Zim’s democracy ‘insufficient’: EU ministers
February 23, 2010 by Webmaster · Leave a Comment
IOL – A year into a power-sharing agreement that was supposed to put an end to President Robert Mugabe’s autocratic rule, Zimbabwe has made “insufficient” moves towards democracy, European Union foreign ministers said on Monday.
Last week the EU extended sanctions against the country for another year, renewing an arms embargo and a visa ban and asset freeze against Mugabe and his acolytes.
EU Sanctions on Mugabe and Allies to Stay
February 16, 2010 by Webmaster · Leave a Comment
ZimOnline – MEMBERS of the European Parliament (MEPs) have urged EU ministers meeting today to renew targeted sanctions on President Robert Mugabe and his henchmen to punish them for lack of progress in implementing the global political agreement (GPA).
The GPA is the power-sharing agreement signed in 2008 by Mugabe and former opposition leader and now Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai at the behest of southern African leaders and which gave birth to the Harare coalition government.
On the eve of the meeting by the EU Council of ministers to review the sanctions, Geoffrey Van Hordern, the MEP, who spearheads the European Parliament’s campaign for freedom and democratic change in Zimbabwe and, speaks for many MEPs outraged by Mugabe’s conduct, said the sanctions must be renewed because nothing much has changed in Zimbabwe despite last February’s inauguration of the unity government.
ZANU PF: ‘No more GPA Concessions’ until Sanctions lifted
January 28, 2010 by Webmaster · Leave a Comment
SW Radio - The inter-party negotiations were dealt another serious blow on Wednesday when ZANU PF’s supreme decision making body, the Politburo, said there will be no more Global Political Agreement concessions until the sanctions have been lifted.
Ephraim Masawi, ZANU PF Deputy Secretary for Information and Publicity, is quoted in the Herald saying remarks by British Foreign Secretary David Miliband that, ‘London would remove sanctions at MDC’s request exposed MDC-T’s treacherous role in the initiation and drafting of the illegal sanctions against Zimbabweans.’ The paper went on to say the party was a, ‘tool of Western imperialism, and that the hypocrisy of the MDC-T’s denial of its role in the evil saga of the imposition of illegal sanctions now stands exposed for all to see.’
Commentator Dr. Alex Magaisa said the statements made by the British official have added fuel to already burning embers in the context of Zimbabwe’s fragile political settlement.
He told SW Radio Africa on Thursday that Miliband’s statements were ‘unfortunate,’ and gave an indication that the MDC had the power to influence the lifting of sanctions, thereby giving ZANU PF a wonderful gift, which it is exploiting to the detriment of the GPA.
Canning Seeks to Clarify Miliband’s Statement
January 27, 2010 by Webmaster · Leave a Comment
The Zimbabwe Times – British ambassador to Zimbabwe, Mark Canning has clarified that the British government or the European Union reserved the right to lift targeted restrictive measures that President Mugabe’s party is strongly agitating against, and said Britain would make its own judgment without direction from anyone whether sanctions will be removed or reinforced.
Zanu-PF stepped up the call for the removal of sanctions, which Mugabe claims have serious hurt Zimbabwe’s economy, riding on recent remarks by British foreign secretary David Miliband that the UK government would be guided by advice from Prime Minister Tsvangirai’s party on the issue.
Simon Khaya Moyo, the new Zanu-PF national chairman, installed at the party’s fractious national congress held last December, said the MDC could no longer claim it had no influence over the issue and “must” now call for the removal of the sanctions.
The EU’s Zimbabwe dilemma
September 13, 2009 by Webmaster · Leave a Comment
By Blessing-Miles Tendi
Sanctions let Mugabe blame the west for the country’s ills. But lifting them would leave him free to flout the power-sharing deal.
At a summit last week, southern African leaders called on western states to “remove all forms of sanctions against Zimbabwe“. They contend that Zimbabwe’s power-sharing deal cannot be effectively implemented until sanctions are lifted. The EU and US say sanctions will not be lifted until the power-sharing agreement is appropriately observed.
