The story of a mendicant state with little prospect of recovery
21 June 2016
CHRIS OVERLAND
CORNEY Korokan Alone makes the mildly astonishing claim that the West has a grudge against Zimbabwe for expelling the white landholders and resuming control of land they had cultivated.
In fact commentators’ criticism of Mugabe is not so much that he allowed the frequently unlawful seizure of land, not to mention the murder of its occupants, but that he presided over a catastrophic decline in the wealth and living standards of Zitsimbabweans.
Colonial Zimbabwe, for all its faults, was easily able to feed the entire population and produce grain and other foodstuffs for export to other parts of Africa. Not for nothing was it called the breadbasket of Africa.
Now, Zimbabwe is routinely in food crisis and reliant upon international aid agencies to feed a substantial proportion of its population, millions of whom have fled to South Africa.
Under Mugabe, Zimbabwe's economy has shrunk by over 50% and its currency is effectively worthless. It is, in practice, a mendicant state with little prospect of recovery anytime soon.
International sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe apply to only 98 people (because of their relationship to the government) and 68 businesses, plus there is an embargo on arms sales from the United States, the European Union and many other countries.
Meanwhile, humanitarian aid in the form of food, agricultural assistance and equipment, health supplies and so on continues to pour into Zimbabwe worth up to $US1.1 billion a year.
Zimbabwe is a basket case and will remain so as long as Mugabe and his cronies remain in power.
I suggest that Corney looks elsewhere for models of good governance in Africa.
I'm astonished that there is a view that the murder of civilians on its own is not justification enough for international sanctions to be imposed on countries like ZImbabwe.
Posted by: Rashmii Bell | 22 June 2016 at 05:01 AM