The UK's Independent newspaper asks if anyone remembers Make Poverty History. It seems a long time ago that some 200,000 people flocked to Edinburgh to rally G8 leaders as part of an unprecedented campaign for global justice. That same day, 2 July, Bob Geldof organised free music concerts in nine countries under the Live8 banner. The demands were straightforward and reasonable: rich countries should boost aid in line with their unmet 35-year-old promises; cancel the debts of the 62 poorest countries; set dates for the abolition of subsidies and other protectionist support to Western farmers, and stop forcing liberalisation and privatisation on poor countries, whether in trade negotiations or as conditions of aid and debt deals. Six days later, in the shadow of the 7 July bombs that ripped through central London, the Gleneagles summit ended to rock-star cheers. But as the millions who signed up to Make Poverty History (MPH) and Live8 rejoiced, inside the upper echelons of MPH all hell was breaking loose. "They've shafted us," a press officer from a British development organisation screamed down the phone. Read the rest of this article from The Independent in the UK by clicking on the URL provided.

Dr Kizza Besigye, the leader of the opposition Forum for Democratic Change, returned home, ending his four-year exile in South Africa. Besigye, whose return date was forced by the Electoral Commission's October 28 deadline for registration of voters, was also registered on the same day at the FDC's offices in Najjanankumbi. He will vote at his home polling station at Southern Ward, Rukungiri Town Council. The retired colonel, whom the government has accused of possible involvement with a shadowy rebel group, the People's Redemption Army, said he would not renounce armed rebellion as President Museveni had demanded in the past.

Bingu wa Mutharika has nursed ambitions of ruling Malawi since the Hastings Kamuzu Banda dictatorship began to unravel in 1993. But having achieved his goal last year, he could now become the first African president to be impeached. His career began when Mr Banda, Malawi's founding father, became president in 1964. Mr Mutharika became the first Malawian administrator in the civil service, which was then still dominated by the British. But during the so-called "cabinet crisis" in the same year, he fled Malawi for fear that Mr Banda would associate him with the rebelling ministers.

Zimbabwean opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai has distanced himself from Movement for Democratic Change members who registered as election candidates. This week 26 MDC members registered to stand in Senate elections next month. Mr Tsvangirai had earlier announced the MDC would not field candidates. The dispute over the Senate election has left the MDC in its worst-ever crisis. Mr Tsvangirai's spokesman, William Bango, said state security services were sowing divisions in the MDC.

The Zanzibar Electoral Commission announced on Wednesday that verification of the voters' registers had been completed ahead of Sunday's general election. "The verification of the voter's register was completed on 22 October in the Tanzanian capital of Dar es Salaam," Masauni Yussuf Masauni, chairman of the commission, told reporters. Zanzibar merged with the mainland state of Tanganyika to form Tanzania in 1964, shortly after independence from the United Kingdom. It elects its own president who is head of government for matters internal to the island. Zanzibar also has its own House of Representatives to make laws especially for it.

Agathon Rwasa - http://agathonrwasa.blogspot.com/2005/10/fnl-kill-twenty-civilians-since-early.html is a blog dedicated to bringing Burundi rebel group FNL’s (Forces nationales de liberation) leader Agathon Rwasa to justice and highlighting the atrocities of FNL.

“Twenty civilians have died at the hands of the FNL since early September, according to the Burundian human rights group Ligue Iteka. The group has also raised concerns about eleven killings by government forces, together with reports of torture and arbitrary arrests. There has been no further news on the whereabouts of Agathon Rwasa, who was reportedly deposed by a pro-peace faction of the FNL eight days ago.”

Despite an arrest warrant for crimes against humanity it seems Agathon Rwasa is still being welcomed in Tanzania! There is a full list of astrocities committed by Agathon Rwasa on the blog.

Mzansi Afrika - Mzansi Afrika (http://mzansiafrika.typepad.com/mzansi_afrika/2005/10/africa_digital_.h…)
reports on how European and American recycling firms use Africa as a dumping ground for useless equipment. This saves the expense of having to recycle properly.

“Re-use is a good thing, bridging the digital divide is a good thing, but exporting loads of technotrash in the name of these lofty ideals and seriously damaging the environment and health of poor communities in developing countries is criminal,” said Jim Puckett, coordinator of BAN who led the field investigation."

No holes barred, Egyptian blogger Sandmonkey –
Sandmonkey (http://egyptiansandmonkey.blogspot.com ) takes shots at George Galloway “I wanna see that bastard go down” , Syria “Syria fakes own support rally” and even George Bush has “crossed the line” for suing the Onion (the US’s “Alternative News Weekly).

Subzero Blue - Subzeroblue (http://feeds.feedburner.com/SubzeroBlue?m=924) announces the BBC’s decision to set up a new Arabic TV channel.

