynamics and conflicts which have underpinned its implementation.
Indigenisation discourse in Zimbabwe has a long history (Moyo 1994). According to Moyo (2000, 152), ‘the ideology of “indigenisation” or “affirmative action” argues against racially determined legacy of privilege and relatively better capacities to exploit Zimbabwe's land resources.’ In the neoliberal macro-economic context of the early 1990s, the black elite lobbied the state to facilitate their entry into various sectors of the economy dominated by a minority white elite. However, the lobby had limited influence over macro-economic policy formulation until the late 1990s when indigenisation gained some salience in Zimbabwean politics. The onset of fast track land reform in 2000 and the political environment that emerged, underpinned by an inflationary environment, Western hostility and sanctions, gave traction to this lobby. It forced a radicalised state (Moyo and Yeros 2005, 2007) to restructure property relations in favour of local ownership. It is within this context that in 2010, the indigenisation and economic empowerment regulations became law and legally enforceable.
According to a government of Zimbabwe General Notice (114 of 2011), ‘all mining businesses must achieve 51% share disposal to designated entities among which are the Sovereign Wealth Fund, the National Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment Fund, the Zimbabwe Mining Development Corporation, Community Share Ownership Trusts and Employee Share Ownership Trusts.’ Since 2012, various CSOTs were officially launched by the Zimbabwean president. The Ministry of Youth, Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment's Community Trust Brief (MYIEE 2013) states that ‘CSOTs are an effective mechanism through which the greater majority of indigenous Zimbabweans can participate directly in and benefit from the country's rich economy and its vast natural resources.'
Indigenisation has been a contested process both at local and national levels. First, newly created CSOTs have become a source of conflicts among local people, customary authorities and the state. These conflicts are underpinned by gender, class and ethnicity. Second, the multimillion-dollar CSOTs have generated a crisis of expectations particularly among local people living near mines. Such people expect that revenue generated from indigenisation of mines will address their immediate socio-economic challenges such as procurement of farming inputs, employment and the provision of social infrastructure which the government of Zimbabwe has not been able to provide. Lastly, indigenisation has been criticised by civic groups aligned to the opposition political party, the Movement for Democratic Change, for being a partisan policy meant to benefit ZANU PF cronies. This issue is not the focus of this article but the local contestation surrounding the indigenisation of Zimplats.
As noted earlier, the indigenisation of the Zimplats has been underpinned by fierce contestations among local people, customary authorities and the state. Such contestations have been widely reported in the media. From 2011, Zimplats was under sustained political pressure to indigenise its operations, and the pressure increased in 2013 just before the harmonised elections. On 11 January 2013, Impala Platinum (Implats), the parent company of Zimplats, gave in to political pressure by agreeing to a non-legally binding term sheet. According to a news release (Implats 2013), the company had concluded a non-binding term sheet in respect of proposed Indigenisation Implementation Plans with the Government of Zimbabwe.
Details of the news release show that ‘the purchase price for the Indigenisation Shares, after taking into account the payment for the release of ground obligation (in lieu of indigenisation credits) is US$971 million’ and that Zimplats would facilitate the transaction by providing vendor financing to the indigenous entities at an interest rate of 10% per annum. ‘The vendor financing will be repaid from 85% of the dividends declared by Zimplats on the Indigenisation Shares’ ( Ibid .). Zimplats further committed to providing seed capital to the Mhondoro-Ngezi, Chegutu, and Zvimba CSOT amounting to US$10 million, of which the first instalment of US$3.3 million was paid to the CSOT in June 2012, and subsequent instalments were paid in 2014. Although Zimplats has paid the US$10 million to the local CSOT, it has not been fully ‘indigenised’ as a legally binding indigenisation package is yet to be finalised. The signing of the non-legally binding agreement has proven to be a source of conflict in ZANU PF and between the government of Zimbabwe and Zimplats. The agreement was initially celebrated by ZANU PF at the official launch of local CSOT, but such celebrations were short-lived as the senior ZANU PF politicians, including President Mugabe, were dismayed by the details of the agreement which emerged later. Their major contention was that Zimplats had in fact ‘sold’ shares to the government of Zimbabwe worth nearly a billion US dollars which had to be repaid with interest. They argued that the government of Zimbabwe, as the sovereign owner of the minerals, could not be expected to ‘buy’ shares, as its ownership of minerals should constitute ‘payment’.
President Mugabe expressed his anger over the agreement with Zimplats when he appeared on national television just before his 89th birthday celebrations in 2013, saying that ‘the problem is that Zimplats gave us 51% shareholding saying they were loaning us the money (for the acquisition of the shares) and then we would have to pay back. That is where our differences are’ (Mataranyika 2013). According to media reports, Saviour Kasukuwere, the then Minister responsible for indigenisation, was rebuked by the president for ‘misinterpreting’ the empowerment regulations (The Independent, September 13, 2013). He was forced to backtrack on all previous agreements he had signed with mining companies (such as Anglo-Platinum and Mimosa) by saying that ‘our resources will constitute payment for the shares because we already have the value of the resources as our fair share of the mines’ (Miningmx, September 11, 2013).
