VOA
By
Blessing Zulu
Washington
03 March
2006
Concerned about the possibility discontent among Zimbabweans
could lead to
popular revolt, the government has backed off proposed steep
hikes in the
cost of electricity to households and a freeze on salaries to
teachers and
other public employees.
On a visit to Chegutu, in
Mashonaland West province, President Robert Mugabe
said teacher salaries
would be reviewed. Elsewhere, police have been told to
crack down on
unauthorized price increases by shop-owners and public
transport
operators.
Officials have described such unauthorized price rises as
economic
"sabotage."
A senior government source said a crisis
committee including the chiefs of
the central bank, army, police and Central
Intelligence Organization has
urged the president to curb rising prices
which risk sparking mass action by
a struggling population. Other reports
said Zimbabwe's state security
apparatus went on high alert this
week.
Elsewhere, Britain's minister for Africa, in South Africa this past
week,
warned that the further deterioration of conditions in Zimbabwe could
lead
to an outbreak of conflict.
Deputy Information Minister Bright
Matonga declined to comment on
developments.
BBC
Zimbabwe has only two
weeks of wheat supply left, while citizens are
faced with soaring bread
prices, Zimbabwe's main milling organisation has
said.
The cost of
bread has risen by 30%, pushing Zimbabwe's inflation rate
to more than
600%.
Zimbabwe has been in economic decline since President Robert
Mugabe
began seizing white-owned farms in 2000.
The government
is reported to have put its security forces on alert in
the rising
discontent leads to protests.
David Govere, deputy chairman of the
Millers Association, told AFP
news agency the scarcity of wheat has meant a
reduction in supplies to
bakeries.
"Due to depleted stocks, GMB
[state-run food distributor Grain
Marketing Board] is now giving us 400 tons
of wheat a week, down from 600
tons," he is quoted as saying.
Shortages of wheat could force bakers to import flour from South
Africa,
which could lead to more price rises.
A loaf of bread in Zimbabwe
currently costs $66,000 Zimbabwean (66 US
cents), having risen 30% in just
one week.
President Mugabe denies that his land reform programme
has contributed
to the crisis, blaming the effects of drought
instead.
Zimbabwe's opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC)
says the
situation is becoming unbearable.
"It's terrible right
now because of shortages," Arthur Mutambara,
leader of one of two factions
of the MDC.
"Fuel is not available, commodities are unaffordable,
unemployment
80%, inflation above 600%.
"It's a travesty of
justice that the country has been so run down by
Robert Mugabe's
regime."
Food aid
Zimbabwe's leading millers -
National Foods, Blue Ribbon and Victoria
Foods - have shut production at
most of their mills because of the wheat
shortage, according to
AFP.
International aid agencies say about 4.3m out of Zimbabwe's
13m people
will require food aid until the next harvest in May.
The country has suffered increasing food shortages, rising
unemployment and
runaway inflation since the government began redistributing
seized
white-owned farms six years ago.
Economists say the rate of
inflation could reach 1,000% by April.
News24
04/03/2006 15:44 -
(SA)
Harare - A prominent Zimbabwe war veteran, who led invasions of
white-owned
farms and firms in the country, has vowed "war" on bakers who
refuse to
reverse bread price hikes.
In a statement published in
Saturday's state-run Herald newspaper, Joseph
Chinotimba said bread price
hikes "should be reversed with immediate
effect".
Chinotimba warned:
"Without that there will be war."
Bread prices increased by 50% in many
shops in Zimbabwe this week.
A loaf of bread in the country now costs 70
000 Zimbabwean dollars (about
R4), up from the government-controlled price
of 44 000 Zimbabwean dollars
last week.
On Saturday, Chinotimba also
threatened to "deal with" farmers who he said
were underpaying farm
workers.
Chinotimba said: "To those employers who are paying their farm
workers 500
000 dollars (R35), we don't mind whether you are a minister or
you were once
a minister, whether you are black or white, we are
coming."
According to Zimbabwe's state media, the set wage for farm
workers is about
R70 - or one million Zim dollars.
Chinotimba
re-iterated he was still president of the pro-government Zimbabwe
Federation
of Trade Unions (ZFTU), denying press reports he had been ousted.
zimbabwejournalists.com
By a Correspondent
THE Parliamentary
Portfolio Committee on Transport and Communication
will decide the course of
action to take against Zimpapers chief executive
officer, Justin Mutasa for
alleged contempt of Parliament.
He is accused of barring the
committee from visiting The Chronicle and
Sunday News offices in
Bulawayo.