“The World Service says its new Arabic language television service is 'part of a wide-ranging package of proposals aimed at maintaining and enhancing BBC World Service's pre-eminent position and impact in an emerging multimedia age.' The Arabic channel, due to launch in 2007, forms part of a £30 million (U.S.$53 million) package of new initiatives."

What is interesting about this development is what is happening elsewhere. The BBC is cutting most of it’s Eastern European language provision. Could this have anything to do with the “death of communism” in these countries and rise of “anti West” in the Arabic speaking world? Also the Arabic News channel al- Jazeera is planning to start an English language service soon. How unsubtle can you get?

ZimPundit - Zimpundit (http://zimpundit.blogspot.com/2005/10/twenty-seven-mdc-members-file-sen…) reports that 27 members of the MDC (Movement for Democratic Change) have filed papers with the Nomination Court without party leader Morgan Tsvangirai's approval. Zimpundit asks the important question:

“How are the standing political parties going to respond to these renegade candidates? Assuming (and this is unlikely), that the MDC will indeed expel those that did file papers without their party leader's sanction, the candidates are now outsiders to the party. They leave it with their resources and supporters, making MDC a much weaker political party. Let's not forget that the candidates are from the same provinces that the MDC has been walloping ZANU, we're talking a large chunk of their rural base.”

And ends with:

“There's a lot that could happen. This whole senate thing is turning out to be much more compelling than I had expected!”

Musings of a Naija Man - Musings of a NaijaMan (http://uknaija.blogspot.com/2005/10/unanswered-questions-from-nigerias…) takes time to ask some pertinent but unpleasant questions around the death of Mrs Stella Obasanjo who died at the weekend following liposuction surgery in Spain and the misinformation broadcast following the Bellevue plane crash that killed 117 people.

“Why did it take so long to determine where the crash site was? Where did the "government official" who announced that there were 50 survivors get information. Why was the Nigerian First Lady having cosmetic surgery done? Who was footing the bill?”

* Sokari Ekine produces the blog Black Looks,

Greetings. Today is 24 October 2005 and on the international calendar, it is the United Nations Day. Africa Internally Displaced Persons Voice (Africa IDP Voice ) has in the last three years been carrying out a campaign to raise awareness and promote effective protection of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs ) in Africa. This is a category of forced migrants that do not benefit from any coherent international instrument for their protection. The problem is a very serious human rights, humanitarian , security and governance problem in Africa.

In August 2005, as part of our global campaign, Africa IDP Voice wrote an appeal to the United Nations Secretary General Mr. Kofi Annan to dedicate this year's UN day to Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) world wide.

The appeal was sent in person through Professor Walter Khalin, the United Nations Secretary General on the Human Rights of IDPs, His Excellency Joackim Chissano, Former President of Mozambique, who was Kofi Anna's envoy for the September 2005 Miilenium Summit. A copy was also sent to the executive chairman of the Africa Union in person through Commissioner Tom Nyanduka who is the African Union's Special Rapporture for Refugees and IDPs.

Africa IDP Voice has not received a response, not even an acknowledgement of the appeal.

I wish to share this with members and members are free to send comments to Pambazuka News or to: 1. [email protected] 2. [email protected]

We wish further to inform you of Africa IDP Voice's new email address as follows and request you to make changes as follows: [email protected] Our website is also undergoing changes and will not be available for the next one month. It will reappear as: www.africaidp.org Please find attached copy of the appeal for members (available through the link provided).

"Market capitalism looks to regulated market economies and stable growth to expand and this in turn assumes states committed to economic liberalisation and the reduction in the barriers to trade. Such preconditions are assumed achievable through the promotion of democratisation...As agencies who espouse a strong ethical stance internationally, corruption has appeared to be a highly visible reform issue for them during the 1990s. In spite of - or because of - such attention, levels of corruption appear to continue to rise... and become more entrenched... This will force them to face the question of whether corruption may be an integral component of the model and whether they either confront the risks associated with it, or start to ignore corruption in favour of some wider agenda objectives that have less to do with international ethics and more to do with international realities of market capitalism."

Bakili Muluzi, Malawi's former president, is to appear before the Anti Corruption Bureau in Blantyre on allegations of corruption involving donor funds. It is alleged that Muluzi embezzled 1.4 billion kwacha in donor funds during his reign as president. Sam Ntasu, his spokesperson, says the allegations are unfounded. He says the said funds were personal donations from business associates to enable Muluzi to campaign for his party, the United Democratic Front ( UDF). Ntasu says the developments are just a ploy to discredit the former president.

Transparency International has once more rated Botswana as among the worlds least corrupt countries, with an overall score and ranking. A statement from the Office of the President says this was confirmed Tuesday, at the launch of the Transparency International 2005 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) in London. In the survey, Botswana was listed among the top 20 per cent of countries considered to be least corrupt. It was also ranked as the least corrupt middle income country in the world as well as the least corrupt country in Africa.

