2/2/02 9:21:49 AM (GMT +2)
 

 

By Norman Reynolds

 

THE World Economic Forum (WEF) meeting in New York needs to hear positive actionable news from President Thabo Mbeki. Commentators suggest that Zimbabwe might sink the New Economic Partnership for Africa's Development (Nepad). That need not be so.

 

Here, attack will be the best defence. Being business led, the WEF wants to hear that southern Africa, with her African and international partners, is going to put the Zimbabwe bus back on the road as part and parcel of a gathering regional governance, economic and business dynamic.

 

The real launch of Nepad will follow the Zimbabwe "recovery" example to be realised during 2002-2004. This needs considered argument to dispel the cloud of scepticism.

 

It holds lessons for Nepad itself and for a more equitable and efficient global economic system that the WEF must also ingest. A few truths about Zimbabwe:

 

 From Independence to around 1987, it followed a redistributive "socialist" path with considerable post-war reconstruction, education, health and small farmer success. That, however, failed to grow the economy, including jobs for an increasingly well-educated labour force. By the late 1980s, it was clear that Zimbabwe could not sustain that large public expenditure effort or create jobs.

 

 Robert Mugabe increasingly followed an Eastern European communist party patronage, citizen-demoting model that included putting his Presidency above the law. It has proved to be a disastrous political cul-de-sac.

 

 A too orthodox, too simplistic Economic Structural Adjustment Programme from 1991 swung policy in favour of those already producing for the global economy. As before, there was success with the core policy aims, but at great cost to education and health.
HIV/Aids was already rampant. Numerous local firms closed and further jobs were lost. The countryside, where most live, was virtually abandoned, left as a vote bank. Urban disaffection began to rise, notably from 1996, as the benefits were outweighed for most by unemployment and worsening public services.

 

 President Mugabe has criticised Structural Adjustment as wrong without either accepting the necessary discipline, particularly around the budget and parastatals, or finding effective "localisation" policies and programmes to grow the domestic economy within a globalising economy.

 

 Zanu PF found itself with little to offer its people. Mugabe's ability to manipulate party and state for his own survival has led to false, misleading populist policies on land, to corruption and to the need for bogeymen to excuse failure.

 

 In 20 years Zimbabwe, flip-flopping on economic policy, showed that it could do both, build its people and compete in the global economy. It never found how to do both simultaneously. Populist politics took the front seat. There are important lessons for all in this failure.

 

 The current severe downturn in governance and economic conditions is just two years old. The United Nations Country Team's Zimbabwe Relief and Recovery Programme of September 2001, four months ago, showed how to restore and correct a working economy for all within two years if a new start could be made. That will now take longer as more economic, institutional and managerial destruction has occurred since then. But it is possible.
Zimbabwe's Recovery Plan is built upon two legs:

 

 A rapid increase in local effective demand created by donor funding of a variety of grants to underwrite household economic and food security, to keep children in school and, in a hierarchy of preferences over time, to form community investment (work) budgets. These will generate welfare, secure economic rights, build and maintain productive assets, re-form community cohesion, and fuel a large mass market for low foreign exchange basic goods and services, stabilising and growing society and the economy.

 

 The conversion of villages to "Trust Companies" financed as above and so able to expand onto new land bases when members so decide by "supported" entry into the land market. This neutral land reform is acceptable to Zimbabweans who want to regain control over their lives. This would enable commercial farmers to return and be helped to become productive again. That support would also assist new entrants to commercial farming and it will require that farm labour enjoy a larger financing and ownership role. It is a model of interest to Afghanistan, wracked by low internal demand and warlords, and to southern Africa. The regional, African and international effort right now is to see that there is a free and fair presidential election. It is important not to get to a position of an unacceptable "fraudulent" result. This may involve a mutually agreed delay in holding the election, with regional and international help to prepare for the same, even with Southern African Development Community troops, with international support, on the streets. The lessons to be learnt are close to the aims of Nepad:

 

 It is not enough to create the essential human and economic freedoms that go with global success. Political stability is first built upon citizen economic opportunity. Developing economies must be built both from the top, globalisation, and from the bottom, policies and programmes that generate local participation and enlarge the total economy and so reward and secure local and global investors.

 

 For Nepad, Zimbabwe represents a high profile opportunity to turn this "accident" into opportunity. Zimbabwe and its people are remarkable and heroic. Some 75 percent seek to create a seriously democratic, open and successful country. There is considerable goodwill amongst citizens. They have gained a heightened knowledge of what constitutes the foundations of national success. And there is international support for any such endeavour.