At a more local level, the indigenisation of the Zimplats, in particular the US$10 million seed capital ‘donated’ to the local CSOT, led to conflicts among local people, chiefs and the state. On one hand, local chiefs who contest each other over the ownership of the territory where the mines are located and want control of CSOT. On the other hand, ZANU PF government ministers want to have a bigger say in the setting up and management of the CSOT.
Interviews with local people in Mhondoro Ngezi show that they were generally suspicious of the involvement of government ministers such as Ignatious Chombo (Minister of Local Government) and Saviour Kasukuwere in the setting up of the local CSOT. They believed that these politicians might loot the millions of dollars in the newly created CSOT (Mail & Guardian Online, October 24, 2011). The politicians were viewed as ‘outsiders’ whose interest lay elsewhere, since they did not belong to the local area. As one informant observed during interviews:
We are against people from other places benefiting from platinum mines in our area. Our sons must be the major beneficiaries. These ZANU PF politicians are trying to impose their own people here. We need to fight against outsiders coming here to grab opportunities from us. Our chiefs must resist this invasion by outsiders. (Interview with Tendai at Manyewe Business Centre, 23 October 2010)
Thus a major conflict emerged between local chiefs and ZANU PF politicians. Chief Nyika accused politicians of hijacking the CSOT and looting resources meant to benefit local people. He argued that as the custodian of the ancestral lands where the mine is located, he should have a bigger say in the setting up of the CSOT. One of his major contentions was the appointment of the late Chief Murambwa, whose territory is located further away from the Zimplats mine, as the first chair of the CSOT. Chief Murambwa was seen as an outsider but enjoyed the support of politicians. In protest against the ‘government'-initiated CSOT, Chief Nyika attempted to create a rival CSOT called the Mhondoro Ngezi Community Development Trust, as he argued that he did not want to be part of a trust initiated by politicians who did not ‘belong’ to the area. He accused the politicians of sidelining him, a ‘paramount’ chief and the legitimate ‘custodian’ of the territory, by appointing an ‘outsider’ to lead the trust.
Struggles over the control of the CSOT eventually forced the government to concede to his demands by agreeing that the chairmanship of the CSOT should be rotated among all the chiefs from Mhondoro Ngezi on an annual basis. The conflict between the chief and the minister of local government, Ignatious Chombo, whose ministry is responsible for traditional leaders, demonstrates that indigenisation of mining companies has created tension among chiefs and the state. Chiefs believe that since the minerals are located in their ancestral territory, they must have a bigger say over how revenue generated from indigenisation should be used to develop rural areas under their jurisdiction. Interviews with local chiefs show that they are not in agreement among themselves, but often united especially when challenging state claims over land and natural resources. During an interview, Chief Benhura argued that:
As local people, we must unite and resist outside interference. These politicians from outside are trying to bring conflict among local chiefs by using divide and rule tactics. We must protect our minerals, they are our children's inheritance. (Interview with Chief Benhura at Manyewe, 23 October 2010)
The minister of local government and other senior ZANU PF politicians have thus taken advantage of the internal disagreement and deployed a divide and rule tactic, supporting some chiefs and sidelining others as a way of controlling the management of the CSOT.
An important point to highlight here based on data gathered in Mhondoro Ngezi is that chiefs are socially differentiated; this has implications in the way they negotiate with the state. In Mhondoro Ngezi, some chiefs are educated, wealthy and politically connected. A good example was the late Chief Murambwa, who was a member of the Chiefs Council, which has political influence in ZANU PF and government. This explains why he was favoured by politicians during the creation of the Mhondoro Ngezi CSOT. Others such as Benhura, Nyika and Ngezi are relatively poor and have limited political influence. This shows that when analysing the role of chiefs in the countryside, one must take into account class dynamics which influence the way they engage with the state. Despite this social differentiation, chiefs generally have leverage over politicians and the state, particularly when it comes to elections. Chiefs can influence the voting patterns of their subjects, and thus are important to have at one's side. It is this instrumentality of their influence during elections that they have used to pressure the state to make concessions.
Although Chief Nyika was eventually forced to abandon his own trust and later joined the government-supported one, his protests against elite capture forced the government to democratise the management committee of the CSOT by annually rotating the chair among the chiefs. The conflict between chiefs and ZANU PF government ministers such as Ignatious Chombo and Saviour Kasukuwere over the indigenisation of Zimplats demonstrates that there is a form of symbiotic relationship between the chiefs and the state which is rather dynamic. Although the state has allowed chiefs to claim authority over land in NRAs, it has been reluctant to allow them too much leverage over the countryside.
