arch/ive/ief (2000 - 2005)

De oude president Mugabe maakt een vuist naar het Westen. Hij schrapt de liberaliseringen en wil dat Zimbabwe terugkeert naar het socialisme. "Steek jullie schulden in jullie r***", zei hij aan de schuldeisers van het IMF en daar konden ze niet mee lachen. Zimbabwe kwam op de zwarte lijst van slechte betalers en zie, enkele dagen later duikt Zimbabwe zelfs op in de lijst van rogue states. Mugabe zou zelfs in contact staan met bin Laden. De wereld is klein.
Maar daarover later meer.

HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) - Zimbabwe is abandoning market-based economic
policies and returning to a socialist-style economy, President Robert Mugabe
announced Monday. Businesses opposed to the move should ``pack up and go,''
he said.

Mugabe said a price freeze on basic foods imposed Friday will be strictly
enforced, and the government will seize firms that shut down, withhold their
goods or engage in illegal profiteering.

``Let no one on this front expect mercy ... The state will take over any
businesses that are closed,'' Mugabe said. ``We will reorganize them with
workers and at last that socialism we wanted can start again.''

Zimbabwe dropped its socialist economic policies a decade after it gained
independence in 1980 and embraced Western-style economic reforms.

In recent years, Zimbabwe's economy has become crippled by out-of-control
inflation and unemployment and a crushing shortage of hard currency.

Analysts say the crisis began with the country's expensive military
involvement in the Congo war and worsened when ruling party militants began
occupying white-owned commercial farms, which generate much of the hard
currency in this agricultural-based economy.

On Monday, Mugabe offered a challenge to anyone unhappy with the country's
new economic direction. ``Those tired of doing business here can pack up and
go,'' he said.

Independent economist Howard Sithole said Mugabe's remarks set ``a
depressing outlook for private enterprise'' in the country.

``We are putting the clock back to shortages and food lines we had in the
1980s. Manufacturers will have to scale down, forget about any new
investment at all and hope this is a temporary political measure that can be
removed'' after presidential elections early next year, he said
On Friday, the government ordered price cuts of 5 percent to 20 percent on
corn meal, bread, meat, cooking oil, milk, salt and soap.

Over the weekend, bread, cooking oil and margarine were unobtainable across
the country and there were bread shortages in Harare on Monday.

A main bakery chain in Harare said the set prices did not take into account
transportation, power and other costs, and it had put 200 of its workers on
shorter working hours as production was cut.

Manufacturers have been forced to buy imported spare parts and machinery at
the unofficial hard currency rate - nearly six times the official rate.
Mugabe defended his government's new policies, saying he was ``extremely
concerned by pricing mayhem in industry and commerce.''

``We are not saying no profit, but they (producers) cannot operate at
profiteering levels. Let them also not operate enterprises with political
motives,'' he said.

Ruling party lawmakers have accused white-owned firms of raising prices in a
bid to undermine the government and trigger civil unrest.

Production of tobacco, the main hard currency earner, and corn have been
disrupted by the farm occupations, and the government's program to seize
more than 4,600 white-owned farms to hand over to landless blacks.

Foreign investment also has dried up and Western financial institutions have
frozen loans to protest the land confiscations, economic mismanagement and
government overspending.

Mugabe Under Investigation for Promoting Terrorism

Zimbabwe Standard (Harare)
October 14, 2001
Staff Writer

WESTERN intelligence are investigating a possible link between President
Mugabe and a South African anti-drug group, Pagad, funded by Libyan leader,
Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, reports from South Africa say.

The reports say the two leaders are believed to have threatened to unleash
Pagad, a notorious Cape-based vigilante group on the white community in
Zimbabwe. The militant Islamic group uses violent means to weed out drug
peddlers.

According to a report carried by iafrica.com last week, Gaddafi is believed
to have held meetings with some members of the organisation in Harare when
he visited Zimbabwe in July.

The original report was published by the Islamic Affairs Analyst (IAA).

The report says Gaddafi told an Indian Muslim group in Harare during his
visit that they should expel whites from Zimbabwe. He also threatened to use
criminal elements within the Pagad organisation to terrorise whites and push
them out of the country if local Moslems failed to do so.

Because of their criminal records, special instructions have been passed on
to immigration staff at Beitbridge to ensure that Pagad members have
unrestricted access into Zimbabwe.

The reports also said South African Intelligence services were particularly
interested in the circumstances surrounding Gaddafi's promise of US$360
million in oil and the US$1 million contribution to Mugabe's election
campaign.

A Pagad spokesman refused to comment on the matter.

South African intelligence ministry spokesman, Thembinkosi Lehloesa, told
iafrica.com that South African intelligence were not investigating Gaddafi
and Pagad. He, however, said if Pagad was receiving funds from Gaddafi then
the matter would be discussed with the Libyans.

Efforts to get a comment from state publicity and information minister,
Jonathan Moyo, yesterday were unsuccessful as his phone kept cutting off as
soon as The Standard got through.

Gaddafi has of late been on a mission to prop up his pan-African image by
courting embattled anti-western African leaders such as Mugabe.

At one time, the Libyan leader called for African countries to expel whites
from the continent.

In Mugabe, Gaddafi believes he has found an ally in his anti-white crusade.

Mugabe has accused local whites of acting in cahoots with European countries
to sabotage the Zimbabwean economy and force him out of power.