MSNBC

 

Government backtracks on Zimbabwe media curbs 
 
ASSOCIATED PRESS
 
HARARE, Zimbabwe, Feb. 2 — The government backtracked dramatically Saturday on its sweeping media control laws, indicating they will not be imposed immediately and may not be enforced at all, a state-run newspaper reported. 
The state Herald newspaper, an official mouthpiece used to publicize official policy, reported that the office of the Attorney General, the government's chief law officer, said the bill ''may take quite some time before it becomes law, if at all.''
       The laws proposed in the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Bill still have to be signed into law by President Robert Mugabe.
       The laws were passed by the Harare parliament Thursday with last minute amendments that were ''rushed through without proper consultation,'' the Herald said.
       The legislation has been widely condemned by the international community and free press advocates.
       Critics say the media bill and new security laws enforced since Jan. 18 were part of a package of legislation aimed at stifling dissent ahead of presidential elections next month.
       Mugabe, 77, is fighting for his political survival as his popularity wanes after nearly 22 years of authoritarian rule.
       (Copyright 2002 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

MSNBC

 

Zimbabwe minister slams Britain's Jack Straw  
 
 HARARE, Feb. 2 — Zimbabwe's information minister has accused British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw of dealing with Zimbabwe with ''an open mouth and shut mind'' and dismissed his criticism of a tough new media bill. 
In a comment published by Zimbabwe's official Herald newspaper on Saturday, Information Minister Jonathan Moyo also expressed unhappiness that changes to the bill, passed by parliament on Thursday, had robbed it of its fundamental objectives.
       Despite the changes, the bill still restricts access for foreign reporters and imposes tight controls on local media in the run up to a March 9-10 presidential election.
       Straw said on Friday he found it ''almost impossible to comprehend how free and fair elections can be held'' when such laws had been passed.
       Moyo told the Herald: ''It is another example of Straw's megaphone diplomacy. He is continuing to approach developments in Zimbabwe with an open mouth and shut mind.''
       Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe launched his re-election campaign on Friday with a vitriolic attack on Britain, which Mugabe accuses of siding with Zimbabwe's opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).
       Critics say the media bill's aim is to stifle free debate in the run-up to the election, in which Mugabe faces his toughest challenge after 22 years in power.
       The bill has drawn wide international condemnation.
       On Monday, the European Union threatened to impose sanctions on Zimbabwe if Mugabe did not allow the deployment of EU observers by Feb 3.
       On Wednesday, however, Commonwealth foreign ministers rejected a British call for Zimbabwe's immediate suspension from the 54-nation group.
       Under the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Bill, a state-appointed commission will license journalists, who could face up to two years in jail for breaking the regulations.
       The original draft gave all foreign and local media organisations in Zimbabwe three months to apply for a new licence. In what is seen as a victory for opponents to the bill, the revised version says existing organisations will be considered registered.
       The new bill also allows foreigners to take non-controlling stakes in media organisations, according to a copy of the legislation obtained by Reuters. The original version allowed only Zimbabwean citizens to operate media organisations.
       The bill will become law once it has been signed by Mugabe.
       Mugabe, who turns 78 this month and has ruled the former Rhodesia since independence from Britain in 1980, has not commented publicly on the bill.

The Sun-Herald

Mugabe blasts all things British Robert Mugabe and his wife, Grace, raise their fists in salute as they arrive for the election rally in north-eastern Zimbabwe.Picture: AFP

By Peta Thornycroft in Mutawatawa and David Blair in London

President Robert Mugabe launched his re-election campaign in familiar fashion Friday, blaming Britain for all of Zimbabwe's problems and branding the black opposition "puppets of the whites".

Wearing a white baseball cap and a three-piece suit, he addressed 8,000 subdued supporters at a carefully staged rally in a rural stronghold of his Zanu-PF party.

His speech will have done little to stem the growing campaign to oust him and his country from the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting, to be held in Brisbane next month.

Nor will it have stilled worldwide concerns over the atrocities being reported from his country.

To chants of "Down with the British" and "Down with the whites", Mugabe turned on Britain and its Prime Minister, Tony Blair.

"We are in a state of political war," he said. "We are in a war to defend our rights and the interests of our people. The British have decided to take us on through the MDC [Movement of Democratic Change]."

The campaign for his re-election in six weeks' time began as Mr Mugabe's Government faced the worst diplomatic crisis in its relations with the developed world since Zimbabwe achieved independence in 1980.

British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said he found it "almost impossible to comprehend how free and fair elections can be held".

Condemning the passage on Thursday night of a draconian new media law, which will make it impossible for journalists to work in Zimbabwe without State approval, Mr Straw said it could trigger the imposition of European Union sanctions next week.

Any sanctions would be aimed at Mr Mugabe and his allies and take the form of travel bans and the freezing of overseas assets.

Mr Straw's tough message was delivered in Washington and echoed by US Secretary of State Colin Powell.

America has already passed a law empowering President George Bush to impose personal sanctions on Mr Mugabe. Mr Powell said the Bush Administration was working "in close co-ordination with our British colleagues".

But British Foreign Office sources played down suggestions that the media law alone would trigger the onset of sanctions. They said the key test would be whether Mr Mugabe admits the first six EU election observers, who are due to arrive in Harare today.

Mr Mugabe's half-hour speech at the rally was peppered with racial insults directed at Morgan Tsvangirai, the MDC leader, whom he accused of being a British stooge.

"Tsvangirai has decided he must be white," he said. "How can we have blacks who masquerade as whites? Whatever Blair tries to do, we will not back down. We went to war; we went to prison; we have suffered over the years but we are not afraid of the struggle. We will not run away. You can count on us to fight."

The rally was held in Mutawatawa, a dilapidated town 210km north-east of Harare. Mr Mugabe said the area was undeveloped and "this was brought about by the British and Tsvangirai".

For all the displays of confidence, evidence is mounting that Zimbabwe will run out of maize well before the election on March9 and 10. The World Food Program estimates that 558,000 people need emergency supplies.