West moves to re-engage Zimbabwe
21/05/2013 00:00:00
by blackvoicenews.com
WITH several low-key, but unmistakable gestures, the United States, the
European Union block and other western countries have signaled that it is
moving toward normalising relations with Zimbabwe after years of frosty
relations.
In March, former United Nations Ambassador Andrew Young was dispatched by
the Obama administration to meet with President Robert Mugabe.
After the 2-hour meeting, Young told reporters that the State Department had
sent him to Zimbabwe to let Mugabe know the U.S. was interested in repairing
its strained relations with the mineral-rich country.
Last month, another civil rights veteran, Jesse L. Jackson, Sr., also held a
2-hour unofficial meeting with Mugabe in which the Chicago-based leader
called for open and free elections and pledged to work for the removal of
U.S. sanctions against Zimbabwe.
In the meeting, Jackson told Mugabe, who at 89 is Africa’s oldest sitting
president: “When there’s growth and investment, everybody wins. And we want
to be a part of helping remove…barriers that stand between our two
countries.”
After controversial land reform and what the U.S. called flawed elections,
the United States applied limited sanctions in 2003 against about 120 key
individuals and 70 industries. The restrictions, including a travel ban to
the U.S. except for UN business, are narrowly targeted.
But earlier this month, the U.S. Treasury Department announced that it was
lifting sanctions against the Agricultural Development Bank of Zimbabwe
(Agribank) and the Infrastructure Development Bank of Zimbabwe, provided no
transactions are conducted with any person who remains on the sanctions
list.
The U.S. move came on the heels of a decision in March by the 27-member
European Union to remove sanctions against 81 officials and eight firms. The
sanctions will however, remain in place against President Mugabe and 10
members of his inner circle as well as two firms.
The EU’s decision was announced after 95 percent of Zimbabwean voters
approved a new constitution that limits a president to two, 5-year terms,
includes a bill of rights, prohibits the president from vetoing laws passed
by the legislature and establishes an independent electoral commission.
The election changes are not retroactive and will not prohibit Mugabe, the
only leader the country has had since gaining independence from Britain in
1980, from running again in the next election, which is expected to take
place in August or September.
Land reforms
The international community began withdrawing resources from Zimbabwe after
the democratically-elected government decided to reclaim land from White
commercial farmers, land that they said rightfully belonged to them.
The western media trumpeted stories about how unfair the White farmers were
being treated under the new Black government.
However, Agriculture, Mechanization and Irrigation Development Minister,
Joseph Made, said the black farmers were the ones aggrieved.
“What is very critical is that 6,000 White commercial farmers controlled
prime agricultural land – about 15 million hectors [36 million acres] –
denying a majority of Blacks an opportunity to also be involved in
agriculture in prime areas where there’s better rainfall and better soil,”
said Made.
In an interview, Made explained, “Our independence was the result of an
armed struggle, primarily for two things: the right to vote and secondly,
the land issue. We were a conquered people in terms of colonial legacy.
“We were defeated by the British. So, we took up arms to fight for that
right to vote, which was denied to us, and the right to reclaim our land. It
was a fight to reclaim what was rightfully ours. It’s not denying anything
to anybody on racial grounds.”
David Bruce Wharton, U.S. Ambassador to Zimbabwe, called the land reform
effort a failure.
“They have a sovereign right to do that, but there are consequences,” he
said.
“If you do it in a way that looks to the outside world like it’s chaotic,
like the rule of law has been suspended, like there’s no real plan about
making sure poor people get land as well as the wealthy people, there are
consequences. Investors will walk away, tourists will stay away and that’s
sort of the reality.”
Made said critics are ignoring Zimbabwe’s reality.
“We were a conquered people and our land was taken,” he stated. “Naturally,
we had to fight and we won an armed struggle to the right to reoccupy our
land.”
Initially, Britain and the U.S. had agreed to compensate displaced white
farmers as part of the 1979 Lancaster House Agreement that brought
independence to what would later become Zimbabwe.