Leo Mugabe, chairman of the committee, said they would
present a
report to the clerk of parliament, Austin Zvoma.
"We will
be meeting as a committee next week and write a report on
what happened.
However, the clerk of court would determine the next course
of action but as
far as we are concerned he was in contempt of Parliament,"
Mugabe said. The
committee was on a tour of Bulawayo, which took them to the
National
Railways of Zimbabwe (NRZ) facilities, Spot FM studios in Montrose
and
Joshua Nkomo International Airport.
Mutasa allegedly wrote a letter to
management at the two papers
ordering them to bar the committee from
conducting any business at The
Chronicle. He said the MPs did not have any
business there.
Soon after they were blocked, Mugabe told
reporters from Bulawayo:
"We are at The Chronicle at the moment, but we have
been advised that we
cannot conduct our business. We have been shown a
letter from Justin Mutasa
saying our committee had no business at the
newspaper. He (Mutasa) is
obviously in contempt of parliament."
Zimpapers publishes its flagship The Herald, The Sunday Mail, The
Chronicle,
The Sunday News, The Manica Post, Kwayedza, Umthunywa, New
Farmer, Trends
and Zimbabwean Travel.Meanwhile, the committee has summoned
the Broadcasting
Authority of Zimbabwe (BAZ) to appear before it and explain
why it has not
issued a broadcasting license to anyone since the authority
was formed four
years ago.
Sunday Times, Australia
By RYAN
EMERY
05mar06
DISPOSSESSED Zimbabwean farmer Vernon Nicolle is determined
Robert Mugabe
will pay for taking over his
property.
Now safely in WA after his farm and
livelihood were torn from him by the
Zimbabwean ruler, the 62-year-old has
joined other Zimbabwean farmers in
seeking compensation.
The farmers,
who say they were beaten and seriously injured while trying to
keep their
properties, will fight Mr Mugabe in the US courts later this
year.
Their land was taken by Mr Mugabe and given to black
Zimbabweans in a
controversial policy that many Western nations say has
caused the financial
and food problems crippling the African
nation.
Mr Nicolle, who said he was threatened at gunpoint several times
to give up
his farm and machinery, said he would not stop pursuing Mr
Mugabe.
"If Mugabe wants my farm, so be it. I'll cry, but to steal
everything is
unacceptable and for that I'll fight for the rest of my life,"
he said from
his property near Margaret River.
Zimbabwe is starving
as inexperienced land owners, army generals, police
chiefs and even high
court judges leave crops to fail and the land to lie
fallow.
Mr
Nicolle, who has met Mr Mugabe several times, said he had produced about
24
per cent of the country's wheat crop and thought his productive farm
would
be safe from the leader's scheme.
Mr Nicolle was in Australia in June
2003 when he learnt he had lost his farm
after fighting Mr Mugabe in the
courts for several years.
"My son phoned me up and said, `Dad, it's all
over, they've trashed the
house'," he said.
Mr Nicolle said he
visited his farm once more when the police demanded he go
there to open a
safe.
After he had finished, a police officer grabbed his hand to take
the safe
key.
"I said, `I'm afraid if this guy does not let me go, I
promise that for the
first time in my life I'll kill someone and the police
(chief) said, `Let
him go', and I walked away with the key and I still have
that key," he said.
Mr Nicolle and his wife, Vanessa, left Zimbabwe for
Australia the following
month while their son, Christopher, tried to hang on
to his neighbouring
property but was kicked off in January 2004. He is now a
contract harvester
in Zambia.
Their daughter, Amanda, is still in
Zimbabwe and the couple hope she will
migrate to Australia.
At
Margaret River, the Nicolles live in a big shed and have invested in a
brick-making machine. They are confident the machine, the first of its type
in Australia, will help them start over again.
"It's a huge gamble.
We've put everything we've got into it and we intend to
build our house with
it," Mr Nicolle said.
zimbabwejournalists.com
By a Correspondent
Precisely at 3.00am,
Emmanuel Matandamaviri (not his real name) a
former senior journalist with a
weekly newspaper in Zimbabwe jumps out of
his blankets and heads towards a
common bathroom in downtown Johannesburg.
After taking a five-minute
bath he takes out a set of rumpled clothes
from a Shangaan bag and dresses
for the day. Emmanuel has no breakfast.
Clutching newspaper clippings of
his previously published stories and
certificates in a plastic bag, he set
off to Sandton on foot to submit his
credentials to potential
employers.
