Re: Isabel Perón-Mugabe [was Re: [Marxism] "While we trade abstractions, people are dying?" (was, me bear-proof?)]

[Patrick Bond <pbond@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Lajany Otum wrote:
> I would be interested to hear what Patrick Bond has to
> say about the trade union based "democratic opposition"
> in Zambia, the right wing neoliberal course it took 
> after it won power and whether anything different 
> can or should be expected in the Zimbabwean case.
>   


Well I just posted the general answer - workers have to get and keep 
control of political parties speaking in their name because it's very 
likely the IMF will rule Zimbabwe again next year - two days ago on this 
list but here it is again. When I worked for Morgan Tsvangirai for a 
couple of years (early 1990s) I asked him about Chiluba regularly, and 
he expressed total disdain. But by early 2000 it seemed clear Tsvangirai 
would take the Chiluba road with a neoliberal economic advisor who 
promised the privatisation of everything within five years of the MDC 
taking power. My friend Simba Manyanya and I vowed to present maximum 
critiques of this neoliberal programme, and did so in the 2002 and 2003 
editions of Zimbabwe's Plunge: Exhausted Nationalism, Neoliberalism and 
the Search for Social Justice. Since then the independent-left Zim 
activists have become much more aware of the dangers of relying upon 
either faction of the MDC, or on a reformed Zanu(PF). You see below how 
readily US imperialism would adoptpromote a slightly reformed 
post-Mugabe Zanu...


Whose Zimbabwe economy?
by Patrick Bond

For Zimbabwe’s first post-Mugabe government, perhaps as early as next 
March if elite deal-making unfolds as promised, job number two (after 
restoring a semblance of democracy) is economic.

Given the meltdown of Robert Mugabe’s version of 
crony-statist-capitalism, a system terribly hostile to the country’s 
poor and working people, the new model chosen will reverberate across 
the world.

On the one hand, The Economist spells out why Zimbabwe should take 
‘Washington Consensus’ advice: ‘Nowhere has withdrawn so swiftly from 
the global economy, nor seen such a thorough reversal of neo-liberal 
policies. The results—an economy that has contracted by 35% in five 
years, and half the population in need of food aid—are hard to paper over.’

On the other hand, countries like Argentina, Venezuela, Brazil, Turkey, 
Indonesia, and the Philippines are throwing off the yoke of the 
International Monetary Fund (IMF), repaying loans early and thus pushing 
it into serious financial crisis.

With several Latin American countries veering sharply leftwards, out of 
Washington’s orbit, little Zimbabwe could become the IMF’s next big 
ideological battle ground.

To illustrate, SA Communist Party leader Blade Nzimande last month 
attacked the ‘superficial’ analysis dominant in the African National 
Congress: ‘During the first decade of Zimbabwe’s freedom (1980-1990), 
the government legitimately spent vast amounts of money on social 
services (health, education, welfare, etc), but without due regard to 
the fiscus and therefore the sustainability of such spending, [hence] 
government was forced to turn to the IMF’.

Not only is such analysis incorrect, for Mugabe adopted structural 
adjustment at a time of relative economic health, and by 1995 received 
the World Bank’s highest possible rating for following the Washington 
Consensus: ‘highly satisfactory’.

Just as grating, says Nzimande, is that, ‘In our ranks this argument was 
also used to justify our own [neoliberal] macro-economic policy.’

Mugabe’s spindoctors typically blame the 2000-07 economic crisis upon 
Western states and institutions angry about land reform, or mythical 
‘sanctions’ (aside from loan blacklisting due to nonpayment, there are 
only minor smart sanctions against a few dozen individuals in operation).

In fact, per person Gross Domestic Product has been falling since 1974, 
due to the constraints of a racially-biased small economy which under 
anti-Rhodesian sanctions overproduced beyond local buying power.

In contrast, the US State Department’s lead Africa official lists ‘poor 
fiscal policies and rampant government spending - including the cost of 
Zimbabwe’s military involvement in the Congo – [and] … an illegal and 
chaotic “fast track” land reform programme.’

Local economist Rob Davies mainly blames the crisis on wealth 
accumulation – ‘a peculiarly rampant form of absolute extraction’ - by 
the ruling party.