Another dynamic to the indigenisation process in Mhondoro Ngezi largely ignored in the debates is how discourses of local ownership of natural resources popularised by the ZANU PF political party have generated natural resource activism among local people. In Mhondoro Ngezi, a grassroots lobby against elite capture of the benefits of indigenisation has emerged. This lobby is led by local chiefs and war veterans who are contesting state claims over land and natural resources, by arguing that such resources are located in their ancestral lands and hence should benefit their people, as noted by a local war veteran during an interview:
The land reform liberated our land and natural resources which had been stolen from us by whites. Foreign-owned mining companies must accept our conditions. If they don't want they must ship out. We want mining to benefit local people especially our youths. (Interview with war veteran leader at Bandawe, 23 October 2010)
As a result of the lobby, local chiefs and ZANU PF councillors have an agreement with the Zimplats mining company to hire an agreed quota of its labour force from the local community. Under this agreement, unemployed youths are encouraged to register with the chief and the local councillor, who in turn send that list to the mine. When employment opportunities arise, people on the list are given first preference. As a result of this local affirmative action, a large number of local youths are now employed at the mine as wage labourers. This local lobby has not only targeted Zimplats, but also played an important role in making sure that the US$10 million donated to the local CSOT is not looted by politicians by pressuring them to democratise the activities of the CSOT. The role of chiefs in challenging elite corruption and protecting the economic interests of their subjects has earned them legitimacy and popularity locally. This is despite the fact that they are not democratically elected. The above shows the nuanced role of customary authority in rural governance which is often ignored in literature which tends to depict them as undemocratic remnants of colonial rule (Mamdani 1996, 1999).
Lastly, as a result of political pressure from the ZANU PF party and from local people, Zimplats was forced to undertake a wide range of corporate social responsibility programmes worth approximately US$184 million (according to Zimplats Public Relations Brief, 2013). These programmes have helped to empower women. For example, the mine provided seed capital to local women to start a brick-moulding cooperative, and later awarded a tender to supply bricks to the mine for the construction of staff quarters. The mine has also built schools, roads and clinics and sunk boreholes in the wider Mhondoro Ngezi District. Moreover, it has also been forced to ‘indigenise’ its supply chain by giving ‘local businesses opportunities to supply goods and services to the company’ (Ibid.). As a result, local companies have been awarded contracts to construct roads, dams and employee houses under its Phase II growth project. This shows that although indigenisation is a contested process, underpinned by class, ethnicity and gender, it has brought benefits to local farmers and businesses at a time when the government cannot support them. Customary authorities have thus played a key role in lobbying the state to democratise the indigenisation process on behalf of their subject communities, although they have also materially benefited from the process (Moyo and Yeros 2007).
Re-imagining customary authority in the context of Zimbabwe's land reform: conceptual issues
The Mhondoro Ngezi case study provides a nuanced analysis of how authority is claimed and exercised by the state and customary authority in the aftermath of the land reform. The political dynamics surrounding the indigenisation of the Zimplats shows that, despite their ability to utilise ancestral autochthony to make claims over newly resettled land, chiefs must remain loyal to the state in order to legitimise such claims.
Among their subjects, chiefs must be seen to be supporting local economic development for them to gain loyalty. This means that sometimes chiefs are forced to challenge state hegemony over the countryside in order to protect the economic interests of their subject communities. This local phenomenon might be difficult to generalise, but is however important conceptually. It challenges some generalisations popularised by Mamdani (1999) when he argued that governing the ‘natives’ entailed the creation of ‘an all-embracing state enforced custom which gave tradition a markedly authoritarian content’ (871). According to this analysis, indirect rule created a ‘bifurcated’ state based on a dualistic legal structure with modern law on one hand which governed the lives of citizens, mostly whites, and on the other hand, a customary law which governed the relations amongst ‘native’ subjects. A key feature of this legal dualism which Mamdani called ‘decentralised despotism’ is that it ‘distinguished the African from other colonial subjects' as one containerised in a world of state-enforced ‘custom’, not as racialised ‘native’ but as an ethnicised ‘tribesperson’ (870).
Mamdani's analysis of the system of indirect rule in sub-Saharan Africa has demonstrated the instrumentality of customary authority to colonial rule. However, there are two major challenges associated with his analysis of the concept of ‘decentralised despotism’ (Ibid.). The first one, which is connected to the second, is the depiction of customary authority as ‘all-embracing’. While there is no doubt that indirect rule was a brutal affair, Mamdani's analysis gives too much agency to the institution of customary authority without taking into account the various forms of ‘weapons of the weak’ (Scott 1986) which were deployed by subjects to resist coercive labour and agricultural practices. The totalitarian nature of indirect rule has been questioned by various scholars; in his study of indirect rule in South Africa, Myers (2008, 1) argued that
Mamdani describes indirect rule as a form of decentralised despotism, yet in South Africa indirect rule was not aimed simply at the development or operation of blunt, brute tyranny. What characterised the system of indirect rule … in South Africa was its central position in a strategy designed to build legitimacy for the colonial and segregationist states.