As salacious details of the corruption scandal involving the former Inspector General of Police, Mr. Tafa Balogun, Bayelsa State Governor, Diepreye Alamieyeseigha and others continue to unravel, Nigerians have identified corruption as the nation's number one problem. The findings of the Nigerian Corruption Index (NCI), a new survey conducted by Independent Advocacy Project (IAP), the good governance group, reveals that 58 per cent of respondents say corruption is the nation's major problem while 42 per cent say it is a major problem. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Nigerian Police ranked highest among the top three institutions where bribes are most likely to be demanded. The two other institutions are the Customs and Excise Department and the National Electric Power Authority, now known as the Power Holding Corporation of Nigeria (PHCN). Reported incidence of bribery was also highest among the Nigerian Police.

I really support the work Pambazuka News is doing and find it inspirational to hear what efforts are being made in a continent so far away from mine, both geographically and hegemonically. I hope that these type of efforts will continue and spread and that we can all see a real change being brought about.

Blogs. What does an obscure format which started with computer geeks have to do with development? Quite a bit, say Tim Harford and Pablo Halkyard, who write the Private Sector Development Blog, the World Bank's first venture into internet blogging. Take the words of Financial Times internet expert, David Bowen: 'In the last 12 months they have gone from being an obscure and little understood fringe activity to something we all have to think about, and quite possibly indulge in.' The development community is no exception. Here's how blogging will change both the developed and the developing world.

The representatives of the Paris Club creditor countries met on 18, 19 and 20 October 2005 and agreed with the representatives of the Federal Republic of Nigeria on a comprehensive treatment of its debt. This agreement implements the debt treatment framework for Nigeria announced by the Paris Club on 29 June 2005. The representatives of the Paris Club creditor countries welcomed the ambitious economic program implemented by the Nigerian authorities since 2003 and their desire to secure an exit treatment from the Paris Club. This agreement takes place after the approval by the Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund of the Policy Support Instrument (PSI) on 17 October 2005 and includes a debt reduction under Naples terms on eligible debts and a buy back at a market-related discount on the remaining eligible debts after reduction.

Representatives of the West African cotton-producing countries have demanded a concrete resolution of the cotton problem at the Hong Kong Ministerial Conference, as well as a clear indication now that this will be the case, if they are to have any stake in outcomes of the Conference. Speaking to the press at the WTO on Wednesday, the West African countries said that in the absence of such concrete results, the developed countries whose policies have led to the cotton crisis will be responsible if the cotton countries are unable to accept an overall deal in Hong Kong.

Kabissa has been working with the African Democracy Forum (ADF) to create an Online Community Web site for members to use to network, share timely information and discuss issues relating to democracy on the African continent. The ADF has had a Yahoo E-mail List for some time that is 270+ members strong and is an excellent resource for democracy activists on the continent seeking to keep in touch and network on a regular basis through e-mail. Also through e-mail, the ADF seeks to bring the network closer together through a periodic e-Newsletter.

I am particularly impressed by the article on policing (Pambazuka News 226).

States are bound by several human rights instruments to respect, ensure and guarantee human rights. States cannot meet these obligations without a police force that recognizes and respects human rights. The police as state actors are often the perpetrators of human rights violations firstly, in the maintanance of law and order and secondly in determining/facilitating acess to justice/redress once a violation has occurred. Thus they are crucial actors as far as state obligations in human rights are concerned.

It is thus incumbent on states eager to fulfil their obligations under human rights instruments to reform their police force by creating human rights awareness in police units and imputing individual criminal liability on police officers who perpetrate human rights violations.

Congratulation to you all at Fahamu for winning the Highway Africa non-profit awards. I've been a keen reader of Pambazuka, it has been one of my important sources of information on social movements and development in Africa. Please please please continue with the good work.

The announcement that Senate elections would be held in Zimbabwe on November 26 has been interpreted as a move designed by President Robert Mugabe to contain fall out from his controversial appointment of Joyce Mujuru as vice president. It has also caused tension in the opposition Movement for Democratic Change over whether to contest the Senate polls. Writer Chenjerai Hove identifies a “Zimbabwean disease” which dictates that once an institution is formed it becomes a national cause to tear it apart.

The scene is a country called Zimbabwe, and the audience, thirteen million anxious Zimbabweans. The actors: Zanu PF and the MDC. The Stage Director, Robert Gabriel Mugabe. The title of the play: The Senate Bandwagon. The Zimbabwean political audience is once again faced with an ever more confused political situation. A few elections later, the people are rather puzzled as to what exactly is happening. President Robert Mugabe has dangled a new carrot, the Senate. And one already knows why this carrot is there, in front of the two political parties and their faithful. I always wondered why this causes confusion because the Senate is supposed to last only a short time. After all, it was abolished in 1987 on the pretext that it unnecessarily delayed urgent legislation which the government wanted passed the fast-track way. With the current series of endless crises, it would seem the need for urgent passing of legislation has not died. The land issue is still fresh and causing havoc to the economy, the economic mess fraught with so many other problems, the decline of services like health, education, transport. So many urgent issues! In the midst of all this, the president wants to introduce a Senate, an expensive undertaking which a shrinking economy can hardly afford.

