New York Times, July 26, 2011 U.S. Freezes Grant to Malawi Over Handling of Protests By CELIA W. DUGGER CAPE TOWN, South Africa — In a sharp blow to Malawi’s international standing, an agency of the American government on Tuesday froze a $350 million grant to the nation after antigovernment protests there last week left 19 people dead. The American decision followed Britain’s July 14 suspension of aid to the Malawian government — which has in the past gotten almost half its budget from international donors — on grounds that it had suppressed demonstrations and intimidated civic groups. Malawi is one of the poorest countries in the world and its president, Bingu wa Mutharika, 77, a former World Bank economist, had been widely credited with successful efforts to reduce hunger by subsidizing small farmers’ fertilizer use. But human rights activists and academics have been sounding alarms in recent months about his increasingly authoritarian tendencies, reminiscent, they said, of Hastings Kamuzu Banda, the dictator who ruled the country for 40 years until the advent of multiparty elections in 1994.
A senior American official, Sheila Herrling, said Tuesday that the Millennium Challenge Corporation, a federal agency, was “deeply disturbed” by accusations that the police had fired live rounds on unarmed people last week, and by claims that press coverage of the two-day demonstrations had been suppressed. The $350 million grant from the corporation, which was announced only in April and was to be disbursed over five years for electricity generation, is a large amount of money for Malawi, whose annual budget is about $2 billion. “We are in the hands of the government of Malawi, and what they do right now will be critical to restoring the confidence of the M.C.C. and its board,” said Ms. Herrling, a vice president at the corporation, whose mission is to give large antipoverty grants to well-governed developing countries. Mr. Mutharika has rejected accusations that the police force under his command used excessive force against demonstrators and blamed his political opponents and civic leaders who organized the protests for the violence. His spokesman, Hetherwick Ntaba, said the police had to contend with looters, vandals and rioters. Peaceful demonstrators were protected, not harmed, he said. Mr. Ntaba said he was disappointed that the United States announced its decision on the grant so quickly. “We would have expected them to wait for independent investigation and the government’s side,” he said. But the government’s critics say they are afraid. Undule Mwakasungula, who organized the protests last week, said by cellphone that he had gone into hiding since the president named him as one of those to blame for the violence. Mr. Mwakasungula said his lawyer told him the police had prepared charges against him. “We are being hunted so we can’t expose ourselves,” he said. “We’re a target of ruling party agents.” The protests themselves were fueled by what the government’s critics see as its mismanagement of the economy and its antidemocratic ways. Malawi has had a rapidly growing economy, but this year brought a collapse of tobacco exports — a major foreign exchange earner for the country — to about one-third of last year’s level. “It’s a huge calamity for an export to fail that way,” Janet Stotsky, the International Monetary Fund’s mission chief for Malawi, said in a telephone interview. As the country has faced an acute shortage of foreign exchange along with rising international fuel prices, Mr. Mutharika has resisted advice from the International Monetary Fund to devalue the local currency, the kwacha. The lack of foreign currency to pay for imports has worsened fuel shortages, leading to long lines at gas stations and leaving businesses struggling to operate with unreliable electricity and a lack of diesel to power private generators. The protests themselves seem to have created more discontent. Kondwani Munthali, a political reporter for The Nation and a former Neiman Fellow at Harvard, said photographers, as well as radio, freelance and newspaper journalists — including himself — were beaten by the police with gun butts, whips and sticks. He wrote on his blog that the police took turns beating Mr. Mwakasungula, one of the protest’s chief organizers, “one after another whipping him with gun butts.” As he fell asleep last Wednesday night with images of people being tear gassed, beaten and shot in his mind, Mr. Munthali said he wondered “is this part of the legacy President Bingu wa Mutharika would like to leave.”
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