Re: [A-List] Zimbabwe: US to initiate "rescue"?

["Patrick Bond" <bond.p@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

These are extremely good questions. No clear answers on the central African crisis, but after the UN Sec Council report on the looting of the DRC last month, which included SA firms, things are quite fluid.

We are closely following many of these larger geopolitical issues through the lens of Mbeki's subimperialist New Partnership for Africa's Development. If anyone's interested in a detailed ('graf by 'graf) critique, it's in *Fanon's Warning: A Civil Society Reader on Nepad* which is mostly available for downloading at http://www.aidc.org.za 

Would Mbeki help the masses rid Zim of Mugabe? Don't bet on it. Here's some 'grafs from our first edition of Zimbabwe's Plunge:

***

	South African schizophrenia in relation to Zimbabwe has several features. In early 2000, as Mugabe appeared to have squandered both political popularity and the legitimacy to govern, the ANC leadership must have looked north and observed the following:

	* a liberation movement which won repeated elections against a terribly weak opposition, but under circumstances of worsening abstentionism by, and depoliticisation of, the masses;
	* concomitantly, that movement's undeniable failure to deliver a better life for most of the country's low-income people, while material inequality soared;
	* rising popular alienation from, and cynicism about, nationalist politicians, as the gulf between rulers and the ruled widened inexorably and as more numerous cases of corruption and malgovernance were brought to public attention;
	* growing economic misery as neoliberal policies were tried and failed; and
	* the sudden rise of an opposition movement based in the trade unions, quickly backed by most of civil society, the liberal petit-bourgeoisie and the independent media--potentially leading to the election of a new, post-nationalist government.

If all such bullets were fired in Zambia roughly a decade earlier, and if all but the last bullet were also loaded in South Africa, then it was logical for ANC leaders to look out from their headquarters at Albert Luthuli House in Johannesburg--and to panic. 

***

And a final note, for Mac: my comrades in Zim and I don't support the MDC as it is constituted. In fact, you won't find a more active cadreship of independent leftist critics - people like yourself - in the various popular movements and unions, and they have already come down very hard on Tsvangirai's use of neolib economic strategies. About six weeks ago, Tsvangirai fired the main advocate of IMF/WB policies, Eddie Cross. Whether that represents more than musical chairs remains to be seen. But the sentiment in the nascent anti-capitalist movement is captured in this item from (the presently quite uneven) http://zimbabwe.indymedia.org: 

ANTI-CAPITALISM HITS SOUTHERN AFRICA

Across Southern Africa activists, trade unionist and socialist have found inspiration from the protests outside the 'Earth summit' in Johannesburg. Dozens of activists from Zimbabwe's Anti-Privatisation Forums (note the shirt worn by the South African woman in the photograph) went to the protests, carrying the message 'Another world is possible'. The growth of this movement is the biggest threat to the government and all the apostles of privatisation and neo-liberalism in Zimbabwe.

***

And here's another not atypical post, from an excellent young comrade, Hopewell Gumbo:

CALL TO THE WORKING PEOPLE'S CONVENTION
by HOPE GUMBO Wednesday October 30, 2002 at 07:37 AM


LET'S GO BACK TO THE WORKING PEOPLE'S CONVENTION...................................

THE CRISIS IN ZIMBABWE GETS DEEPER. 

As the year gets to an end the crisis in zimbabwe gets deeper. The usually passive and dormant middleclass has stated to feel the pinch as well. Lectures in the two largest have gone on strike. The strike by the UZ lecturers goes into the third week and those from the National University of Science and Technology reentered today. They join the students who started a massive class boycott a week ago. This is the first time the lecturers at NUST have taken the action in a strong way. In the last strike a year ago some of them went on with their teaching program while others, the more radical ones went on strike. 

This is the sign of the changing tide. The middle class who form the middle layer of party control in the MDC have shown the way, i.e. mass action by embarking on the strike. The MDC should borrow a leaf now. Last week the teachers were on strike, which was brutally by the state. Today it is the lecturers and students in the universities and already anger is boiling the whole country as basic commodities become more scarce fueling the black market that has hit the masses to the core. The language in the streets now is "this is now too much. MDC has failed us" meanwhile Tswangirai says people must act on their own but is quick to suggest that MDC is still relevant. Indeed the MDC is still relevant, as the masses still believe it is their baby. They go through the pain of accepting the stolen agenda but still believe what they started is still the way among other limitations on the mass movement. 
There are threats already that the UZ might be closed indefinitely. This confirms the delicacy of this crisis. But the current events can not bring the results in their isolated nature. The civic society must go out of their shells and show their presence. Gone are the days on sprouting of numerous NGOS that do nothing but eat donor monies stifling the people's struggle. A well-coordinated program of action is the best way forward. As we have been calling for in the ISO only on a big united front focusing on bread and butter issues can we bring the results that we want. The call for a return to the working people's convention is long over due. This time it must be held under the banner of the Social Movements United for the Working People's Convention (SMUWPC). Only progressive social movements will be called to attend. We can no-longer wait for the paranoid and bosses party, the MDC to call for action. The working people's convention agenda should focus on how the MDC sold out and later go on to build an alternative left movement that unites the masses and seek to mobilize against the global corporate agenda along the movement from Seattle to Joburg 2002. This is the true movement that must come out. The more organized left in Zimbabwe should take a leading role in the new movement that should see the Zimbabweans from this current crisis. The new movement must build its own funding bass, not from the pro-west governments funders. 
This is an urgent call and we call for it like yesterday. 

>>> michael.keaney@xxxxxx 11/11/02 11:23AM >>>
I wonder just how much the geopolitics of southern Africa are being shaken
up with the end of the Angolan civil war and the efforts to scale down the
war in Congo/Zaire. Can we expect greater US efforts to "secure" the region
as Bush et al. try to acquire alternative sources of oil? Is there any
evidence to suggest that Mugabe (however detestable) is being objectively
foolish enough not to comply with US prerogatives and is therefore placing
himself and his regime in danger of being "changed"? Are South African
capital interests involved in the exploitation of Congo/Zaire's natural
resources (e.g. diamonds), or are they angling for a piece of the action? If
so how does this square up with Mbeki's fence-sitting? Could and should
Mbeki rid Zimbabwe of Mugabe just as Julius Nyerere deposed Idi Amin from
Uganda? Or would this merely pave the way for a more complete US
stranglehold on the region, with SA capitalists junior partners in the
carve-up?

Michael