Robert Mugabe as COMESA’s new poster boy bodes ill for trade in Africa

The 13th Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) Summit postponed twice since 2008 due to Zimbabwe’s political instability, is ongoing with preliminary ministerial meetings. The Heads of State summit is set to commence on June 6th where Robert Mugabe will officially take over the helm of the trading bloc from Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki.

According to COMESA’s vision, the regional union is meant to “be a fully integrated, internationally competitive regional economic communitywith high standards of living for ALL its people”. COMESA’s chosen approach to achieve this is through development integration involving a combination of trade development and investment promotion.

Mugabe: The Right Man For The Right Job?

At a time when Africa has been hit hard by the worst global recession, it is inconceivable that a man who single-handedly crushed his own country’s economy can be placed in a position over the economies of 19 member states with a population of over 400 million.

Mugabe has ruled Zimbabwe with an iron fist for the past 29 years. His past actions are in stark contrast to the bloc’s Fundamental Principles as enshrined in the COMESA Treaty which include the recognition, promotion and protection of fundamental human rights; commitment to the principles of liberty, fundamental freedoms and the rule of law; maintenance of peace and stability through the promotion and strengthening of good neighbourliness and promotion and sustenance of an accountable and just democratic system of governance.

However, the Mugabe hegemony has overseen countless lives being lost most recently from cholera which even spread across borders. Torture and extra judicial killings to muzzle opponents have also been widely used with the Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum reporting more than 20,000 human rights violations including 3,000 acts of torture since 2001. Average life expectancy in the country since 1998 has fallen from 55 years to a paltry 35, in essence meaning that a Zimbabwean has a strong chance of not outliving their youth. Unemployment remains rife with over 90% of the working age population being jobless. Maternal and child health has degenerated to the point where nearly half of all Zimbabweans are at risk of malnutrition and starvation, and a child born in Zimbabwe is the most likely to die in the entire African Continent.

All this misery led to over a quarter of Zimbabwe’s populace fleeing the terror and misery. Yet Mugabe remains to this day either unrepentant or maybe unaware of the devastation he has wreaked on his country. He has numerously been quoted pointing fingers blaming his people’s woes on the British, Americans and any country he perceives to be at fault. Individual Zimbabweans who dare to question his policies have been branded as puppets of the West, overlooking the fact that he as well as his coterie of greedy associates have over the years looted the Treasury and in turn messed what was once seen as the breadbasket of Africa.

As a report The Zimbabwe Papers: A Positive Agenda for Zimbabwean Renewal concluded, the crisis situation in Zimbabwe is solely due to "policies adopted, decisions made, and actions taken by the government of Zimbabwe" – the ZANU-PF government of Robert Mugabe.

Nothing except for a fragile unity government has changed since November 2008 when the majority of COMESA heads of state who had been invited to attend the postponed summit, categorically told the Zimbabwe government of the day that they would boycott the summit.

Robert Mugabe does not stand for the promotion of trade. Hyperinflation and excessive government regulations have heavily penalised the country’s entrepreneurs. Hyperinflation reached a mind-boggling 231 million percent. His accomplice in looting state funds, Central Bank Governor Gideon Gono remains in office. Mugabe even had the temerity to declare that his lieutenant Gono would remain in office up until he leaves office come 2013.

On the authority of Mugabe, Zimbabwe’s Central Bank exercised imprudent monetary policies which included flagrant printing of money regardless of the impact on inflation and the ordinary Zimbabwean. Fiscal policies enforced punitive lump taxes on businesses, further hampering the chances of success for enterprises. Criminality and corruption were the order of the day, with embezzlement, kidnappings and all other manner of vile strategies being used in order to retain control.

The country’s standard of living fell by 80% in the last decade. Even the local Zimbabwe dollar has been suspended. Public utilities were progressively canibalised till the water system became contaminated, electricity erratic and fuel became so scarce that it's market value became akin to gold. Workers in industries were similarly punished when even their health became compromised as a result of a health sector that could no longer provide even the most basic essential drugs.

According to the Ease of Doing Business reports from the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation, it takes 96 days to start a business, 481 days to comply with licences and another 30 days to register a property. Zimbabwe also currently ranks 7th worst on the World Bank’s Trade Restrictiveness Index.