Once the farmers were not paid, the blame was shifted to the Mugabe
government, not the countries that reneged on their pledges.
“We will not compensate for land that was never paid for,” Made said. “That
land was taken by virtue of conquest – our forefathers were not given money.
That [compensation] is the responsibility of the British.”
Economic problems
Made said most of the world minimizes the suffering Blacks experiences under
White minority rule.
He said:“There’s all the talk about democracy, but we are the people who
were denied the right to vote. We are the people who were told, ‘You don’t
come through the front door, you go through that rear door.’ That was the
system that operated here.
“We could not sit on the same bench with a White person in a park. The Black
workers could not go on the same lift [elevator] as White people. It was in
this city where you could not walk on the pavement – you had to walk where
the cars were driving – as a Black person.
“We fought and on the day of independence, the Black people walked on the
pavement en masse. That’s how the law was repealed.”
Skyscrapers that dot downtown Harare are rusty reminders of a gleaming city
of a bygone era. An car trip from the airport to the center city is a bumpy
one because of deep potholes. Even the sidewalks, now that Blacks can walk
on them, are in desperate need of repair.
President Mugabe said international sanctions have taken a toll on the
country.
But Ambassador Wharton said some of the wounds were self-inflicted.
“One of the things I hear Zimbabweans say is Zimbabwe never did anything
wrong,” he recounted.
“In fact, I think there were some mistakes. Wharton said one was the
decision to in 1997 to make large payments to veterans of the liberation
struggle. “I’m not saying that was right or wrong, but when they did that,
the currency blew up,” he said.
“I think they made a mistake in 1999 when they walked away from their debts
to the IMF [International Monetary Fund] – they just stopped servicing those
debts. That cut them off from new credit and debt relief.”
In addition, Zimbabwe can’t borrow from the World Bank or the African
Development Bank because it stopped servicing those debts as well.
The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe printed extra money to satisfy growing
government debts, causing the inflation rate to soar from 32 percent in 1998
to an astonishing 11,200,000 percent by 2007. Following a decade of economic
contraction, the economy grew by 6 percent in 2011 and slipped to 5 percent
in 2012.
After a hotly contested presidential election in 2008, Mugabe entered into a
power-sharing agreement with his chief political opponent, Morgan
Tsvangirai, who became prime minister. Pressure is mounting on both to make
sure the next election is a fair one.
New hope
Some businessmen, such as Elzie L. Higginbottom, president and CEO of
Eastlake Management Group, Inc. in Chicago, see enormous investment
opportunities in the country.
“When Zimbabwe was known as Rhodesia, it was the breadbasket of southern
Africa. I like the size of the country – about 12 million people. I like the
fact that it is an English-speaking country,” said Higginbottom, who has
been traveling to Zimbabwe for the past four years.
“The education level is very high – a 93 or 94 percent literacy rate. The
other thing I like is that they have a basket of currency, but the
predominant currency is the U.S. dollar.”
He added, “Zimbabwe is a mineral-rich country. It has platinum, gold,
diamonds, chrome – it has all sorts of valuable minerals. It’s a peaceful
country, it is predominantly one tribe and it’s set for redevelopment and
improvement.”
Despite the sanctions, the U.S. maintains diplomatic relations with
Zimbabwe. Trade between the two countries has grown from approximately $100
million to $160 million annually over the past three years.
Ambassador Wharton, who says his goal is to see all sanctions on Zimbabwe
lifted, predicts that investors will eventually flood the country.
“The country has extraordinary intellectual capital,” he said.
“Robert Mugabe invested very well in education and health from the very
beginning, from 1980 forward and the result is that you got an
extraordinarily well-educated population – the highest literacy rate in
sub-Saharan Africa. Culturally, Zimbabweans work hard, they’re honest, they’re
ethical – they are extraordinary people.
“On top of that you got great mineral wealth – gold, platinum, chrome,
diamonds, coal – and you got fantastic agricultural potential, which is
currently underutilized. This country used to feed the entire region. You
harness that intellectual capital with those natural resources and it’s in
an extraordinarily attractive position for economic growth.”