It is well known now that Mugabe wouldn't care less if the country was broke or not, as long as he keeps power till he dies. So, in order to accommodate his 'fellows' who had fallen by the wayside, he decides to introduce a senate which practically serves no useful purpose except to give terminal benefits to his old and sickly friends he had forgotten to take along on his gravy train of economic plunder and electoral fraud. Then comes the side show: the MDC jumping onto this worthless project on the assumption that it might be possible to contain Zanu PF in its own game. To play or not to play the Zanu PF game? That was the question facing the national council of the MDC. Surprisingly, the outcome was half-half kusenga kwedhongi. The meaning of it all is that to play the game means the MDC accepts the rules and procedures which created the game. It also means an endorsement of the political manoeuvres which have created the senate, and also an acceptance of the recent constitutional amendments as valid. That is what President Mugabe wants to happen, realizing that he created this game in order to dangle a few crumps and left-overs in order cause a splits in the MDC and possibly civil society. Mugabe's project seems to be advancing without any hitches, so far.

As far as I can see, the problem of the MDC started when they participated in the parliamentary elections whose results were already predicted and known. Now, members of the opposition are in parliament, but not all who wanted to be there. Those who could not make it to parliament would argue that the current MDC members of the august house are enjoying the benefits of the gravy train while denying others the opportunity to do so in the new Senate. That is the problem facing the MDC. They have allowed themselves to taste of the niceties offered by the devil, and everyone wants their piece of the carrot. Exactly what Mugabe and Zanu PF wants, especially in these hard times of economic collapse and struggles for survival! Everyone wants to put bread and butter on the table, never mind the source! As far as I can see, wrapped inside the carrot, Mr Mugabe and his party gurus have thrown a live snake in the house of the opposition. Some from the opposition camp only see the skin of the carrot, while others have the vision to see the snake within. Thus, the opposition party begins its own demise fired by the energies and skills of Mr Mugabe's camp. The audience, we ordinary Zimbabweans, can only look and wonder whether the opposition is serious about participating in a Senate whose introduction it strongly opposed not so long ago.

Having participated in the formation and running of several national organisations, I have come to accept that the Zimbabwean disease is one and only one in terms of organisational management. Once an institution is formed, the next crucial task for some Zimbabweans is to find as many reasons and ways as possible to tear it apart. Some people call it factionalism. Others call it 'splinterism'. What I know is that both are usually not based on any basic principle or vision. They are usually based on some flimsy excuse and rampant opportunism, a national malaise in the affairs of our country. All the noble reasons underlying the formation of the organisation are soon forgotten. Every one for himself, and God for none of us! It is sad that the MDC is split and probably destroyed over a worthless carrot (Senate) dangled in front of them. Every citizen can see clearly that the Senate serves no useful purpose except to function as some kind of old-age pension and gratuity for Mugabe's loyalists and friends. Everyone knows who the new senators will be: old men and women discarded by either design or mistake by the Mugabe gravy train. Why anyone with a national vision and some kind of realization of where the country is going should join, I have no clue. In the end it also becomes a question of personal integrity and dignity. Zimbabweans are used to national abuse, especially by the ruining party, Zanu PF.

Sadly, it seems the MDC, having raised people's hopes, has also now embarked on this national malaise of thinking that they can earn good salaries from a national purse which does not exist. They can join the dance of Zanu PF pensioners and then wake up in the morning to call themselves the opposition. In Shona it is called 'kudziya moto wembavha'.(Warming themselves from the fireplace of a thief). As the Zimbabwean disease of splits and factions engulfs the political realm of the country, the decay continues, and more political parties will be formed in order to split again and again while Mugabe continues to destroy the country. The national vision dies, only to be replaced by financial greed and illusions of boundless power. In the end, national political fatigue creeps in, and no one wants to vote for anyone, knowing only too well that there is no Zimbabwean politician interested in shaping a genuine national vision devoid of greed for power and money.

* Chenjerai Hove is a leading Zimbabwean author and has several published books and poems including the aclaimed novel BONES. This article appeared on the www.newzimbabwe.com website and reproduced here with permission of the author.

* Please send comments to [email protected]

The Zimbabwean economy has contracted by 50% in the last five years, inflation stands at 255% and unemployment hovers at 75%, say economists. Recently, there was much controversy over a proposed $500m loan from South Africa to Zimbabwe in order to prevent Zimbabwe's suspension from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). However, South Africa made it clear that the loan was available only if Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe reformed economic policies and changed his politics. Patrick Bond critically examines the politics surrounding the proposed loan agreement and South African president Thabo Mbeki's vision that the IMF can be used as a tool for "normalisation" of Zimbabwean society.