Disagreement over the imposition of sanctions on Zimbabwe is not new. It goes back to 2002 when, at the request of Britain and some Zimbabwean civil society elements, the EU first imposed targeted sanctions on Robert Mugabe, Zanu-PF elites and companies associated with the Zanu-PF regime. African leaders’ reaction to sanctions at the time was typified by Tanzanian president Benjamin Mkapa’s remarks:
As you have heard about Zimbabwe and the EU’s decision to impose sanctions, it seems they want to divide Africa at Brussels in 2002 just as they did in Berlin in 1884. Africa must be prepared to say no!
Zanu-PF’s response was a determined propaganda effort to cast Morgan Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) as “sell-outs” who campaigned for the imposition of unjustified sanctions that were “racist” and an interference in the country’s internal affairs. Since 2002 Zanu-PF has religiously circulated this message, depicting Tsvangirai’s MDC in cahoots with imperialist western states.
Today Tsvangirai’s MDC is asked to advocate the removal of sanctions because it instigated them, as if Zanu-PF’s human rights violations were never and are not real.
The problem is not necessarily targeted sanctions themselves, because Zanu-PF’s well-documented systematic human rights violations validated them. The trouble is that the west’s condemnations and targeted sanctions against Mugabe and Zanu-PF elites would command more authority if the same human rights standards were applied to every country evenly. This is a reality the high-level EU delegation visiting Zimbabwe this weekend must grapple with.
Sanctions have become a convenient scapegoat for Zanu-PF. Some white Zimbabwean farmers evicted from commercial farms were instructed by invading war veterans to “speak to your George Bush and tell him to drop the sanctions – once this is done you may have your farms back”. The existence of sanctions allows Zanu-PF to argue that Zimbabwe’s breathtaking economic decline was not caused by Zanu-PF’s adoption of a disastrous Economic Structural Adjustment Programme (Esap) in the early 1990s, massive corruption by Zanu-PF elites, an ineptly implemented land reform programme and the country’s 1998 involvement in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), where, as the academic Norma Kriger writes, “in six months the government spent more money on the DRC military venture than it had spent on land purchases since 1980″. Western sanctions that the Tsvangirai MDC canvassed for are the origin of Zimbabwe’s economic debility instead.
While the MDC denies that it ever campaigned for sanctions, its message on the sanctions issue has never been as coherent and consistent as that of Zanu-PF. After the 2000 parliamentary election, MDC MP David Coltart advanced the following rationale as one of the factors behind the MDC’s choice not to enlist civil disobedience to dispute the results of the controversial election:
The international community pleaded with us to hold off on the use of mass action, promising at the same time that if we backed off, they would do all they could to increase pressure on Mugabe
Such statements allowed Zanu-PF to infer that by “pressure” the MDC meant sanctions. Zanu-PF’s propaganda machinery publicised this conjecture as evidence that the Tsvangirai MDC was pro-sanctions. It did not help the MDC’s cause that some of its MPs such as Trudy Stevenson publicly boasted that “we [Tsvangirai's MDC] have good contacts with the international community and Mugabe is going to have to negotiate with us”.
If the EU ends its isolation of Zimbabwe and lifts targeted sanctions, it is left with reduced leverage in influencing Zanu-PF to fully implement the power-sharing agreement. To date Zanu-PF has flouted the terms of the agreement at will, with no significant reform occurring. However, maintaining targeted sanctions provides a fillip for Zanu-PF propaganda, which the Tsvangirai MDC has thus far failed to counter.
Blessing-Miles Tendi is a researcher and freelance writer on contemporary Zimbabwean politics
Human Rights Watch Advises – ‘Keep Targeted Sanctions’
September 2, 2009 by Webmaster · Leave a Comment
SW Radio Africa (London)
By Tichaona Sibanda
The international advocacy group, Human Rights Watch, has urged the international community to maintain targeted travel sanctions and asset freezes against ZANU PF and its leadership.
