[Arrogant, Racist Robert Mugabe said that the Blacks did not need the White farmers. He brushed the Whites aside, saying in effect: “We will show them!” Yes, and “show us” he did. He showed us just how right we were. We were not being arrogant. We were not being racist. We were just telling the truth like it is. We know the Blacks better than they know themselves – and we were proven right – AGAIN! Thank you Robert. You have proved once more just how right Ian Smith was back in 1965. Jan]

THE fact that Tony Blair won the British election just when the Zimbabwe government and President Robert Mugabe declared they had buried the man in the recent “Bury Blair” election clearly rattled them.

In fact, so outraged was Zimbabwe’s government that it announced the British poll had been marred by a lack of transparency, and fraud – and, after all, that is something they do know something about.

Presumably the government’s hot air and bluster about Blair’s election was a ruse to divert attention from the chaotic state of its own situation. It managed to hold the line long enough to secure a victory in the March election before, by all accounts, its food-for-votes stockpile diminished and fuel supplies ran dry.

The maize harvest has been the worst in memory, according to the Famine Early Warning Systems Network, which says that only a third of the 1,8-million tons consumed a year has been grown this year. There are also concerns about the slow planting of winter wheat.

Over the past few weeks, maize shortages have been accompanied by widespread shortages of other staple foods and commodities, largely due to the spin-off effect of the government’s price controls. Many of these are now available only on the black market at three times the price. The government has reacted by threatening to jail manufacturers and retailers not observing the price controls.

The black market for foreign exchange, which had receded in the past few months, is booming again with the parallel rate at a record high of more than Z$20000 to one US dollar while the official auction rate straddles Z$6000 to the dollar.

Power cuts have been more frequent than usual and municipal water supplies are erratic.

As usual, the president seems hardly to have noticed. Instead, he has expanded the already large cabinet with a number of vague new portfolios and is clearly itching to change the constitution to introduce a second chamber of parliament to accommodate those cronies he could not get into the cabinet.

He spent $400m on fighter jets to cement the country’s ties with Zimbabwe’s new best friend, China, presumably in the hope that it might get a slice of the development funding windfalls extended to Angola and Nigeria by China in the past year or so. There is certainly enough mutual back-slapping to think something might be cooking.

The issue of concrete measures towards economic recovery seems to be low on the radar.

Although Mugabe has euphemistically named his new cabinet (stuffed mostly with old guard) the “development cabinet”, there appear to be no new policies on the table.

Even the reserve bank governor, who is spearheading what economic recovery there has been, has delayed his monetary policy statement for several weeks. He is now expected to deliver it this week.

The few measures that have been taken are piecemeal. For example, the government has secured a loan from First National Bank to buy fuel. It has also taken the rather radical step of inviting “specialised” white commercial farmers (those involved in horticulture, dairy farming, game conservancies and maize production) back on to the land – a move not likely to be popular with those who loudly applauded the act of kicking them off in the first place.

The frightening thing is that even with an election looming, the government did little to spark sustainable economic recovery, preferring various means of coercion to win the election.

With the election safely behind it, and no other possibility for change until at least 2008, when the presidential election is due to be held, there is even less motivation for it to take urgent steps to address the crisis.

The multilateral institutions might bite, but the compromises required by the government to satisfy the likes of the International Monetary Fund may doom such engagement to failure.

As usual, our foreign minister’s response has been to accuse those criticising the situation in Zimbabwe of racism.

The light at the end of the tunnel may be the visit of United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan to Zimbabwe at the end of the month in a bid to address the political and economic problems.

At the end of the day, it is the government that must sort out the mess it has got the country into, but it has shown no political will to do so. Maybe it is time SA and the international community started to engage not just the government, but the reformists in the ruling party. Exploiting divisions in Zanu (PF) may be the only solution left for change.

Games is director of Africa @ Work, a publishing, research and events company.

Source: AllAfrica.Com
URL: http://allafrica.com/stories/200505170587.htm…/p>