His journey takes him through Hillbrow, Parktown, Forest
Town and
Rosebank.
He could have faxed or e-mailed his material,
but he did not have any
money to pay for Internet access.
"I have
to walk to organizations and media houses looking for
freelancing chances.
My skills have deteriorated but I can't give up my
profession easily. The
problem in South Africa is that even odd jobs are
scarce. Each day I walk an
average of 35km.
"Life has become unbearable and there is nowhere to go
to look for
help. Journalists unlike other refugees do not have an
organisation
representing them. At every organisation we go for assistance
we are told
they don't deal with professionals," said Emmanuel.
He
has only R1 to buy "magwinya" (deep fried buns) at the end of the
day. He
passes the day pacifying his empty stomach with his saliva.
After
Sandton, he hopes to proceed to Auckland Park. At some
organisations he is
told to phone first for an appointment with the editor.
In other newsrooms
he is told to come back the next day.
When night falls, he is still in
Rosebank and he opts to join
vagrants. The next day an editor of a news
agency asks him to do a story
about a demonstration in Pretoria against a
doctor who is giving illegal
vitamin tablets to HIV/AIDS patients. He is
requested to fax or e-mail the
story when he is done.
But Emmanuel
does not have the money to go to Pretoria or to e-mail,
so yet another
chance of a job slips through.
"It's always the case, its either you
can't fulfil the tasks you are
given or there is nothing to be offered at
the moment. How am I expected to
cover the Pretoria story when I don't even
have anything to feed my
stomach?" said Emmanuel.
From the day one
he ran away from Robert Mugabe's repressive media
laws, life has been rough
and he has been reduced to a life of destitution.
Emmanuel says: "After
victimisation by the militia youth brigade and
Central Intelligence
Organization for my articles which were anti-Mugabe,
like many Zimbabwean I
decided to flee the country to South Africa for my
own security and seek
employment for survival with high hopes of getting a
decent job. But twelve
months down the line all my hopes have been reduced
to misery". For
Amphious Panda, a journalist who walked almost thousand
kilometres to SA
from Kivu in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2000 to
escape persecution,
life is worse.
"Good" is the only English word he knew. A further
disadvantage is
that he is unfamiliar with the computer equipment used in SA
newsrooms: at
home, he wrote on old typewriters.
"Even now I have
problem in writing in English and I need someone to
translate from French if
I am to write a good story. The writing style is
quite different, you need
time and training to adapt to the situation," said
Panta.
Emmanuel's situation is typical for exiled journalist who are finding
it
hard to break into the mainstream media in South Africa.
"South Africa
is not sympathetic to journalists like any other
nationals, it doesn't
matter how experienced you are as a journalist as long
as you are not
connected you will never get the job, menial jobs yes. Exiled
journalists
have been reduced to a life of destitution. Some fine
journalists end up
discarding their thriving careers after getting
frustrated in a foreign
land.
Although it is hard to establish exact figures, it seems that
there
has been a dramatic increase in the numbers of exiled journalists in
South
Africa in recent years.
Foreign journalists who take refuge
in South Africa are usually
experienced professionals. They suffer from the
usual problems refugees
face, but with the added difficulty of finding work
in the mainstream media
that is already flooded with local
journalists.
However, exiled journalists have now founded the Cross
Border
Journalists' Association, which intends to address their
problems.
* Magugu Nyathi is a freelance journalist based in
Johannesburg.
Monday 6 March 2006, 7:30 - 9.30pm, LONDON, UK.
This week the
Zimbabwe London Forum is delighted to present a talk by Lois
Davies - the UK
co-ordinator of WOZA (Women of Zimbabwe Arise). Two weeks
ago on Valentine's
Day the brave women of Zimbabwe again took to the streets
in a peaceful
protest and gave out roses on their marches in Harare and
Bulawayo. For this
several hundred women, some carrying children or babies
were arrested and
thrown into prison in appalling conditions, with no
sanitation or food for 3
days, many were beaten, before being finally
released. Lois will show us a
video of their most recent events in Zimbabwe
and talk about the work of the
WOZA founder - Jenny Williams and others, who
recently received humanitarian
awards.
Please come along and find out more about their work and show your
support
for the WOZA women.
We also want to talk about and remind
everyone of the appeal hearing in the
cases of AA and LK which are happening
on Monday 6th March at 10 am.. A
demonstration is being organised outside
the Royal Courts of Justice, in the
Strand, near the Aldwych on Monday
morning. Please come and support this
demo, speakers will be there and some
traditional singing and dancing to
support (hopefully) a positive outcome
for Zimbabwean asylum seekers ie. no
change in the ruling that Zimbabwe is
not safe for Zim asylum seekers to be
returned to.