Human Rights Watch Senior Researcher, Tiseke Kasambala, told us from Johannesburg on Tuesday that the West should only consider lifting the sanctions if there are concrete commitments from Mugabe to implement fully the Global Political Agreement.
‘We believe that ZANU PF and Mugabe are the main obstacles to progress in terms of reforms. Unless there are clear cut reforms in human rights and other contentious areas, there should be no lifting of any targeted sanctions against individuals in ZANU PF,’ Kasambala said.
HRW released a report on Monday titled ‘False Dawn‘, that highlights numerous failures by the inclusive government to implement the GPA, almost a year after Robert Mugabe, Morgan Tsvangirai and Arthur Mutambara signed the deal on 15th September 2008.
With the anniversary of the GPA coming up in two weeks’ time Tsvangirai on Tuesday accused Mugabe of failing to honour an agreement to reverse the appointments of the Central Bank Governor, and the Attorney General, while at the same time not going ahead with the appointment of provincial governors. Briefing journalists in Harare Tsvangirai also accused Mugabe of undermining the GPA through the arrest of several MDC lawmakers.
“Firstly, it is regrettable that the government has not been fully consummated to the extent that not all ministerial holders have been sworn in,’ he said in reference to Roy Bennett, the deputy Agriculture Minister designate, who has not been sworn in since he was nominated by the MDC to the post.
The Prime Minister said the issue of the RBZ Governor and Attorney General and the failure to appoint provincial governors was ‘impacting negatively on the credibility and legitimacy’ of the inclusive government, and should be resolved urgently.
Current SADC chairman, President Jacob Zuma of South Africa, last week called on the coalition partners to fulfill the benchmarks set by donors, to ensure financial assistance to Zimbabwe. The benchmarks include complete implementation of the agreement.
So far, the inclusive government has failed to repeal or amend all national legislation that is incompatible with international and regional human rights law and standards, including the Criminal Law Codification and Reform Act; the Public Order and Security Act (POSA) and the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA).
South Africa’s foreign ministry said on Monday the power-sharing government will top the agenda at a regional summit next week in Kinshasa.
The 15-nation SADC bloc will hold its annual summit on September 7th and 8th in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where South Africa will hand over the chairmanship to the Joseph Kabila of the DRC. Kabila is a close allay of Mugabe and seen as too friendly to reign in the 85 year-old leader.
‘This will be a very important summit,’ South African foreign ministry’s director general Ayanda Ntsaluba said. Zuma is expected to brief the leaders about his visit to Zimbabwe last week, where he reportedly pressured the leaders of the inclusive government to overcome their differences.
Obama extends sanctions against targeted individuals by a year
March 6, 2009 by Webmaster · Leave a Comment
US President Barack Obama
Statement issued by the White House March 4 2009
THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
TO THE CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES:
Section 202(d) of the National Emergencies Act (50 U.S.C. 1622(d)) provides for the automatic termination of a national emergency unless, prior to the anniversary date of its declaration, the President publishes in the Federal Register and transmits to the Congress a notice stating that the emergency is to continue in effect beyond the anniversary date. In accordance with this provision, I have sent the enclosed notice to the Federal Register for publication, stating that the national emergency with respect to the actions and policies of certain members of the Government of Zimbabwe and other persons to undermine Zimbabwe’s democratic processes or institutions is to continue in effect beyond March 6, 2009.
The crisis constituted by the actions and policies of certain members of the Government of Zimbabwe and other persons to undermine Zimbabwe’s democratic processes or institutions has not been resolved. These actions and policies pose a continuing unusual and extraordinary threat to the foreign policy of the United States. For these reasons, I have determined that it is necessary to continue this national emergency and to maintain in force the sanctions to respond to this threat.
BARACK OBAMA
THE WHITE HOUSE,
March 3, 2009.