The years of destruction of social goods now means that Zimbabwe needs at least US$5 billion to revive its almost dead economy. Local industry which should be in the forefront of re-energising the economy virtually collapsed under Mugabe’s totalitarian regime. Production costs are hardly competitive within the COMESA region let alone the rest of Africa. The Zimbabwe papers report laments that Zimbabwe has become one of the worst places to start a business. So how can the same person responsible for this degeneracy promote trade? It beats belief.

As the Corporate Foreign Policy blog writes: Mugabe has created a situation so horrible that if he ever got to the Hague, they would need to invent a new charge for the man.

Though Zimbabwe’s economy has slowly revived after Mugabe and Morgan Tsvangirai formed a coalition government, a lot remains to be done. However, you cannot be part of a problem as well as part of the solution.

Why is it that the donor community is placing conditionalities on loans such as respect for human rights and the rule of law on Zimbabwe, yet COMESA whose basic tenets rest on the same principles cannot insist that Zimbabwe implements such measures? To elect such an individual, calls into question COMESA’s mission and role in improving the living standards of the over 400 million Africans it serves.

Black History Month, Is It Worth Celebrating?

By Lord Aikins Adusei

It is an undisputable fact that Black people have contributed immensely towards the development of the world and therefore the celebration of events like Black History Month should be welcomed. However, the continuous celebration of BHM in the face of poverty, hunger, diseases and racial discrimination facing African-Americans and their counterparts in Europe today make any such celebrations meaningless and it will continue to be meaningless unless it is linked to the total liberation of African-Americans and Blacks in general from poverty, social and economic marginalisation and blatant discrimination.

The BHM is not worth celebrating when millions of African-Americans remain poor, cannot pay for health insurance and education; are homeless and marginalised economically; and are subjected to racism in America and Europe. To celebrate BHM in the face of all the problems facing African-Americans and Blacks in general is like Robert Mugabe having a lavish birthday party while cholera is decimating thousands of his people, while millions face starvation and the economy of his country is on the brink of collapse.

The institution of the BHM itself is an acknowledgement of the many wrongs committed by European-Americans mostly in the south against their African-American brothers whom they enslaved, maltreated and denied the basic right enjoyed by all people but does not liberate African –Americans from their current predicaments. The institution and the celebration of BHM are just superficial and cosmetics as there are deep seated problems facing African-Americans and other minorities today.

Today the old laws that favoured the imprisonment of Blacks on even minor offenses and on flimsy charges are still in place. As a result Blacks make up more than 50% of the total inmate population in USA despite the fact that they make up about 13% of the population.

An article by Louise D. Palmer, of the Boston Globe says that the “Evidence of prejudice against African-Americans in the criminal-justice system is overwhelming.

Criminologists such as William Chambliss, professor of sociology at George Washington University and past president of the American Society of Criminologists, says the Police admit that they focus their resources on black communities, particularly when enforcing drug laws and despite studies that show whites consume more drugs than blacks. “It is much easier to go into black community and pop someone selling drugs on the street corner than to go into a suburb where drug use happens behind closed doors,” he says.

Blacks are also more frequently viewed as suspects, pulled over and targeted by raids, Chambliss said.

A survey of traffic stops in Volusia County, Fla., for instance, showed nearly 70 percent of those stopped were blacks or Hispanic, according to Georgetown University Law Professor David Cold, author of “No Equal Justice.”

Police look for crimes in the ghetto, and that’s where they find them,” Chambliss said. Criminologists say sentencing guidelines were imposed in part to rid the criminal-justice system of sentences that varied dramatically because of prejudicial factors such as race, gender, individual circumstance or geography. But African Americans still received sentences an average of six months longer than whites for committing the same crime, according to a University of Georgia study”.

How good is Black History Month when lack of economic opportunities has forced millions of African-Americans to embrace welfare and crime as the only alternative? Is it enough to celebrate BHM when the walls of racism remain intact, when few African-Americans and their colleagues in Europe are found in the position of power and when majority of African-American male felons remain disenfranchised?

How many African-Americans are in the US Senate for example? President Obama was the only African-American in the one-hundred member seat Senate until his election as President. The tears of joy and the wild celebrations that we saw during President Obama’s inauguration show how far they have come.