Venue:
Upstairs function room, Theodore Bullfrog,
28 John Adam Street,
London WC2N 6HL
Underground: Charing Cross (1 minute), Embankment (3 minutes)
New Zimbabwe
By Dumisani
Muleya
Last updated: 03/04/2006 19:59:52
THE biggest sham in the calendar
year for journalism - the National
Journalistic and Media Awards organised
by the Zimbabwe Union of Journalists
(ZUJ) - was held last Friday. As usual,
mediocrity triumphed over
meritocracy in a dramatic fashion.
The
ceremony turned out to be a spectacular charade. In football circles
they
call it simulation. The competition had the chaotic incoherence of a
long-winded nightmare. This year it proceeded from the controversial to the
ridiculous.
The judges of the competition were not known and the
rules were either vague
or simply arbitrary. Some journalists submitted
works that had not been
aired, in the case of the electronic media, while
others claimed credit for
stories broken by other newspapers.
Others
were rewarded for competing against themselves, in other words for
defeating
the whole idea of competition and the awards!
Media houses known for
sunshine journalism and whose credibility in the
court of public opinion is
terribly damaged, were the winners. Their
competitors, whom readers give a
clean bill of credibility, were the losers
in the final
analysis.
Mediocrity, often dramatised by cut-and-paste journalism and
lifting of
stories from the internet or other media, was awarded and
rewarded ahead of
merit, sharp reporting and effort.
Although the
judgement of what constitutes merit and effort is largely
subjective, there
are benchmarks to be respected in professional journalism.
Does a lazy
genius merit rewarding better than a hardworking dullard? These
are some of
the legitimate issues that arise, but the dodgy ZUJ awards don't
provoke
such dynamic debate because they are often blatantly fraudulent.
Why were
the judges' identities hidden? How do sponsors end up choosing the
judges?
Why does ZUJ allow its office holders to decampaign certain
journalists in
their meetings? Why are the categories of the competition
designed along the
lines of the arrangement of certain newspapers?
How possible is it to
avoid undue political influence in a competition in
which government is part
of the sponsors when it is common cause that it is
hostile to certain
sections of the media and its reporters?
How come ZBC is part of the
competition when it is known that there are no
competitors to it due to the
current broadcasting monopoly? So who were ZBC
journalists competing
against? Obviously, against themselves!
Why not organise an in-house
competition instead of posturing as if they are
facing challenges from other
electronic media houses?
It is difficult to generate competition in the
Zimbabwean media landscape
where government monopoly holds sway. The media
sector is dominated by the
state-run media and quasi-state owned newspapers
and this clearly distorts
competition. There is evidence that in
international competitions
journalists from countries with diverse and
plural media ownership - for
instance those from South, Kenya and Nigeria --
perform better than those
from Stalinist and monopolistic media
environments.
Without a doubt, there were worthy winners at the ZUJ
competition, in
particular in less controversial categories and
congratulations to them.
However, there were also sham winners. But they
also deserve to be
congratulated because they did not choose themselves to
be winners.
For the record, I came second in the News Reporter of the
Year category. A
Herald reporter was the winner. I was not disappointed at
all because I did
not expect anything. I had not entered the competition. I
was told by the
organisers - at the eleventh hour -- that I had been
nominated for the prize
without my knowledge.
But in the end I was
alarmed, not just by the unprofessionalism of those
behind the event, but by
the extent to which they went to organise the
monumental farce that the
awards became.
When I asked ZUJ leaders what criteria they used to arrive
at decisions, I
was told "there is politics". I asked what politics and I
was informed the
sponsors were trying to be seen as politically correct and
hence did not
want to stir controversy by rewarding "politically sensitive"
reporters.
I do not know for certain what happened behind the scenes but
what I do know
is that I did not enter my work for the competition. If I had
the interest I
would find out what transpired, but I simply do not think it
is worth my
trouble to do so except in so far as the need to point out the
damaging
effect of such deceitful events to journalism arises.
I'm
reliably informed that some ZUJ members were genuinely concerned about
the
need to convince all practicising journalists to participate in the
competition, hence the introduction of a system of nomination to bring in
those who do not want to enter. There are a number of journalists who shun
ZUJ awards to avoid legitimising an event they think is tailor-made for a
particular section of the media and to reward government
journalists.
But nomination for the sake of legitimising a flawed
competition is not
helpful to journalism, just like rewarding mediocrity.
