Posted on 04/20/2002 7:11:43 PM PDT by Clive
ZIMBABWE, once the jewel in southern Africa’s crown, is being left behind as the rest of the continent forges ahead with an ambitious Western-backed economic recovery plan anchored on key issues of democracy and good governance.
Analysts this week said African countries, worried about the contagion of Zimbabwe’s flawed economic and political policies, were gradually tightening the screws on President Robert Mugabe’s administration and isolating it to attract Western support for the blueprint aimed at reviving their economies.
The southern African country, the region’s second largest economy after South Africa, has been under unofficial Western sanctions since 1999 when the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) withdrew funding because of lawlessness, a controversial land reform plan and state-sponsored violence.
It has been further isolated outside Africa since the highly contested but flawed March presidential election which most Zimbabwean and international poll monitors say was stolen by Mugabe.
Mugabe was not invited to a critical meeting this week in Senegal, where several African leaders, leading international economic planners, the IMF and the World Bank polished up the blueprint that seeks to garner a staggering US$64 billion annually to lift a continent currently getting only about US$9 million in new investments yearly.
The rich countries, most of which have already slapped smart personal sanctions on Mugabe and his ruling elite, are expected to adopt the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) at a meeting in Canada in June but have ruled out Zimbabwe’s participation in the plan, authored along the lines of the post-Second World War programme that speeded up Europe’s recovery.
University of Zimbabwe business lecturer Tony Hawkins this week said Zimbabwe’s representation by a junior official in Dakar was an indication that the organisers felt the recovery plan could be hurt by the attendance of senior Mugabe loyalists who might make customary fiery speeches against Western countries.
He said there seemed to be a tacit agreement between Harare and NEPAD’s sponsors, who include South Africa, that Zimbabwe must keep a low profile between now and June when the continental economic recovery plan is marketed to the Group of Eight Summit.
"The current position is that Zimbabwe is considered by the international community as not meeting the requirements of NEPAD," said Hawkins, adding that a high-profile position might divert attention from the recovery plan to Zimbabwe’s mounting chaos.
He said Zimbabwe could however benefit from many spin-offs of the plan because it was based on the construction of regional projects such as road and rail networks.
An international financier based in Harare said African countries were increasingly shunning Zimbabwe as one way of attracting vital Western and US aid for NEPAD and that even key allies such as South Africa would be forced to gradually put the squeeze on Harare.
Also notable was Mugabe’s absence at a crucial summit meeting of the 14-nation Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) held in Pretoria a week ago, also to drum up support for NEPAD.
The summit was attended by six SADC heads of state and Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien.
This week’s Dakar summit took place as New Zealand joined the 15- nation European Union, the United States, Canada, Switzerland and several countries which have banned Mugabe, his top officials and business leaders linked to him from entering that country.
Zimbabwe has already been suspended for a year from the 54-nation Commonwealth and looks set to be expelled from the group altogether if, after 12 months, it has not taken steps to improve its bloated human rights record.
1- Africa is imploding, due to the double scourges of AIDS and corrupt, despotic governments.
2- The best chance for progess and prosperity perished with the fall of the allegedly evil white governments of Rhodesia & South Africa.
3- Anything we do will get siphoned away by corrupt officials, as it always has.
4- We will be bludgeoned into "doing something!" by pitiful pictures on the TV of desparate, starving children and old folks.
5- Ultimately, nothing good will come of it.
"Pity about Africa...."
I don't know about Sierra Leone's position, I have been trying to get a read on it, unsuccessfully. It is the other African state that might be expected to repudiate the election.
Sierra Leone has recently come through a very bloody insurrection and is now preoccupied with its own multi-party election process (now in what US citizens woould call the Primary stage) and seems to be conducting it in a fair manner.
I still have the most hope for Zimbabwe and Sierra Leone of all the countries in sub-Saharan Africa. They are the countries with the most politically astute populations having the most respect for parliamentary governance.
But it seems that the rule is that a bloodbath is needed to foster clearer thinking.
Once the donor countries have committed themselves to writing the cheques and have boxed themselves in to supporting NEPAD come hell or high water, look for Africa to rehabilitate Zanu PF.
...bloodbath... - When sanction fail, what follows? I guess the question is,
will the opposition take the offensive position
or the defensive one (dying off, one by one)?
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