Maravi

Dear Rod Liddle

Dear Rod Liddle,

Thank you so much for touching on this subject, a subject that has been swept under the rug by Western and African elites alike.

The problem is that everything is ok, as long as western interests are not threatened - aid keeps flowing, budgets are made up to a great extent of 'donor' money. As long as no one questions western land ownership in Africa, or the ownership of Africa's mines and corporations by the West.

And this situation is of course beneficial to the West. My guess is that every year, Africa exports a trillion dollars ($1,000,000,000,000) in raw materials - from which of course not even it's corrupt leaders see much of anything. The profits go into the pockets of western corporations - that is the setup.

Africa should be rich - it after all produces 90% of the world's diamonds, 60% of the world's gold, Zambia exported 25% of all of the world's copper, the same for cobalt, platinum, and all kinds of obscure but valuable metals and gemstones. Nigeria alone exports 10% of the world's oil, with new finds in the Sudan and Zambia, as well as huge uranium deposits being found in Zambia's famous Copperbelt province, which is part of the massive mining area, most of which is the DRC's Katanga/Shaba province.

If Africa was payed international market value for it's materials, there would be no poverty on the continent. There would be no famine, there would be no need for 'donor money' or aid at all. Donor money ($600 million to Zambia in 2004) isn't about charity, it is about control.

So who benefits from this setup? The primary beneficiaries are the mining companies, and woe to anyone who stands up to them - Patrice Lumumba is a prime example. Secondary beneficiaries are the political elites - anyone who manages to get him or herself elected, so they can get their snouts in the national trough. Keep in mind, they are 'paid' by taking bribes when signing away their country's heritage, and sometimes (rarely) exploit minor mines themselves, considering they are a uniquely talentless bunch. Their expertise is restricted to politics and bribe taking, at which they are very good.

And this is where we come to the heart of the matter in undeveloped countries. The absence of systems - systems of procurement, systems of land allocation, systems of economic development.

Anything, that would make the ordinary processes of business and finance (and politics) objective, and transparant will eliminate corruption, because they eliminate the opportunity for corruption.

So why do political elites refuse to implement them? And what is more, why do western 'donor' countries refuse to demand them?

It is because, to borrow a phrase, in chaos they can steal.

No ends of state revenues seem to disappear and re-appear. Recently Zambia's finance minister Ngandu Magande 'found' $250,000,000.- of government revenues idling in domestic accounts. It seems the government had been borrowing it's own money, at hugely inflated interest rates. Hmm... There is tremendous corruption in government contracts, where they are paid for upfront, and then either are carried out in a sloppy manner, or not at all. Hmm... Land allocation - recently president Mwanawasa set up a commission to look into allocation of land by the Ministry of Lands; it turns out his own daughter had jumped the que.

And Zambia of course is no exception - this is what happens in countries that have no established, objective ways of dealing with these domestic issues - Malawi, Tanzania, Kenya, etc. have exactly the same problems. And the people don't like it at all. But it is sanctemonious to single out Zimbabwe. If this is an opportunity to make sure this changes, it would be fantastic.

However, this is what Lord Turnbull sees fit to defend.

When he states about Zambia's Mwanawasa that "the criticism is that the concessions made to foreign mining companies are too generous.", this is not a good thing. It goes to underline that THIS LEADERSHIP DOES NOT REPRESENT THE INTEREST OF IT'S OWN ELECTORATE. The present bunch of neoliberal leadership (Zambia, Malawi, Tanzania) are shameless about this. They will trump foreign interests over their own people's interests any time of the day, even to the point of patronizing their own electorate. In fact, they do not care about their electorates at all, which is why elections are never about issues, but about personalities. However, even the well meaning old nationalist leadership could be and was co-opted, through the West's massive economic power, which they used to force leaders to 'privatise', or force them to have multiparty elections which put into power neoliberals (Kaunda in 1991).

They are there as gatekeepers for Western interests. Combined with the fact that 1/3 of their budget comes from 'donor money' (Zambia in 2004), it is completely comprehensible why nothing changes in Africa. They are bought and paid for, and they know better than to stand up to western interests. They know they will end up like Patrice Lumumba, or like Robert Mugabe.

Now Robert Mugabe is not without his faults - he is an old school marxist, and his policy prescriptions are of the central control variety. However, he did not originate world record inflation by redistributing the land. The origin of record inflation in Zimbabwe, lies in Washington DC and London, whose conspiracy resulted in the Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act of 2001 (available online at govtrack.com), which banned the government of Zimbabwe from borrowing internationally. No government, let alone one so heavily dependent on 'donor aid' in it's budget, could survive that. This is what happened when you hear that opponents of the government of Zimbabwe saying 'they are printing money'. They were printing money, because they could not borrow money. Now, that may be a bad policy decision, but that was origin of it.

However, the enemies of Zimbabwe are dishonest cowards, in that they refuse to even admit that Zimbabwe is under sanctions. Of course ZDERA is a sanctions act. You cannot prohibit a country from borrowing from the IMF, the African Development Bank, the African Development Fund, the Asia Development Bank and more, and then claim there are no sanctions, 'only travel restrictions'. They know that if they admit that any of Zimbabwe's economic situation is their doing, it will make the MDC as unpopular as it deserves to be, and unelectable.

And let's mince no words here - the MDC are no different from the government of Frederick Titus Chiluba, who came to power in Zambia in 1991, and under whose leadership, Zambia lost all it's mines to foreign ownership.

The MDC have made it clear that they intend to privatise the Zimbabwean state's assets. And if they turn back land reform and evict the 250,000 people who have been resettled, for the benefit of 4,500 white commercial farmers, there will be civil war in Zimbabwe, on a scale of the one in Iraq.




http://maravi.blogspot.com/2007/03/lcc-bulldozes-market-stalls.html

LCC Bulldozes Market Stalls

State razes illegal stalls
By TATENDA MALAN

A COMBINED team of state and Lusaka City Council police swung into action in the early hours of yesterday and demolished illegal trading structures in the central business district, two weeks after the municipality rescheduled the exercise. The team, which had sealed off the area, razed market stalls at town centre market, Chiparamba, Chachacha, Freedom Way and Lumumba roads. Make-shift stalls that choked sections of Chiparamba Road operated by informal traders were razed, leaving a clear passage from Chachacha to Lumumba roads.



http://maravi.blogspot.com/2007/04/street-vendors-return-to-lusaka-city.html

Street vendors return to Lusaka city centre

Street vendors return to Lusaka city centre
By Patson Chilemba
Monday April 09, 2007 [04:00]

STREET vendors have gone back to the streets of Lusaka city centre barely two weeks after the Lusaka City Council (LCC) removed them. The makeshift stalls and phone booths that were removed have found their way back into the city centre with seemingly very little interruption from the local authority. Last week whilst demolishing makeshift stores at Cha Cha Cha Market, LCC police commandant Winfred Mwale vowed that that was the last society was seeing of street vending.



http://maravi.blogspot.com/2007/03/levys-daughter-given-unadvertised-plot.html

Levy’s daughter given unadvertised plot

Levy’s daughter given unadvertised plot
By Nomusa Michelo and Sandra Lombe
Saturday March 24, 2007 [02:00]

PRESIDENT Levy Mwanawasa's daughter Mirriam Luwale Mwanawasa is among several people who have been allocated unadvertised plots in Lusaka's Makeni area on farm number 397a. According to records obtained from the Ministry of Lands, Mirriam was allocated an unadvertised plot number F/397a/148 this year.

Labels: CORRUPTION, LETTERS, NEOCOLONIALISM

posted by MrK @ 12:28 PM