This is why most of
our "winners" in Zimbabwe perform very badly or are just
uncompetitive in
international events.
Two years ago ZBC management
threatened to pull out their employees from the
ZUJ awards citing unfairness
and biased decisions. The situation has not
changed. If anything, it is
getting worse.
ZUJ risks further damaging its reputation - already
compromised by these
clumsy events - if it allows this charade to pass for a
serious media event.
Muleya is news editor of The Zimbabwe Independent
newspaper and can be
contacted on dmuleya@yahoo.com
These are tough times for writers in Zimbabwe, says
Martin Goodman
Saturday March 4, 2006
The Guardian
A bus
trip from Harare to Bulawayo takes you through the drama of Zimbabwean
fiction. Harare has some of the plate-glass sheen of a metropolis. Bulawayo
is more laid back, with the wide avenues and porticoed walkways of a century
ago. Zimbabwe's books tell of transitions between old and new, village and
city, seamed with family ties and ancestral resonance. Writing in England
abandoned such themes when Thomas Hardy switched to poetry.
I was in
Zimbabwe to run writing workshops for the British Council, marking
the end
of the "Crossing Borders" project teaming British and African
writers. It's
a tough time to be a writer in Zimbabwe. It's a tough time to
be anything. A
line of people waits at a petrol station, but not for fuel.
No petrol
stations have fuel. They are queuing for the ground maize that is
the staple
diet. Dawn and dusk turn the road between Bulawayo and the
townships into a
John Steinbeck novel, workers hiking miles for occasional
employment.
Shona is the majority language of Zimbabwe, and Ignatius
Mabasa, a powerful
performing poet, novelist and storyteller, is
acknowledged as its top new
voice. He explained to me the three generations
theory of Zimbabwean
writing: the first generation were the teachers,
educated in missionary
schools, writing with didactic zeal; the second
generation wrote to praise
the second chimu-renga, the civil war for
independence - and then dealt with
post-independence disappointments; the
third are the "born-frees". They are
emerging from the chrysalis of the 20th
century, blinking, self-consciously
modern, hoping the world will pay them
some heed.
Bulawayo's writers enthused about Virginia Phiri's Desperate,
a new set text
in teacher training colleges. About women sex workers, the
book was selected
for its "good writing"- and because it was in English. In
Ndebele (the local
language, a dialect of Zulu) it would have provoked a
storm. Writers use
English to filter out a conservative society's
expectations. I met Phiri in
Harare. An accountant and expert on orchids,
she seems far removed from the
active "comrade", who would have been killed
in the 1970s liberation war
without the protection of prostitutes. The book
is her tribute to them.
"Most sex workers are the breadwinners. One said to
me: 'I need to buy a
ticket for my niece to get to London.' I am not
encouraging prostitution. I
am bringing out the way things are. I believe in
speaking for those who
can't speak for themselves."
Publisher Irene
Staunton of Weaver Press is passionate about fiction. Funds
from the Dutch
humanist organisation Hivos help an impossible commercial
situation. Book
prices are raised every three months, in line with a 250%
inflation rate.
Most submissions are rejected - "pulpit writing from people
who never read
but want to write". Staunton still mourns Yvonne Vera, who
died of Aids in
2005. "She was a brave writer, confronting infanticide,
abortion, incest and
the brutalities of war. Her manuscripts were
scrupulous."
Weaver
author Shimmer Chinodya agrees that younger writers do not read. He
has a
different hero though, Zimbabwe's enfant terrible Dambudzo Marechera,
an
Aids casualty from 1987. "I love Marechera. I love his sense of the
moment
and sense of words. His crystalline vision and his boldness. He tells
you
what he thinks, unedited. The younger generation don't understand him,
they
just ape his bohemian life. They don't have the sense of the word which
he
intended, that erudite voice."
Chinodya's novel Chairman of Fools was a
must-buy for Zimbabwe's literary
elite in 2005. "War is inevitable in most
Zimbabwean writing," he began.
"It's so much a part of our psyche." Chairman
fits closer to his other
theme. "I write about the psychology of being a
writer - being a writer in
Zimbabwe." He "clipped" his prose style at
university in Iowa. The new book
is a brave foray into the writer's
condition, a journey through the hell of
bipolar disorder.
"I'm a
colonial victim. They forced me to speak in English. My writing is an
act of
revenge - all that grammar they shoved down my throat, I'm going to
use it
and create something totally hybrid. The voice must shock you. My use
of
English must show the complexity of the African thought processes. I'm
trying to salvage the African mind from decades of abuse and
misconception."