It is on record that John McCain opposed the institution of Martin Luther King’s Day and during one of the presidential debates referred to Obama as “That one” a clear sign of disrespect for even African-Americans who have made it to the top of American society.

One commentator commented after Obama was elected that, “America has managed to elect its first African-American president and we are waiting to see if Europe will be able to have their own Black President or Prime Minister”. A clear manifestation that the policies of keeping Blacks down and out of political and economic power is not only peculiar to America.

There is every indication that Europe is no where near what America has done, it will be at least another hundred years before Europe can have its first prime minister or president from a minority background. The comments that came from European politicians like Silvio Berlusconi, Prime Minister of Italy and Radek Sikorski, Foreign Minister of Poland when Obama was elected attest to this fact. Berlusconi in a meeting with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in Moscow said ”Obama is young, handsome and also tanned, so he has all the qualities to agree with you”.   The Polish FM also joked that President Obama’s grandparents were cannibals.  “Have you heard that Obama may have a Polish connection? His grandfather ate a Polish missionary,” Mr. Sikorski was quoted on blog run by Mr. Ryszard Czamecki a Polish Member of European Parliament. A spokesman for the FM in denying the charge also said, “Mr Sikorski did not tell a racist joke,” said Piotr Paszkowski, the spokesman. “He was only giving an example of the unpalatable and racist ‘jokes’ that surround President Elect Obama.”  

If such derogatory comments could come from top politicians in Europe who are the elite, then what will you expect from the ordinary men and women? The result is what is being witnessed in stadia across Europe where monkey chants are made against Black players and bananas are thrown at them.

In Britain and France where they have a sizeable percentage of Blacks among their population, it is very disheartening to know that institutional racism has ensured that no Black person makes it to the top. In France for example there is only one Black cabinet minister and out of the total deputies (MPs) of 577 only one is Black and none are of Arab origin despite France’s five million-strong Arab Muslim population and the same is true for Italy where there is only one Black Member of Parliament.

Black newscasters for most of the major news networks for example only come on screen in the night when most viewers have gone to bed and even the BBC is not exception. A recent survey has revealed that job recruiting agencies in the United Kingdom have an unofficial policy not to recruit blacks and other minorities as receptionists for companies and businesses. It is common to see Blacks and other minorities being stopped and searched at ports of entry in Europe by immigration officers.

Whereas policies such as Affirmative Action which gives African-Americans the chance to progress economically and socially seem to be working in America, Europe appears to be far behind America in those respects. France has resisted any such policy despite the mounting evidence poverty and joblessness among the minorities.

To make the celebration of BHM worth participating in, the US and European governments must first and foremost also pay reparations to all those blacks who have endured decades of injustices, discriminations and economic marginalisation and whose ancestors also slaved for centuries for nothing. Not only that, every board either private or public must be made to have a certain percentage of minorities as board members as is currently happening in South Africa where apartheid kept the majority Black population from holding any key position in government and private institutions. Such affirmative action policy is what is needed if integration is to work in Europe.

African-Americans and their colleagues in Europe too must take their destiny into their own hands. The African-American male population must recognise that crime does not pay and that it is only education that can free them from crime and poverty. A report that majority of US inmates are functionally illiterate and cannot even fill job application forms does not make any good reading.

The repeating cycle of teen pregnancy, promiscuity, disappearing dads, school dropouts, alcoholism and dealing and taking drugs only make the situation worst. There is nothing good than getting and keeping a job as it helps to eliminate the dangers that push one towards crime. Government actions alone cannot solve the problems and neither will such events as Black History Month. Dads should show more interest in the upbringing of their kids. Parents should get the kids interested in education and the world and its possibilities. Parents should set good examples and be role models for their kids. Blacks must be responsible citizens of their communities; they have to work together with the city authorities, church groups and civil society organisations to stop the cycle of poverty and the degeneration of family values.

There are many Chinese, Vietnamese, Taiwanese, Koreans and Philippinos who moved to America with nothing but have worked to make a successful life for themselves so there is no reason why with the correct attitude and support African-Americans cannot make it.

All said and done, the celebration of BHM will be meaningless unless there is a fundamental change in federal and state policies and laws towards Blacks and other minorities. BHM will remain cosmetics and superficial especially in Europe unless it is linked to the total elimination of poverty, racial discrimination, prejudice and economic marginalisation of Blacks and other minorities.