CONTINUATION OF THE NATIONAL EMERGENCY
WITH RESPECT TO ZIMBABWE
On March 6, 2003, by Executive Order 13288, the President declared a national emergency and blocked the property of persons undermining democratic processes or institutions in Zimbabwe, pursuant to the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (50 U.S.C. 1701-1706). He took this action to deal with the unusual and extraordinary threat to the foreign policy of the United States constituted by the actions and policies of certain members of the Government of Zimbabwe and other persons to undermine Zimbabwe’s democratic processes or institutions. These actions have contributed to the deliberate breakdown in the rule of law in Zimbabwe, to politically motivated violence and intimidation, and to political and economic instability in the southern African region.
On November 22, 2005, the President issued Executive Order 13391 to take additional steps with respect to the national emergency declared in Executive Order 13288 by ordering the blocking of the property of additional persons undermining democratic processes or institutions in Zimbabwe.
On July 25, 2008, the President issued Executive Order 13469, which expanded the scope of the national emergency declared in Executive Order 13288 and ordered the blocking of the property of additional persons undermining democratic processes or institutions in Zimbabwe.
Because the actions and policies of these persons continue to pose an unusual and extraordinary threat to the foreign policy of the United States, the national emergency declared on March 6, 2003, and the measures adopted on that date, on November 22, 2005, and on July 25, 2008, to deal with that emergency, must continue in effect beyond March 6, 2009.
Therefore, in accordance with section 202(d) of the National Emergencies Act (50 U.S.C. 1622(d)), I am continuing for 1 year the national emergency with respect to the actions and policies of certain members of the Government of Zimbabwe and other persons to undermine Zimbabwe’s democratic processes or institutions.
This notice shall be published in the Federal Register and transmitted to the Congress.
BARACK OBAMA
THE WHITE HOUSE,
March 3, 2009.
President Robert Mugabe’s money men
February 5, 2009 by Webmaster · Leave a Comment
 Photo: IRIN  |
| Sanctions target President Mugabe’s money men |
The former captain of the Rhodesian rugby side and an alleged “sanction-buster” for Ian Smith’s white minority government in what is now Zimbabwe, as well as a South African-born businessman wanted in his home country for fraud, are some of the latest additions to the European Union’s (EU) sanctions targeting Zimbabwe’s ruling elite.
John Bredenkamp – appointed rugby captain in 1965, the same year Smith announced Rhodesia’s Unilateral Declaration of Independence from Britain – and 18 of his companies were blacklisted by the EU on 27 January 2009 for his “strong ties to the Government of Zimbabwe … [and providing], including through his companies, financial and other support to the [Zimbabwe] regime.”
The sanctions against Bredenkamp, 68, and Muller Conrad (Billy) Rautenbach, 50, said by the EU to have “strong ties to the Government of Zimbabwe, including through support to senior regime officials during Zimbabwe’s intervention in DRC [Democratic Republic of Congo]” – mark the beginning of a strategy to isolate those seen as propping up President Robert Mugabe’s ZANU-PF government.
The EU has frozen assets, and imposed travel bans on 203 people, from Mugabe to Caesar Zvayi, a journalist working for the government-controlled daily newspaper, The Herald, and has also blacklisted 28 companies based in Zimbabwe, mainland Britain and the tax havens of the Isle of Man, the British Virgin Islands and Cayman Islands.
John Clancy, spokesperson for the European Commission for development and humanitarian aid, told IRIN: “The measures [sanctions] do not impact on the general population of Zimbabwe. They are targeted measures against individuals of the Zimbabwe government and its associates.”
Mugabe blames the sanctions for his country’s economic meltdown. Annual inflation is measured in the sextillions of percent by independent economists, unemployment is running at 94 percent according to the UN, while more than half the country’s citizens require emergency food aid, and a cholera pandemic that shows few signs of abating has killed more than 3,000 people in six months.
Mugabe and his ruling ZANU-PF party have been joined by the Southern African Development Community (SADC), a regional body, and the African Union, in calling for the EU to drop sanctions after a power-sharing government was agreed.
Nelson Chamisa, spokesman for the Movement for Democratic Change, Zimbabwe’s main opposition party, led by Morgan Tsvangirai – who is expected to assume the prime minister’s office on 11 February – told IRIN: “The sanctions are an issue to be resolved between ZANU-PF and the European Union.”