Consider these wise words from a leading African National Congress politician: ‘As we speak, the neoliberal orthodoxy sits as a tyrant on the throne of political-economic policymaking. The dominant social and economic forces are doing their utmost to hegemonise the discourse - both materially and in respect of how developmental processes are to be institutionalised and theorised. Among other things, they use such transnational governmental organisations as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank and the World Trade Organisation to shape the discourse within which policies are defined, the terms and concepts that circumscribe what can be thought and done.’

This quote, from an April speech, is worth keeping in mind; its author (revealed at the end of this article) knows well of what he speaks. In between, though, we will consider the main way in which the region’s dominant social and economic forces intend to hegemonise political transition in Zimbabwe. The objective seems to be to bring the IMF back into play, for the first time since 1999.

It may surprise some readers, but a decade ago, Robert Mugabe’s regime was in fact a successful protégé of Washington financiers. In 1995, the World Bank gave his government the highest possible rating in its scorecard of neoliberal orthodoxy: ‘highly satisfactory’. This followed fifteen years of arm twisting by the Bank and IMF, leading to the Economic Structural Adjustment Programme (ESAP).

Things began to go badly wrong for Harare’s elites soon thereafter. From 1996-2000, a series of overlapping worker/peasant/student/war veteran rebellions became a serious threat to Robert Mugabe and his ruling Zanu(PF) party. This in turn resulted in a zig-zag economic policy based on a mix of carrots and sticks, combining frontal attacks on poor and working-class urban Zimbabweans with fiery anti-imperialist rhetoric.

At the heart of Harare’s fiscal crisis are Mugabe’s expensive carrots to disgruntled sections of society: large new pensions for tens of thousands of Liberation War vets (previously ignored or repressed) from September 1997; periodic payolas of various kinds to the army and police, including license to loot the Democratic Republic of the Congo during the late 1990s civil war; on-again/off-again price controls from 1998, in order to prevent further ‘IMF Riots’ (which had broken out periodically during the 1990s); occasional gifts to key constituents during the early 2000s, such as very inexpensive rural electricity; and state-sponsored land invasions immediately following Mugabe’s defeat in a constitutional referendum in February 2000, as the opposition Movement for Democratic Change became a threatening electoral force.

The sticks we have learned much more about these past months. They don’t need recounting in detail, but include, in the words of South African Communist Party (SACP) general secretary Blade Nzimande, ‘the wanton destruction of homes and community facilities’ for more than a million of the urban poor, and ‘anti-democratic legislation, including legislation directed against the right to assembly and against media freedom’.

Durable nationalism

Mugabe’s alliances have generally been maintained the past five years, and both external and internecine rebellions have been crushed. Regular predictions that the ruling party will fragment - mainly due to ethnic factionalism - never reach fruition. After three decades of control over Zanu(PF) and six years’ experience harassing a strong opposition party, Mugabe has an even stronger grip on his politburo. Evidence of his dominance during this period includes the expulsion, demotion or jailing of figures with substantial regional or sectoral powerbases.

However, with Mugabe apparently now unable to raise basic hard currency for importing petrol, food and other vital necessities, the time is ripe for the next stage of what might be termed ‘exhausted nationalism’. When Simba Manyanya and I began using this phrase in 2002 as shorthand for Mugabe’s incapacity to deliver a higher standard of living, it was not clear that the nationalist project could be reinvigorated, at least in a manner the masses would find compelling.

We cited Frantz Fanon’s Wretched of the Earth: ‘A bourgeoisie that provides nationalism alone as food for the masses fails in its mission and gets caught up in a whole series of mishaps. But if nationalism is not made explicit, if it is not enriched and deepened by a very rapid transformation into a consciousness of social and political needs, in other words into humanism, it leads up a blind alley. The bourgeois leaders of underdeveloped countries imprison national consciousness in sterile formalism.’

The problem of ‘exhausted nationalism’ also applies to South Africa, where SACP deputy secretary Jeremy Cronin once translated it as the ‘Zanufication’ of the African National Congress (he was hurriedly forced to apologise). In turn, this is why the vigorous debate now underway on lending to Mugabe is so revealing. For it appears that Mbeki and the IMF have, to borrow the quote above, successfully shaped the discourse within which policies are defined, and indeed a proposed loan of $500 million from South Africa to Zimbabwe may circumscribe what can be thought and done.

There is no better example than Pretoria spokesperson Joel Netshitenzhe’s comment that the loan could ‘benefit Zimbabwean people as a whole, within the context of their program of economic recovery and political normalisation.’ Much of the debate in South Africa concerns whether Pretoria is putting sufficient – or indeed any – pressure on Harare to reform, as Netshitenzhe refuses to comment on speculation that both political and economic liberalisation are conditions for the proposed loan.