Though the majority MDC faction guided by former labour leader Morgan 
Tsvangirai has declared itself social democratic not neoliberal, 
suspicions remain that – like Zambia’s first post-Kaunda regime in 1991, 
presided over by trade unionist Frederick Chiluba, in the wake of late 
1980s mass riots against IMF dictates - it may revert to the Washington 
Consensus.

Mugabe, meanwhile, painfully and wastefully spent $150 million to 
partially clear IMF arrears in 2005-06 (leaving $130 million still to 
repay plus $4+ billion in other foreign credits). But there is no hint 
of any fresh loans until he departs – and then the searing strings 
attached to an IMF programme might generate new riots.

According to the last IMF statement on Zimbabwe, in December: ‘Going 
forward, the key will be first to ensure that sharp cuts are made in 
real terms in fiscal spending… Strong fiscal adjustment will need to be 
supported by moving a unified exchange rate towards market-determined 
levels, removing restrictions on current account payments and transfers, 
liberalizing price controls and imposing hard budget constraints on 
public enterprises.’

The last time the IMF exerted real power over Zimbabwe was when it lent 
$53 million in 1999, which was meant to release another $800 million 
from other creditors. According to leading IMF negotiator Michael Nowak: 
‘We want the government to reduce the tariffs slapped on luxury goods 
last September, and second, 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 more conditions were reportedly added: access to classified 
DRC war information and a commitment to pay new war expenditure from the 
existing budget.

This meant the IMF encouraged Mugabe to penalise health, education and 
other badly-defended sectors on behalf of 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.

To be sure, last December’s IMF statement also called for social 
security protections, but the IMF’s most essential medicine – ‘sharp 
cuts’ in an already broken state – will not cure this wretched patient.

Instead, the last time Zimbabwean civil society generated an analysis 
was 2000, alongside a progressive group within the UN Development 
Programme. Its strategy was developmental, basic-needs driven and 
patriotic – and now needs urgent fleshing out by organisations like the 
Zimbabwe Social Forum, trade unions, Women of Zimbabwe Arise and churches.

SA’s Mass Democratic Movement rose to a similar challenge in 1993, 
producing the Reconstruction and Development Programme. Then the really 
tough job looms: ensuring accountability of the state to the people.

***

http://harare.usembassy.gov/dell20070206.html
Response to Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe monetary policy statement

Ambassador Christopher W. Dell
February 7, 2007: Governor Gono’s Monetary Policy Statement of January 
31 could mark an important moment in restoring prosperity to Zimbabwe. 
As I told him that afternoon in his briefing to the diplomatic and 
business communities, I welcome his courage in speaking out and his 
recognition that the primary problem in Zimbabwe today is governance. 
The key to turning around Zimbabwe’s economy, as the Governor said, is 
the political will needed to implement the market reforms the IMF and 
others, including the United States, have been recommending for the past 
few years.

The Governor also deserves commendation for recognizing that Zimbabwe’s 
problems are of Zimbabwe’s making and are within the power of 
Zimbabweans to solve. Sanctions have been a convenient excuse but 
neither the U.S. nor any other country has imposed general sanctions on 
Zimbabwe. In fact, contrary to recent press reports, U.S. companies, 
with the support of the U.S. government, continue to do business in 
Zimbabwe, and Zimbabwe enjoys a trade surplus with the U.S. Instead, 
what we and others did was to target financial and travel sanctions at 
the roughly one hundred individuals most responsible for undermining 
Zimbabwe’s prosperity and democracy.

The Governor’s call echoes the conclusions of a conference held in 
Harare last October, sponsored by the American Business Association of 
Zimbabwe. At the conference, economists from southern Africa, from 
Brazil, and from the U.S. underscored the importance of a free-market 
economy and security of property to investment and economic growth. The 
Brazilian economist and the former Finance Minister/former Reserve Bank 
Governor of Malawi in particular emphasized that the success of economic 
reforms in their respective countries had depended vitally on the 
political will to make the difficult decision to embrace tough reforms.

At his briefing, I also told Dr. Gono that if the Zimbabwean government 
is sincere in its desire to improve governance by embracing economic and 
political reforms, the US, as well as other donors, will be supportive. 
I wish Dr. Gono, the Zimbabwean government, and above all the Zimbabwean 
people success in this regard. The future of your country is in your hands.

Christopher W. Dell
Ambassador of the United States of America


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