Clancy said the EU supported the “positive move” of the inclusive government, “but it is a little early in the process to say the situation is wholly resolved.”
Any decision to lift sanctions would be taken by the ministers of the EU’s 27 member countries. EU member state missions in the capital, Harare, recommend those eligible for targeted sanctions.
‘I was a Rhodesian; I am now a Zimbabwean’
Bredenkamp was ranked among Britain’s richest people in 2002, with an estimated fortune of US$1 billion. According to the website of one of his blacklisted companies, Breco, he is living in Zimbabwe, having left Britain in 2000.
He “was imprisoned by the Zimbabwe Government in 2006 for alleged passport violations [though he was subsequently acquitted in court] and has recently had his passport withheld by that Government,” the website said.
The EU said Bredenkamp had three passports: one from the Netherlands (expired), one from Zimbabwe and one from Surinam, a former Dutch colony.
Bredenkamp reportedly fell foul of Mugabe in his attempts as king-maker in 2004. He allegedly tried to convince Mugabe to retire and make way for the former security minister Emmerson Mnangagwa, a strategy that underestimated the intensity of the succession race and resulted in a fierce ZANU-PF backlash.
His companies were investigated for tax and exchange control violations and he reportedly fled Zimbabwe in 2006, but on his return he was charged with using a South African passport, in contravention of citizenship laws that do not permit dual nationality. Bredenkamp was born in South Africa.
“I was a Rhodesian; I am now a Zimbabwean. I was a tobacco merchant; I am now an investor in many different sectors,” Bredenkamp says on the Breco website.
 Photo: Wikipedia  |
| John Bredenkamp |
As a “tobacco merchant”, Bredenkamp founded the Casalee Group of companies, which focused primarily on leaf tobacco, in Antwerp, Belgium, in 1976; it also engaged in general trading, with branches in a multitude of countries and tobacco-processing factories in the Netherlands, Zimbabwe, Malawi and Brazil.
By 1993 it had become the world’s fifth largest leaf tobacco merchant and was bought for $100 million by the world’s largest leaf tobacco company, Universal Leaf Tobacco. Brian Murphy, a former Casalee executive in Zimbabwe, said of Bredenkamp in an interview with Sports Illustrated in 1996: “he’s always been an arms dealer.”
Bredenkamp has consistently denied the arms dealer moniker, although a British investigative television programme, broadcast in 1994, claimed that one of his companies sold anti-aircraft guns to Iraq and land mines to Iran during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s.
Mike Pelham, former financial officer of Casalee Zurich, told the television interviewer: “The objective was to arrange an introduction between a supplier and a purchaser. Casalee would do that. The arms would then be transferred from the manufacturer directly to the purchaser and on the deal having been finalized, then a commission would be paid from the manufacturer to the agent, in this case, Casalee.”
In the 1970s, Bredenkamp reportedly broke sanctions imposed by the UN against the white minority government during the liberation war by supplying spare parts for the Hawker Hunter ground-attack aircraft of the Rhodesian air force. These aircraft also saw service during Zimbabwe’s intervention in the DRC in the late 1990s.
“We tend to stay out of politics and get on with our everyday business, but we have to work with governments of the day, just like multinationals the world over – it is naive to suggest that other courses are open to us. It is only by having good working relations with the Zimbabwean government, built up over the last 22 years, that I have been able to engage in constructive criticism,” Bredenkamp says on the Breco website.
Bredenkamp’s name has also been linked to a billion-dollar arms deal in neighbouring South Africa, involving the British arms company BAE, which local commentators say has poisoned the political groundwater of the fledgling democracy.
Muller Conrad Rautenbach, otherwise known as Billy
Billy Rautenbach, another individual identified by the EU as financially supporting Mugabe’s “regime”, fled South Africa in 1999, facing numerous charges of theft, bribery and fraud, and now reportedly lives on a farm near Mazowe, about 70km from the capital, Harare.