Where do you find the African mind? It's in family ritual
and the near
tangible presence of ancestors. "Come to a wedding in the
villages or in the
city, and I'll show you the African mind."
I
attended a book launch at the Book Café. Every public event at this
enterprising venue needs police permission. Being private, this book launch
sidestepped that, but the first arrival was a policeman. Fay Chung, a former
education minister, was launching her wartime memoir Re-Living the Second
Chimurenga. A fellow comrade introduced her with a 20-minute diatribe,
picking out the book's faults. Speaker after speaker then rose with lengthy
statements in lieu of questions.
Zimbabwe's writers puzzle at
colleagues who have chosen exile. Reading is
such a minority interest that
writers pose no real threat. Chinodya wrote
Chairman on a residency in
Italy. "But I must think my book out here and
talk to people. Things change
so quickly in Zimbabwe you can't stay out too
long."
· Martin
Goodman's novel Slippery When Wet is published by Transita
Mail and Guardian
Harare, Zimbabwe
04 March 2006
12:04
Zimbabwe will amend its mining laws to allow the
government to
demand a 51% share in some foreign-owned mines, an official
announced on
Friday.
"The government wants to be an
active participant in the mining
business ... In effect I am saying the
principles to the Amendments of the
Mines and Minerals Act have been
presented and approved by Cabinet," Mining
Minister Amos Midzi told
reporters in Harare.
The amendments will be tabled before
Parliament for final
approval before July, Midzi added.
He said this would allow the government to hold a 51%
shareholding in each
of the foreign-owned mines in the energy mining sector,
which includes
minerals such as coal, uranium and methane gas.
The
government would initially take up a 25% share which would
gradually be
increased to 51% over a period of five years, Midzi said.
"The modalities of achieving the 51% shall be: 25%
non-contributory
immediately after promulgation of the Act. The balance
shall be achieved
within five years."
The same would apply to platinum, diamond and
gold mines.
Zimbabwe's mining sector has seen the closure of
at least 13
mines in the past six years, according to the Chamber of Mines,
an
organisation representing mining firms.
The sector has
been hard-hit by an acute shortage of spare parts
fuelled by a foreign
exchange crunch, spiralling inflation, a free-falling
currency, erratic
power supplies and higher production costs.
Zimbabwe has seen
its mining sector stagnate after President
Robert Mugabe last year warned
that the government would demand a 50% stake
in all
mines.
The mining sector last year earned $626-million,
representing
44% of Zimbabwe's total foreign currency revenues, according to
Reserve Bank
figures. - Sapa-AFP
Business online, UK
By John Blundell
05 March 2006
Following John Blundell's Capitalist Manifesto Against UK Poverty last
week,
he now puts his analysis of the cure for Third World Poverty
I
USED to find that if I expressed misgivings about Third World Aid I
was
regarded as hard hearted. How could I be so insensitive?. Let me be
blunt
and not so much hard hearted as hard headed and clear eyed. The bulk
of
overseas aid, official or voluntary, is positively harmful. This is
offensive both to common sense and to our charitable instincts. Surely, we
think, the word and the thing are the same. Aid sounds kindly and
benevolent. How can aid not help? Politicians jostle to show their
compassion with our money.
Hilary Benn MP now carries the flame
previously carried by Clare
Short. He has an entire Department of State. I
do not denigrate either him
or his colleagues personally. They have simply
not understood the subtle
nature of the gross problems we lump together as
Third World Poverty.
The late Professor Peter Bauer made a
lifetime's study of aid and
concluded in all but a tiny proportion of cases
it was always pernicious.
Yes, it damages those in the recipient nations. He
came up with the
penetrating formula: "Aid is the process by which the poor
in rich countries
subsidise the rich in poor countries." He means most of
the aid billions
goes to the governments of the Third World or their
agencies. Whole
societies that once traded become politicised and
militarised as those in
power will do anything to stay in office and keep
the gravy coming.
Aid, then, is mostly a lubricant for the planet's
greater tyrants,
bullies and thieves. It may be argued that Robert Mugabe's
Zimbabwe is too
easy a target but at least we can all agree by any measure
the economy of
this well-endowed place has been destroyed by its leaders. It
is not a few
hundred white farmers who have been degraded. Everyone, save a
small cadre
around the presidency, is starving or fleeing. What is Mugabe's
main source
of income? Tobacco, maize, or lignite? No it is aid, much of it
not with the
faintly sanctimonious glow of UK official gifting but from
Libya and China.