In her study of indirect rule in Mozambique, O'Laughlin (2000, 8) argued that ‘the institutions of local governance were certainly dualistic in their conception, yet in practice the boundaries of political spheres are overlapping and fuzzy, and the world they defined was never as bifurcated as Mamdani suggests.’ Lastly, in her study based in Zimbabwe, Alexander (2006, 7) has also argued that:
the modes of domination central to Rhodesian rule … were contradictory and often unsuccessful … Africans were aware of the range of competing clams of legitimacy of the state made … they were not trapped in an ethnic box … they had other sources of inspiration besides ideas about democracy and rights and nationalism which were combined in novel and subversive ways.
These studies show that indirect rule was far from ‘all-embracing’, and such a generalisation does not fully capture the dynamics of colonial rule as they unfolded in often complex and dynamic political contexts.
The second problem is associated with the way Mamdani (1996, 289) conceptualises customary authority in post-colonial Africa. In his conclusions, he argues that:
Mainstream nationalists who inherited the central state at independence understood colonial oppression as first and foremost an exclusion from civil society … they aimed to redress these wrongs through deracialization internally and anti-imperialism externally … in the absence of detribalization of rural power … deracialization could not be joined to democratization. In an urban centred reform, the rural contained the urban. The tribal logic of native authorities easily overwhelmed the democratic logic of civil society. Simply put, an electoral reform that does not affect the appointment of native authority and its chiefs – which leaves rural areas out of consideration as so many protectorates – is precisely about the re-emergence of decentralised despotism!
Yet the situation on the ground across post-colonial Africa hardly fits the above analysis. The explicit claim that ‘decentralised despotism’ has persisted after the end of colonial rule tout court leaves a lot of questions unanswered, both methodologically and conceptually. Is customary authority frozen in space and time? Does the mere presence of chiefs in the countryside in post-colonial Africa denote the absence of democracy? Do chiefs in post-colonial Africa wield the kind of authority and control over their subjects to warrant the claim of the persistence of decentralised despotism? These are certainly important conceptual questions that need to be addressed before one can make any sweeping generalisations. As Chabal and Daloz (1999, 51) argued, ‘it is not a matter of making some vague generalisation … but more simply a matter of observing carefully everyday political facts in their variegated manifestations.'
Studies undertaken across sub-Saharan Africa show that the role of customary authority after the end of colonial rule varies significantly from one region to the other and from one country to the other (O'Laughlin 2000; Fanthorpe 2006; Alexander 2006; Ubink and Quan 2008; Berry 2009). Such studies also show that in many countries, chiefs have largely been weakened and are far from being village despots (O'Laughlin 2000; Alexander 2006; Berry 2009). Claims that ‘the hierarchy of the local state apparatus – of chiefs who enforced customary law in Native Authorities – continued after independence as before it and that it has been reproduced unproblematically as part of tradition’ (Mamdani 1999, 877) are problematic. Depicting chiefs as simply undemocratic remnants of colonial rule without taking into account the nuanced political contexts in which they operate is bound to cause both methodological and conceptual challenges.
The Mhondoro Ngezi case study shows that although chiefs regained their prestige and influence in rural politics, they play a difficult balancing act of protecting the interests of their subject communities against predatory political elites while at the same time supporting state projects that might be unpopular locally. The conflict between the chiefs and the state over the indigenisation of Zimplats shows that the relationship between the two is dynamic and influenced by local politics. The trajectory of customary authority captured by Mamdani (1999) which depicts the chief as an enforcer of tradition with his clenched fist in post-colonial Africa is difficult to apply to this local context.
Conclusions
In the aftermath of the land reform, authority over land and mineral resources has been contested between the customary authorities and the state. This local experience is difficult to generalise but is crucial to how customary authority is conceptualised in post-colonial Africa. Chiefs have deployed ancestral autochthony as a way of claiming authority over newly resettled areas, while the state has sought to claim a hegemonic role in the countryside regulating access to land and natural resource utilisation. The conflict between customary authorities and the state highlights that chiefs can play an important role of lobbying the state on behalf of their subject communities and in challenging elite capture of resources meant to benefit local people. Again, this local experience shows that chiefs should not be depicted as simply undemocratic remnants of colonial rule as claimed by Mamdani (1996) as that could be misleading. The relationship between the state and customary authority is dynamic, and is largely influenced by local politics.