Mugabe spokesperson George Charamba revealed the process on August 14: ‘We never asked for any money from South Africa. It was the World Bank that approached Mbeki and said please help Zimbabwe. They then offered to help us.’ According to the World Bank’s own press service, a Pretoria-based Bank economist, Lollete Kritzinger-van Niekerk, confirmed that her institution ‘is not ready to thaw relations with the ostracised Harare’, hence Mbeki’s backchannel. A reported $160 million out of Pretoria’s proposed loan was meant to repay the IMF, with the rest earmarked for importing (from South Africa) agricultural inputs and petroleum.

But in Zimbabwe there is, in reality, no ‘normalisation’ under way, if by which is meant Mugabe’s agreement to hold serious democratisation talks with the Movement for Democratic Change, to run genuinely free and fair elections, to unban the media and revoke extremist laws, to recall fascistic security forces to the barracks, and to provide emergency food and shelter in a non-politicised manner to the millions who urgently require it.

In any case, Mbeki has repeatedly shown that these objectives are unimportant: by propping up Mugabe in the United Nations Human Rights Commission, by public commentary downplaying repression and vote theft, by silence at key junctures and by sending biased observation teams to monitor elections. Mugabe himself publicly rejected even the idea of negotiating with the MDC.

Setting the fake ‘reform’ rhetoric aside, what is instead revealed by the current crisis is another of Fanon’s insights, namely that Zanu(PF)’s sterile formalism now sharply contradicts further capital accumulation by Zimbabwe’s parasitical ruling class, a key faction of which desperately requires foreign exchange.

For the impoverished Zimbabwean masses, there is no economic bailout on the horizon, much less democratic leverage, only a choice of which financiers will worsen austerity in future years: the predictable money mandarins of Washington, or the new subimperialists of Pretoria, backed by a gullible media and superficially critical opposition parties, or both.

IMF squeeze on the Zimbabwean poor

Consider the first lot, the Bretton Woods Institutions. Beginning in September 1980, when Zimbabwe formally joined, the role of the IMF was never to benefit ‘Zimbabwean people as a whole’. As York University’s radical economist Colin Stoneman explained, ‘In encouraging borrowing, the IMF recognised that it had as yet no means of exerting leverage on Zimbabwean economic policy.’ What was that leverage? Five examples are illustrative:

- By early 1982, finance minister Bernard Chidzero – later to head the IMF/Bank Development Committee – denied that ‘the IMF would impose any conditions as Zimbabwe was already restructuring its economy.’ Though it was ‘a sensitive issue not for public debate,’ Chidzero made statements to Parliament claiming ‘devaluation of the dollar is not imminent and is not being contemplated.’ Less than three months later, Chidzero announced a 20% decline in the currency, admitting it ‘had been under consideration for some months.’

- In late 1982, interest rates were raised dramatically, a move Chidzero pointed out with pride to the World Bank in private correspondence.

- In March 1983, an editorial by the government-owned Herald observed that ‘Zimbabwe has a democratically elected people’s government and therefore, the people, its supporters have the right to know what the IMF asked of this country.’

- By 1984, Zimbabwe was paying vast proportions of export earnings to cover foreign loans, in part because of apartheid destabilisation of the region. As Stoneman put it, ‘there can be no doubt that Zimbabwe’s payments crisis was partly caused by South Africa, and that this was the means whereby the IMF gained a lever on Zimbabwean economic policy’.
- The IMF soon terminated its $315 million line of credit due to Harare’s budget overruns, forcing more painful austerity. By early 1985, Mugabe complained of ‘pressure from the IMF to cut government spending on education and defence but the government has a way of overcoming this pressure’. Yet within a few years, Zimbabwe’s vaunted education programme was indeed under threat as Bretton Woods cost-recovery policies gained momentum.

The Bretton Woods Institutions applied neoliberalism across a variety of sectors, and applied heavy pressure on Mugabe to continue his ineffectual ‘willing seller, willing buyer’ rural land policy. At last month’s land summit in South Africa, Mbeki told the audience that Zimbabwe’s failure to embark upon land redistribution prior to the chaotic takeovers of 4000 white-owned farms from February 2000, was because ‘They slowed down to get the negotiations in this country to succeed’ since South Africa’s white farmers would be ‘frightened’ about the transition to democracy.

In reality, Harare’s 1993 Land Designation Act was ‘shelved,’ as Zanu(PF) member of parliament Lazarus Nzarayebani complained in late 1994, because ‘it is not in conformity with the World Bank and IMF’ and instead served government only ‘to save its face’. In fact, South Africa’s first ANC land minister, Derek Hanekom, invited the same World Bank team that was preventing Zimbabwe’s land reform during the early 1990s, led by Robert Christenson, to guide post-apartheid policy. (That policy was also characterised by willing seller, willing buyer neoliberalism, and in August was publicly recognised as a failure at a major state-sponsored land summit.)