Zimbabwe's Torture State is only sustained by
subsidies.
I am not arguing that the methods of appraising projects
be beefed up
and the more vicious regimes abandoned. Tweaking aid programmes
may make
some marginal differences but much of it will still end up in the
Swiss bank
accounts of kleptocrats. We know from our own welfare state that
making
people dependent on aid is not the best hand-up. Hand-outs are not
hand-ups.
The misery territories - most of Latin America, almost
all of Africa
and too much of Asia - lack the subtle but essential tools to
nourish
prosperity. They lack what we regard as assumed. They do not have
the rule
of law. In its absence, markets cannot evolve. We can resolve
disputes.
Contracts are honoured. If they fail we have recourse. We may all
groan at
the ability of lawyers to make disputes complex and expensive but
basically
we trust our law givers.
In the lands we define as
needing aid you will observe nobody has
recourse against the corrupt or
thieving agencies of their governments. Do
you suppose the citizens of
Equatorial Guinea, Haiti or Myanmar can be
assured of simple civil rights we
take for granted? Every reader of The
Business owns property, either real
estate or paper claims to pensions or
shares. The tissue of these
relationships compose our prosperity. Third
Worlders have no such
discernible property rights. Many even do not own
their own labour. They are
effectively serfs - or slaves.
Hernando de Soto, the noted Peruvian
economist, has blazed a trail
criticising the processes by which the poor
remained dispossessed -
precisely because they are denied possession.
Hundreds of millions farm on
land which they do not own. This means they
cannot trade it or bequeath it.
They cannot borrow against it. It is not
profitable to improve it. In Third
World urban landscapes only the minority
enjoy ownership in the sense we can
own - the ability to consign or to use
as security.
We all saw Robert Mugabe's cohorts bulldoze through
the shanty towns
of Bulawayo and other towns. Those film clips struck me as
a perfect cameo
of the truth of the Third World - the state can drive
through and crush
humble homes for no good reason and the people have no
recourse or redress.
Who funded the Zimbabwe bulldozers? Yes, they were aid
gifts.
It is my impression that the Bauer or de Soto perceptions
are no
longer marginalised. Everyone knows aid is too often now only a
squalid and
corrupt collusion with evil. The beautiful cinematography of the
film "The
Constant Gardener" is taken to illustrate the depravity of
pharmaceutical
plcs. To me it showed the emblematic flaws of the Kenyan
state.
There must have been a time when Britain was recognisably a
Third
World place. The Roman accounts portray us as blue-dyed warriors
practising
human sacrifice and worshipping trees and with minimal
agriculture as we
preferred to hunt over land owned by nobody. It was a slow
process by which
we accrued the blend of rights we now call the rule of law.
Henry Sumner
Maine, the distinguished jurist, described this as an evolution
"of rules of
status to rules of contract".
The tormented former
French colony of Haiti strikes me as a perfect
laboratory of how not to run
a society. So close to Miami, where human
beings flourish, Port au Prince
rots. Its people starve despite ample
sunshine and rich soils. What does
Haiti lack? It has not got the security
or peace of laws - rules of just
conduct.
This is not to say the people of Dade County Florida are
better - more
dextrous or more intelligent - than Haitians but that they can
form much
more diverse and complex relationships: contracts which permit
pricing and
markets to engage and to enrich everyone.
There is
a huge well of sympathy or compassion that seems to me to be
deflected into
cruel error by the Third World lobbies. I exempt disaster
relief. If a
volcano explodes or a tsunami engulfs then air-freighting food,
fresh water
and tents is appropriate. Gifting money to the minister of
finance in a
remote capital is to do nothing to help. Rather it is to keep
the corrupt in
power.
Here is the tragedy. In the past we knew nothing and saw
nothing. Now
broadcasting can show us the horrors of Ethiopian starvation.
Yet sustaining
the bandits in authority in Addis Ababa is no solution. They
are the
problem. It is now 20 years since Michael Buerk's heart breaking BBC
reports
of a human catastrophe of "Biblical proportions". Yet do Ethiopians
now
enjoy clearer security to their land? Are their markets open and free?
The
answer is no.
We have all seen the central government in
Khartoum orchestrating its
ethnic cleansing programme across Sudan. What is
the main source of the
Sudan regime's funds? Yes, you guessed
correctly.
