Mugabe blames West for Zimbabwe's economic problems

[Mugu]

FRANCES D'EMILIO and ARIEL DAVID, Associated Press via Yahoo

ROME - Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe defended land policies blamed for devastating his country's agricultural sector, asserting at a U.N. food summit Tuesday that the West was trying to cripple the nation's economy.

Mugabe's presence at a summit addressing high global food prices sparked protests from some world leaders. He is blamed for the economic collapse of a country once considered a regional breadbasket and Zimbabweans increasingly are unable to afford food and other essentials.

Zimbabwe is not subject to broad sanctions affecting ordinary citizens. Western sanctions are targeted instead at the president and several dozen close associates.

Mugabe nonetheless contended that his policies of redistributing land taken from large farmholders were "warmly welcomed by the vast majority of our people" and the sanctions aim to "cripple Zimbabwe's economy and thereby effect illegal regime change in our country."



http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080603/ap_on_re_eu/un_food_crisis">Complete article

[mainegreen]

1. Ah, the face of evil.

The reason your country is a wreck is you, sir.

[Squatch]

2. ...

[penguin7]

3. How did he ruin the country?

Isn't he taking land from large mega-farmers and giving this land to the People?

What is wrong with that?

[Squatch]

4. A little light reading for you

Wiki Link

[penguin7]

5. Been there, read that

So again what is wrong with giving the land back to the People?

[lapislzi]

6. Where does it say he gave it to the People with a capital "P"?

He took profitable and productive farms (yes, they were mostly owned by whites who stayed on after the wars of the 1970s) and handed them out as spoils to his cronies, generals, and supporters who failed to work them.

He drove agriculture into the ground. He drove the PEOPLE into the streets. I was there.

[penguin7]

8. A quote from Wikipedia

"However, Mugabe claims that massive financial isolation through American, British and EU legislation such as the Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act of 2001 is the actual cause of hyperinflation. Under ZDERA, the International Monetary Fund and other financial institutions are prohibited from extending loans, credit or cancelling debt to the government of Zimbabwe. As Zimbabwe needs to import all its energy, and oil is paid for in US dollars, this made the country vulnerable to financial sanctions like ZDERA."

[lapislzi]

9. There are no goods in the shops

You can't buy anything, even if you have hard currency. Zim used to be able to feed itself and export food and crops (tobacco). Now look. You don't create agricultural failure through monetary policy. That is a direct result of Mugabe's land policies. The sanctions followed that; they didn't cause it. The sanctions are on the government, not the people.

Africa is also facing a massive infrastructure crisis. They buy their power from South Africa, who cannot cope with the increased demands of its own population, not to mention those of much of the sub-Saharan continent.

While I agree that Britain would have liked nothing better than to see Zim fail in the 1980s, that didn't happen. Mugabe had some progressive policies then--before he isolated himself like the paranoid dictator he's become. I defended Mugabe for years when I lived in Africa, much to the disgust of many of my white friends--until his policies became simply indefensible.

[Raskolnik]

7. His policies are causing starvation and economic ruin.

Breaking up large farms owned by rich minority white farmers and redistributing it to a landless majority is a wonderful policy, as long as you don't care about actually *feeding* the majority of Zimbabwe.

Whether the large white-owned farms were morally justifiable in the long run, it is simply criminal to ignore the fact that those farms were extremely efficient and effective producers of food for Zimbabwe. It is not rocket science to predict that taking large farms away from experienced farmers dividing them into thousands of small farms run by people (however well-intentioned) with little or no farming experience or equipment would result in catastrophe.

Mugabe's policies have led directly to starvation and utter economic ruin. All the pieces were there for him to turn Zimbabwe into a modern, successful, and powerful African state, and he has consistently blown every opportunity to do so.