What of the last batch of IMF credits to Zimbabwe? Did these contribute to the welfare of all Zimbabweans, and promote peace and democracy? The opposite conclusion is more logical. The IMF’s $53 million loan in 1999 was meant to release another $800 million from other lenders. The IMF’s stated objectives were straightforward: reversal of both the luxury import tax and price controls on staple foods.

Details were confirmed in a March 1999 statement by leading IMF negotiator Michael Nowak, ‘There are two issues outstanding and these have stopped the IMF from making the standby credit available to the country. These issues are, one, we want the government to reduce the tariffs slapped on luxury goods last September, and secondly, we also want the government to give us a clear timetable as to when and how they will remove the price controls they have imposed on some goods.’

Five months later, the IMF agreed to increase the loan amount to $200 million, but two more conditions were reportedly added: access to classified Democratic Republic of Congo war information and a commitment to pay new war expenditure from the existing budget. According to an IMF official, ‘The Zimbabweans felt offended, shocked, but they all the same agreed to give us the information, we got all the clarification we wanted. They had no choice... We have had assurances [that] if there is budgetary overspending, there will be cuts in other budget sectors.’

In sum, the IMF gave permission to penalise health, education and other badly-defended sectors on behalf of Mugabe’s military adventures and business cronies, and also ordered Mugabe to immediately reverse the only redistributive policies he had adopted in a long time: a) a ban on holding foreign exchange accounts in local banks (which immediately halted the easiest form of capital flight by the country’s elites); b) a 100% customs tax on imported luxury goods; and c) price controls on staple foods in the wake of several urban riots.

That deal quickly fell apart, however, when fiscal targets were missed. Harare was, quite simply, broke. The previous year, Mugabe had spent an historically-unprecedented 38% of export earnings on servicing foreign loans, exceeded that year only by Brazil and Burundi. With foreign debt at $4.92 billion, fully $980 million was repaid to foreign creditors, while donor aid fell from its 1995 peak of $310 million to just $150 million. But due to compound interest rates, barely a dent was made in the total foreign debt outstanding.

The IMF continued giving advice to impose austerity, both from its Harare office and via periodic high-level missions from Washington. The 2000 mission called for ‘tight monetary and wage policies… privatisation, civil service reform and trade liberalisation,’ according to the Herald newspaper.

By mid-2001, finance minister Simba Makoni confessed to the Southern Africa regional session of the World Economic Forum in Durban, ‘We are committed to fulfilling these obligations, but it’s clear that our economy is in no state to generate sufficient funds to clear these arrears.’ As a result, by mid-2005, Mugabe had run up repayment arrears of $295 million to the IMF, and more than $1 billion to other lenders, including the World Bank and African Development Bank. The total foreign debt that is either in arrears or will come due in the next decade is $4.5 billion, far more than the national GDP in a given year.

Was Zimbabwe punished for failing to make most foreign debt payments since 1999? To almost everyone’s surprise, Mugabe was able to get away with the de facto default. No new long-term credit has been available, to be sure, but nor did the US Marines or other hostile military forces invade so to collect collateral, as was the practice a century earlier against defaulting Latin American countries.

Instead, once Zimbabwe fell into deep arrears to the IMF, a convoluted official procedure began, culminating a few months ago in the threat of expulsion. From 2001, the Zimbabwean finance ministry scrounged $1.4 million each quarter to make token payments on the debt, but from mid-2003 through 2004 found $16.5 million to send the IMF. This was also the point at which Zimbabwe ran out of petrol and many other essential imports.

Diplomatic scuffling

By August 2005, Mbeki assumed that his offer of a $500 million credit could influence the course of an elite transition, aiming at installing a neoliberal, low-intensity democracy regime. That model would slightly sideline Mugabe by 2008 at the latest; permit Zanu(PF) to retain power – possibly in a government of unity by coopting MDC leaders - with the friendlier face of a technocratic president (former neoliberal finance minister Simba Makoni is usually tipped for the job) even if Mugabe still controlled the ruling party itself; and then open the economic borders up much more to Johannesburg capital.

Mugabe didn’t play along. Showing an impressive resilience and desire to hold on to maximum power at all cost, he visited China in August and then snubbed Mbeki in a brutal diplomatic manner. At an African Union (AU) meeting in Addis Ababa, according to the Sunday Independent, Mugabe built an alliance of other leaders to ‘defeat a South African tactical move to win two permanent seats for Africa on the United Nations security council… Mugabe, Egypt and others spoke out against a compromise deal which South Africa had helped forge between the AU and the so-called G4, a coalition of four other nations seeking permanent seats on the security council - Germany, Japan, India and Brazil.’

‘Mbeki argued strongly at the AU summit in Addis Ababa in favour of the compromise as the only realistic way to get Africa permanent seats. But the Mugabe camp prevailed. The summit rejected the compromise deal that AU and G4 foreign ministers, including SA’s Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, agreed on at a meeting in London… Mugabe and others argued against this, saying the lack of a veto would relegate African permanent members to “second-class status”.’ Fortunately, the second-class citizenship he sought in the UN Security Council was not offered at the September heads of state summit. Hence a more serious fight can be waged at some stage, instead of legitimising a UN under Washington’s thumb.