Some argue there is now a need to impose an enlightened
version of the
"white man's burden" and resume control of these blighted
places. I
understand the instinct but I believe in the power of ideas and
here there
is hope because all the young talents of what we term the Third
World are
being educated in the West. When I meet them at university
audiences I find
they want to bring affluence to their homes and they know
that this needs
sound laws and functioning courts. As Friedrich Hayek would
say, it will be
their influence which will prevail and the politicians will
follow.
Capitalism, the fruit of fair laws, is what the Third World
needs. Aid
merely nurses cruelty.
John Blundell is director
general of the Institute of Economic Affairs
Radio Netherlands
Is China planning a breakaway from the
Internet?
Analysis by Andy Sennitt
02-03-2006
The
announcement by the Chinese Ministry of Information Industry that China
has
launched its own Top Level Internet Domains (TLDs), registered
separately
from those in the rest of the world, is at first glance a very
worrying
development. It signals the politicisation of the Internet, and
appears to
be a reprisal for the Bush administration managing to retain de
facto US
control of the Internet last year.
The European Union, along with several
other countries, including China,
wanted a UN body to assume control of the
worldwide network including its
name servers. But the Americans managed to
head off this move, and the
US-based Internet Corporation for Assigned Names
and Numbers (ICANN) remains
in control - at least for now. The Peoples'
Daily specifically stated that
Beijing's decision "means Internet users
don't have to surf the Web via the
servers under the management of ICANN of
the United States," suggesting a
political motive.
Planning a
breakaway?
Some observers are already speculating that this could be the
first step to
a complete breakaway from the global Internet, meaning that
China has total
control of what its citizens are able to view on their
computer screens.
Bearing in mind the recent controversies over the apparent
willingness of
major US software companies to agree to a "censored" version
of the World
Wide Web in China, this belief has some credence.
And,
since China is building strong links with a number of foreign
countries,
including some in Africa, there is a real fear that these
countries could
move away from the global Internet and join the heavily
controlled Chinese
version. That would mean that countries such as Zimbabwe
would be able to
eliminate access to anything it didn't want its citizens to
see.
Another perspective
However a contributor to
ICANNWatch.Org, which monitors and tracks the
action of ICANN and global
domain name policy, has a less alarmist take on
the issue. Professor Milton
L Mueller observes that "Many people see this as
a new development, but the
three TLDs have been in existence for about two
years. Until now, however,
the official Chinese line was that the names were
'experimental,' even
though tens of thousands of names were being sold under
them. My take is
that they have 'come out of the closet' in their use of new
TLDs. And the
coming out throws out an explicit challenge to ICANN, telling
the world that
Internet users [in China] will no longer have to use the
ICANN
root."
"This is being widely described as an 'alternate root.'
Technically, this is
true: it functions the same way as an alternate root.
But in reality it is
something more interesting (and dangerous?): it is a
national root, a way of
keeping the Internet bounded to a political
jurisdiction so that it can be
regulated more easily. China is not
attempting to replace ICANN's root
globally. It is not interested in adding
TLDs for markets and users outside
of China. It is interested in locking
Chinese-speaking users within China
into a DNS root under its own
control."
Technological assistance
However, the technology that
permits China to exercise such control can
easily be adapted for use in
other countries. So, for example, if Zimbabwe -
which has already used
Chinese help to install shortwave radio jammers -
asks for assistance in
installing a "national root" system, it would
probably receive a favourable
response from Beijing. In other words,
although China may be officially "not
interested in adding TLDs for markets
and users outside of China", it might
be persuaded to help other countries
to create their own national roots.
That would be a very worrying
development.
The People's Daily does
say that the three new TLDs are "temporarily set",
which is why I suspect
that this is as much about political posturing as it
is about doing anything
more drastic. As China is hosting the Olympic Games
in Beijing in 2008, I
can't believe there would be any advantage in breaking
away from the global
Internet. And, of course, should it do so, ICANN could
retaliate and cut off
China's English-language sites from the outside world.
I don't see that
happening, and I suspect that pragmatism will win over
posturing.
Press freedom concerns
However, the fact that China has
the ability and desire to install its own
"national root" is, as Professor
Mueller says, a worrying development that
does raise concerns about press
freedom, especially if the idea spreads
beyond China itself. You can imagine
countries such as Iran and Cuba wanting
to take advantage of a system that
gives them ultimate control. Of course,
there could be ways round it, such
as satellite-delivered Internet from
outside the country. But hopefully that
scenario will not arise. It should
become clearer in the coming weeks and
months exactly what effect Beijing's
decision is having on the Internet
within China. Only then will we really
know for sure if there's a new
serious problem or not.