ABSTRACT
Former guerrillas who fought in Zimbabwe’s liberation war have played a prominent role in postwar politics since independence in 1980. In 1997, veterans engaged in high-profile, and often violent, street protests. With the tacit support of their colleagues who commanded the police and the army, ex-guerrillas threatened to remove President Mugabe unless he met their demands for state recognition of their liberation war services. President Mugabe conceded a gratuity of Z$50,000 (the ex-guerrillas had demanded ten times more) and a monthly pension of Z$2,000 for each of an estimated total of 50,000 ex-combatants, free education and health services for ex-combatants and their dependents, funds for business projects, funeral expenses, and 20 percent of future land resettlement plots. By local standards, the monetary payments were generous—70 percent of the urban population at the time earned less than Z$2,000 per month, and some skilled workers earned Z$50,000 in a year (Kriger 2005: 261-262). The gratuities cost more than twice total government funding on land reform, a major government policy objective, since 1980 (Selby 2006: 246, 255).