This brings us back, though, to Mbeki’s vision that the IMF can be a vehicle for normalisation. As Nzimande reported to a Congress of SA Trade Unions central committee, the SACP was ‘extremely concerned about the danger of a loan amounting to little more than extending the crisis-ridden shelf-life of anti-worker, anti-poor authoritarian policies and practices. We call on our own government to show the maximum resolve in ensuring that there are very clear requirements attached to any loan. These requirements must include guarantees that the loan will not be squandered on elite consumption or repression. But the requirements must also embrace a much wider package of commitments with clear time-lines… These wider issues are, in fact, essential for resolving the present financial crisis.’

And then Mugabe pulled a card from his sleeve no one thought he had: in September he came up with $135 million from having scrounged all foreign currency available, and he paid the IMF a substantial downpayment, enough to earn a six-month reprieve on the expulsion threat. Mugabe promised $50 million more by March, and vowed to repay the full amount. (No one outside Pretoria really believes the IMF would expel Zimbabwe, given that China and many African regimes would oppose this in the IMF executive, where 15% of the vote would be enough to veto such a move.)

By all accounts, this was an insane gesture. Even the white business spokespeople who are most aggrieved by Mugabe’s dirigisme were opposed to the payment. The only explanation is Mugabe’s ego: it is so gargantuan that, under pressure from Pretoria, he ignored the extraordinary sacrifices being made by his citizens these past months, with every commodity in short supply, simply to massage his pride at repaying the IMF.

South African government officials were also surprised, and continue to maintain that negotiations for the additional $500 million are on track, merely delayed a bit. The Cabinet had made one other similar loan to a country so as to repay the IMF, three years earlier. It was Joseph Kabila’s unelected regime in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the $45 million loan by Pretoria allowed Kabila to clear enough of the old Mobutu arrears. Those debts should be declared ‘Odious’ in international law, but their payment by Pretoria gained Kabila a new IMF credit at the cost of renewed IMF control over the Congolese people.

The extent of Mbeki’s own commitment to getting the IMF back into Zimbabwe was revealed on October 15. Addressing a forum of African Editors, he explained, ‘We had indeed said that we were ready to assist, and the reason we wanted to assist was because we understood the implications of Zimbabwe's expulsion from the IMF. What it would mean, among other things, is that everybody who is owed something by Zimbabwe would demand immediately to be paid. You would even get to a situation where they would seize anything that was being exported out of Zimbabwe because of that debt.’ This is utter nonsense, as the IMF has never acquired much less used such power. Many creditors presently dealing with Zimbabwe have various forms of security, because the government’s likelihood of nonpayment has been demonstrated for six years already.
By the way, returning to our opening quote, it was Pretoria’s local government minister, Sidney Mufamadi, who in April this year warned that the IMF molds ‘the discourse within which policies are defined, the terms and concepts that circumscribe what can be thought and done.’ There is no better example of this than Pretoria’s latest subimperial gambit in Zimbabwe, combining high finance and venal politics.

But let’s also pause to consider Mufamadi’s own borrowing from the World Bank, in a loan that directly places Bretton Woods advisors in dozens of municipalities. The World Bank website gives away Mufamadi’s game: ‘The Municipal Financial Management Technical Assistance Project, totaling $15 million is the only active World Bank loan to South Africa. It supports the building of financial management capacity in more than 40 key municipalities around the country. The World Bank country office is also supporting the government in … [its] oversight role in municipal public/private partnerships.’

On the same site, the Bank brags about its ‘support to Johannesburg’s iGoli’ (the city’s privatisation policy), allegedly a ‘model’ for South Africa. In reality, Africa’s largest water corporatisation quickly became a world-renowned site of brutal disconnections, prepaid meters and substandard sanitation for low-income townships – as well as heroic resistance by the Anti-Privatisation Forum and Jubilee South Africa, which combined to protest Paul Wolfowitz’s Johannesburg visit in July.

In contrast to activists, the key politicians prefer to ‘talk left, walk right’. Once we dispense with the rhetoric, this surreal financial game of hide-and-seek from the IMF unveils imperial/subimperial/dictatorial power relations uniting Washington, Pretoria and Harare. It remains for critics of the regimes to pursue a democratic, anti-neoliberal strategy – and too, for international protest against the Bretton Woods Institutions to now intensify.

* Patrick Bond directs the University of KwaZulu-Natal Centre for Civil Society: he is author of ‘Uneven Zimbabwe: A Study of Finance, Development and Underdevelopment’ (1998) and coauthor of ‘Zimbabwe’s Plunge: Exhausted Nationalism, Neoliberalism and the Search for Social Justice’ (2003). This article is excerpted from a longer version in the US journal ‘Against the Current’.

* Please send comments to [email protected]