His company, Ridgepoint Overseas Developments, registered in the British Virgin Islands, has also been blacklisted by the EU. The South African-born former rally driver, who holds Zimbabwean citizenship, has enjoyed the patronage of Mugabe since the 1990s.
Rautenbach was appointed by DRC President Laurent-Desire Kabila as the chief executive of the state-owned mining company, La Générale des Carrières et des Mines (Gecamines) in 1998. Mobuto Sese Seko, president of the then Zaire, had been deposed the previous year.
Rautenbach’s position at Gecamines was reportedly secured in direct negotiations between Kabila and Mnangagwa, as payback for Zimbabwe’s military backing.
George Forrest, son of Belgian businessman Malta Forrest, replaced Rautenbach as Gecamines chief in 2000 after an apparent spat in which Kabila accused Rautenbach of allegedly siphoning off cobalt and copper profits to Ridgepoint. Kabila senior was assassinated and replaced as president by his son, Joseph, in 2001.
Rautenbach maintained his interests in the mining sector during the second Congo war (1998-2002), at a time when Zimbabwean troops were fighting in support of Kabila.
In 2002 the UN Panel of Experts on the Illegal Exploitation of Natural Resources and Other Forms of Wealth of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, described Rautenbach as a man “whose personal and professional integrity is doubtful.”
The report found a network of “Congolese and Zimbabwean political, military and commercial interests [that] seeks to maintain its grip on the main mineral resources — diamonds, cobalt, copper, germanium — of the [DRC] Government-controlled area.
The DRC connection
“This network has transferred ownership of at least US$5 billion of assets from the state mining sector to private companies under its control in the past three years, with no compensation or benefit for the State treasury of the Democratic Republic of the Congo,” the report said. “Its representatives in the Kinshasa Government and the Zimbabwe Defence Forces have fuelled instability.”
Among the Zimbabwean military-political elite involved in plundering DRC resources the report named Rautenbach, Mnangagwa, Zimbabwe Defence Force Commander Gen Vitalis Zvinavashe, as well as his family members, Air Marshal Perence Shiri, Brig-Gen Sibusiso Moyo, former security minister Sidney Sekeramayi, and chief executive of Oryx Natural Resources, Thamer Bin Said Ahmed Al-Shanfari, an Omani national. All appear on the EU sanctions list.
Not on the EU sanctions list, but identified in the UN report as those assisting the Zimbabwe political and military elite to extract minerals were DRC ministers and businessmen.
The complex web of resource mining concessions in DRC saw Rautenbach again fall out of favour with the DRC authorities in 2007, when he was arrested and deported from Lubumbashi, in the mineral-rich southern province of Katanga.
“Mr Rautenbach has amassed a large number of mineral and other assets in the DRC during the civil war and subsequently. The government of the DRC is making strenuous efforts to clean up the mining sector,” the DRC authorities reportedly said in a statement.
Rautenbach issued a statement shortly after the incident saying reports of his arrest as a “major shareholder of Central African Mining and Exploration Company (CAMEC)” were totally unfounded.
The chairman of CAMEC, which has a present market capitalization of about $72 million, is Zambian-born Phil Edmonds, who played international cricket for England during the 1970s; its managing director is Andrew Groves, who was born in Zimbabwe.
There is no suggestion that CAMEC has any corrupt links with Mugabe and his associates, but it does have platinum concessions in Zimbabwe – as does the South Africa-based mining company, Anglo Platinum – and it also has mining interests in the DRC, South Africa, Mozambique and Mali.
Ben Brewerton, of the public relations company, Financial Dynamics, which acts for CAMEC, told IRIN that Rautenbach had a six percent shareholding, worth about $4.3 million at the current share price, and held no executive positions with the company. He said the EU sanctions had had no impact on Rautenbach’s CAMEC shareholding – “It’s business as usual.” – IRIN
Cynicism not a friend of the Zimbabwean poor and economy
The cracks in Zimbabwe have been blatant for a number of years. Hope has arrived, but will it alleviate the plight of the suffering masses?
Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai said in the last few days that the deal ought to work and work it shall. Now we await the return of the President and his 54 member delegation so that we can move on. The country is at a standstill. We all eagerly await his arrival to start the engines and the country can move on.
After years of political deadlock and continued economic and humanitarian decline, a realistic chance has at last begun to appear in the past month to resolve the Zimbabwe crisis, by the signing of the government of national unity (GNU) deal. This holds the keys to a new constitution and elections thus leading to a new political order, but working with ZANU-PF should only be made in exchange for true restoration of democracy and the economy.The economic meltdown, as well as the bite of European Union (EU) and United States (US) targeted sanctions, is pushing ZANU-PF towards change.
The MDC’s credibility and effectiveness, however, will be severely tested and efforts to reconcile its competing factions led by Morgan Tsvangirai and Arthur Mutambara are the only way forward according to political analysts.SADC have played their part and although for long they had been extremely reluctant to press Mugabe, they finally did confront Mugabe in a diplomatic way with the help of Thabo Mbeki. However, Zimbabwe needs a more radical change to get back on its feet.The West should both maintain pressure at this crucial point and increase support for democratic forces but also be more precise about the conditions for lifting sanctions and ending isolation.
SADC, the EU and the US should adopt a joint strategy with a clear sequence of benchmarks leading to a genuinely democratic process for which removal of sanctions and resumption of international aid to government institutions could be used at the appropriate time as incentives. The prime minister has already started consultations and these are a welcome move as they are needed now to get a strategy in place before the swearing in of cabinet which should be done before the reconvening of parliament, as parliament will be expected to take crucial decisions to help the ministers steer the economy.
All the while resentment continues to breed in the tremendous economic gap between the grinding poverty experienced by the average Zimbabwean and the comfort and luxury enjoyed by the minority of the ‘connected’ population. It is an economic question rather than one of despondency. The future of this beautiful country and beautiful people depends on how these contradictions pan out. Not to recognise this is to forfeit any respect of the populace that has voted for a change.But perhaps Zimbabwe’s new government’s biggest challenge at the moment is the economy. Everything that is fundamental to our economy should be regarded as an element of fundamental analysis.
Stefan Bielinski in one of his articles talks of four fundamentals of an economy the commercial economy, the production economy, the service economy and the family or domestic economy. The four are connected and they should be treated equally to gain a just society and a sound all inclusive economy. Macroeconomic indicators, such as economic growth rates, inflation, interest rates, level of unemployment and other issues are all linked to the above four. Any further delay in looking into these areas is unfortunate because meanwhile the ordinary Zimbabweans are the ones that suffer.
In the present situation any cynicism is not a friend of the Zimbabwean poor. So what is the future of Zimbabwe? The fight against extreme poverty can be won, but only if our leaders recognize that political might won’t secure the much needed investment, the fighting of poverty in Zimbabwe at present seems to be a choice, and not a forecast, but rather it shouldn’t be a choice but an imperative. There are millions of people Zimbabwe fighting daily for their survival. The world has committed, in the Millennium Development Goals, to cut extreme poverty by half by 2015. By 2025, extreme poverty can be banished? By dint of interest and calendar, the next step rests with the new government.
The two sides have agreed to work together and that has dramatically raised the stakes. Now, they must deliver. Zimbabwe’s economic downward spiral is ominous news for the working poor, worse still those already unemployed. The out-of-work populace have become the harbingers of broader hardships that are, and yet to come if nothing improves. We need an economic-recovery policy that works and urgently. Not only would this policy jump-start economic recovery, it also would be fairer for the hardworking people who are getting less than what they deserve in the current economic crisis.
Any further delay is a major disservice to the poor. Zimbabwe is not a happy place at present. The suffering of the people of Zimbabwe is worsening, they are frustrated and hungry, and the majority of the population is living in abject poverty. The public health, education and transport systems have fallen apart the people have no support structure.All the while central bank governor Gideon Gono continues to print money. 80% of the workforce unemployed and the worst harvest in years predicted for this year, it’s unlikely that tax revenues are improving any time soon. But the government keeps paying state employees and subsidizing farmers, which require the government to print new money.
