Hi!

 

From time to time I post items from Zimbabwe.

 

I get them from a Georgist in South Africa.

 

Eddie Cross is an officer in the opposition party to Mugabe. However, its influence has diminished as Mugabe alters the election rules and heavily coerces its supporters.

 

Here is his latest.

 

Harry

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Sent: Sunday, September 04, 2005 11:36 AM

 

Subject: Child Morons

 

OVERGROWN MORONS AT WORK.

 

The BBC has a very well developed sense of the bizarre and

knows when to use a propaganda clip to good effect when it

becomes available. They did that this week with a short clip

from the only State run television channel here and the

subject was the reaction in Parliament to the success of the

vote on the 17th constitutional amendment since 1980.

 

The clip showed the despair of the MDC opposition to the

vote and the specter of the Zanu PF Members of Parliament

(one third of them unelected and appointed by Mugabe for

such an event in our sorry history) dancing in Parliament

and clearly showing their gross indulgence and scant regard

for the suffering of our people. But the sad thing is that

what we were really witnessing was a collection of overgrown

child morons at work.

 

Just look at the childish actions of this collection of

clowns in the past fortnight.

 

They create a new Senate which will cost us US$20 million

before the end of this year in direct and indirect costs at

a time when we cannot find the money to import food, raw

materials, fuel and spare parts. The only function of this

completely useless institution is to accommodate those who

failed in their bids to join the gravy train in the last

election.

 

They gave themselves the right to take away from those who

disagree with them and who are standing up to them

politically, the right to travel. This is clearly simply a

"tit for tat" measure designed to match the smart sanctions

imposed on Zanu leadership for gross human and political

rights violations. The fact that this was yet another

violation of our basic rights as entrenched in international

law made no impression.

 

They took away from all of us any remaining security of

tenure over assets that we have owned, in many cases, all

our lives. In one fell swoop they destroyed whatever hope

they once had of agricultural recovery and spread the

malaise to every sector of the economy. No mine or industry

or even urban residential property is now safe. This stupid

and childish act (which has no legal validity in the long

term as others in similar circumstances around the globe

will testify) has undermined all serious future investment

and confirmed decisions like that of the huge Anglo American

Group, that disinvestment is the only sensible strategy

while these clowns are in power.

 

They declared (and this really takes the cake) that we could

not demand elections for a new Mayor and Council in crisis

riven Harare because they were allowed by the law to

postpone such an event for three months at a time for up to

4 years! So much for democratic rights and the principle

objects of the liberation struggle that Zanu and others

fought for over half a century.

 

When faced with the threat of expulsion from the IMF and the

efforts by South Africa to get them to start behaving in a

mature and rational way to end the present crisis, they

raided the private bank accounts of local business and

simply took the money to pay the IMF US$120 million. This,

at a time when we have no seed or fertilizer for the new

season now two months away, no fuel, no raw materials,

shortages of all basic foods and shortages of just about

everything else. All that this act of defiance did was to

say to South Africa - you go jump in the lake. we can still

look after ourselves! If we needed a clearer example of the

rejection of the SA loan offer with its political and

economic conditions - here it is.

 

What did this childish act achieve? Absolutely nothing! It

came in a week when South Africa cut our phone lines for non

payment of accounts and the PTC announced it owed other

telephone systems over US$100 million in unpaid bills. We

owe everyone money and our creditors now hold our useless

script on nearly US$7 billion in foreign debt and Z$16

trillion debts at home - rising now at a trillion a week. We

even had a plane impounded at Gatwick for non-payment of

landing fees - and they held passenger luggage as hostage

until the overdue account was paid. But when it came to

rectifying the fundamental problems, that underline our

economic and political crisis and which the IMF and others

have been demanding action for years -they did virtually

nothing.

 

So now we sit - passengers at international airports waiting

for days for a plane to take them home, businessmen waiting

for urgently needed imports to keep their businesses

running, miners to keep their mines open and functioning,

farmers across the country sitting on their useless assets,

waiting for fuel and fertilizer and seed to get a crop in

the ground this season. It town we sit in queues for hours

and days for fuel and other essentials and when we get them

they have doubled or trebled in price.

 

The stock market is still frozen in its tracks - trillions

of dollars worth of "sell" orders, no buyers. The government

is losing Z$500 million a day while this impasse goes on but

still no action, they childishly refuse to accept they were

wrong and these new regulations will simply destroy what was

until a few weeks ago one of the few institutions still

functioning normally. These guys are morons - 25 years of

experience in government and they are still not learning

anything as they go on.

 

We have yet to see what the final IMF position will be but I

am sure the payment of US$120 million will not mean a great

deal. In fact the way it was done and the total lack of

transparency that was involved will not impress those stern

international bankers! It was probably counterproductive.

The truth is the IMF does not give a damn about the arrears

- it's our policies that worry them. They know better than

most with their global network of offices and people that it

is the policy stance of this government (the goon show) that

has destroyed our economy, halved incomes and life

expectancy and driven a third of our total population into

exile or an early grave.

 

If I were on the IMF Board I would send their cheque back to

them and tell them to go away and not to come back until

they were prepared to put their house in order. Right now we

are in a firestorm of inflation - for the first time in our

history we are seeing triple digit inflation in one month.

The good news is that no government in history has survived

that sort of storm and neither will this one. Then perhaps

we can start to get on with rebuilding our lives. There is

little hope of that while this collection of child morons is

at work and in control.

 

Eddie Cross Bulawayo, 3rd September 2005

 

********************************

Henry George School of Social Science

of Los Angeles

Box 655  Tujunga  CA 91042

818 352-4141

********************************

 

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