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The Propensity to Self Destruct
I looked through a list of one of the more recent line-ups of the Zanu PF
government and found that in the list of 58 or so Ministers were 17 PhD
graduates, many from prestigious Universities in Europe and the USA. Mugabe
himself is no slouch, he works out, drinks very little and eats sparingly.
He has 6 University degrees in valuable skills such as law and economics and
is clearly above average in intelligence. Why then the propensity to
self-destruct?
They know what is required to run a modern economy; we have lots of examples
of economic reform programmes adopted with great fanfare and then fudged and
abandoned. They did a lot of good things in the early 80's and yet they have
these blind spots. How could they ever have imagined they would get away
with Gukurahundi? Murambatsvina? How could they expect to be able to destroy
the commercial agricultural system and still feed the country and keep the
economy on its feet? But they did, clearly, because that is just what they
have done and have expected to be absolved of all wrongdoing, if not by the
deluded West then by their colleagues on the African Continent.
Now, in front of the whole world they sign up to an African brokered deal
after 18 months of tortuous negotiations and then, even before the ink is
dry, they are violating the agreement in fundamental ways and expecting to
get away with these violations. The list of violations grows every day. Farm
invasions, theft of private property, illegal detentions, false allegations
against neighboring States and agreement partners, abductions, murder,
torture, illegal appointments, failure to implement agreed reforms and now
manipulation of ministerial mandates.
Last winter, 95 per cent of the wheat crop was grown by the traditional
large-scale commercial farmers, 5 per cent by the so-called 'new' farmers.
Last summer 97 per cent of the tobacco crop was grown by a handful of
remaining large-scale growers, the same can be said of milk, pigs, poultry
and fruit. Yet the secretive cabal that runs the security and legal
apparatus of the transitional government under Zanu PF tutelage is, as I
write, destroying every last vestige of what was a decade ago, the most
productive agricultural community in Africa. In doing so they are using
violence, theft and extra legal methods that defy logic and any sense of
justice.
We are now just 30 days from the date by which winter crops of wheat and
barley should be planted. I can predict now, with absolute certainty, that
the winter crops will be half or less of those planted last winter. April is
the start of the new crop cycle for tobacco and if things remain as they
are, this country, which at one time ranked with Brazil and the United
States as a producer and exporter of quality flue cured tobacco, will cease
to be a significant player. The industry is about to collapse totally.
Tobacco firms will close their processing plants and the largest auctions
floors in the world will become warehouses for food aid.
Our economy which just ten years ago sustained a population of 15 million
and supported an education system that was the pride of Africa together with
a health system that was able to deal with all but the most complex cases,
is down to being unable to support even the most basic of services. In
January total tax collections were equal to US$4 million, less than 2 per
cent of what we needed to run the country. Yet the men and women who did
this to us give no sign that they acknowledge their failures or even that
they were in any way responsible for our total collapse.
The irony of the fact that they have participated in the past in forums that
have yielded principled statements on human and political rights, signed up
to agreements guaranteeing those rights and giving verbal accent to them on
many occasions, then violated those same principles with impunity in the
pursuit of power, seems to be lost on them. They spent most of their lives
demanding democracy and equal rights only to brush both principles aside
when challenged at the ballot box. When faced with limited and targeted
sanctions by the very people who supported their struggle for justice in the
60's and 70's with mandatory UN sanctions against Smith, they cry foul.
They had become one of the most corrupt and greedy administrations in the
world and yet they demand to be trusted with others funds and allowed to do
as they please with aid. They flaunt their wealth before an impoverished
nation where just a month ago, 75 per cent of the entire population had to
be fed by foreign donors because the government could not do so or be
trusted to do so if empowered. Yet these people, show no shame, no
understanding or even awareness of what damage they have done, not just to
the people and nation of Zimbabwe, but to the entire continent as we all
bear the consequences of the failures of leadership in Africa. Especially
when that leadership should know better, because of their own history, their
education and experience and the relative sophistication of the society they
managed.
I am afraid this propensity to self-destruct is a mystery to me. Many would
assign a racial connotation to the failure - certainly Ian Smith would crow
that he had been right about 'them' not being 'ready' to run their own
affairs. Who could argue with him? That is the real tragedy of this
situation; do they understand that? I see no sign that they do at present
yet it is so painfully obvious to any informed observer.
I know that countries only learn from mistakes and that if you read European
history about 500 years ago you will see the same failures, the same
shortcomings and destruction. Nevertheless we live in hope that education,
culture and communications together with centuries of experience and reform
would enable us to avoid these pitfalls. To stand on others shoulders
instead of falling into the same holes in the road they left behind. But
somehow Zanu PF seems incapable of this and seems incapable of reform
itself.
Hundreds of people are writing and calling me every day to say that MDC is
being sucked into the Zanu PF morass and will suffer the same fate if it
does 'nothing'. I will admit that if we do not make progress on rectifying
the many transgressions of the GPA and very soon, that the whole caboodle
could come tumbling down. Right now this failure is holding back progress on
all fronts and even though international donors have doubled their aid to
the country in the first quarter of this year, both patience and time is
running out.
Eddie Cross
Bulawayo, 12th April 2009
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