Printing money isn’t a solution – governments can’t magically create wealth out of thin air. But measures ought to be taken and soon.The predictable result if nothing is to happen soon will be a full shutdown of the Zimbabwean economy – if you can’t make profit selling bread, why would you continue making it and selling it at a loss? What you’ll likely do, instead, is sell bread on the black-market. Rather than blaming inept fiscal policy and official corruption for Zimbabwe’s economic problems, it is the poor gold miners who are blamed for smuggling gold and diamonds out of the country each week.
This is a classic example of blaming the victims: people are mining gold because there’s no point in working to earn Zimbabwean dollars, which are worthless, leading them to try to get the hardest of hard currencies – gold. The results of hyperinflation have been colossal across the board, talk of blackouts countrywide, a cholera epidemic and impending strikes by teachers, whose salaries – despite raises – are still too low to cover the basic necessities. Many Zimbabweans now walk to work because paying for transport would cost more than they earn in a single day.Zimbabwe is in a truly horrible situation.
The obvious answer is of course: stop printing money. But this is not that easy. Without confidence in the currency, prices will continue to rise, at least for a while. Government expenses still need to be met in the meanwhile, in particular civil servants, and there is no meaningful way to raise taxes.
But even with a sound fiscal policy, there is no guarantee that hyperinflation can be beaten. For example, Beatrix Paal shows that a policy of stabilizing inflation though the management of public debt is essentially indeterminate and can lead to hyper-inflation, thus being ineffective. Thus, the critical point is to restore confidence in monetary policy while continuing to pay for government services.
The economy is coming to a complete stand still and so the need for real reform is immediate. It’s the ordinary poor people of Zimbabwe that I feel for, its heart braking how they have suffered and continue to suffer.
The decline of an economy already ramshackle after years of corruption, mismanagement, and centralisation is relentless. The people of Zimbabwe are suffering more than ever. Shortages of food, fuel, electricity and water have made life in the cities a test. Survival is even more difficult in the rural areas where the government has failed to distribute adequate food aid. Chronic starvation now stalks the land once known as “the breadbasket of southern Africa”.
The prospects for improvement in the livelihoods and freedoms of Zimbabwe’s overburdened people appear bleak. It will not be easy to achieve a solution that will restore Zimbabwe’s democracy and return the country to prosperity any time soon and time is not on government’s side. By every measure of the term, Zimbabwe is a failed state.The only party trick that Zimbabwe appears to have avoided is street-protests by the ones who are suffering owing to hyperinflation. Zimbabwe remains stubbornly stable, surely a house of stone it is. Zimbabwe has extraordinary natural resources and a highly educated local population.
There are also 3 million of Zimbabwe’s most talented people living in exile and most wanting to go home. As soon as the political and especially the economic situation changes they will flock in. A stable Zimbabwe will recover all its losses very rapidlyZimbabwe’s hyperinflation is destroying the economy, pushing more of its inhabitants into poverty and forcing millions of Zimbabweans to emigrate.
The source of Zimbabwe’s hyperinflation is the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe’s money machine. The Zimbabwe economy will only recover when the integrity of the leadership is established both for the local people and the international any cynicism now is not going to help solve anything at all. Talking of the gloom will only serve to harm the already battered economy but optimism might just get us going. Tell a poor Zimbabwean that there is no hope then you are only adding insult to injury but bringing hope can rejuvenate souls and everyone is ready to start the rebuilding process. Together with positive minds we can salvage something…. - Harare Tribune
Ashley D. Mwanza is a Perspectives Columnist. He is based in Dublin, Ireland.He writes for the Harare Tribune
Canada imposes sanctions on Mugabe regime
September 8, 2008 by Webmaster · Leave a Comment
By Elisha Shamba
Canada will impose new sanctions against the Zimbabwean government of President Robert Mugabe in response to the prolonged tensions resulting from the African country’s unresolved March election, Foreign Affairs Minister David Emerson said last Friday.
