Interesting to see Patrick Bond tonight in a heavily clipped interview on
BBC 2 Newsnight about the Zimbabwe elections. Patrick was suggesting, if I
got the point correctly, that Morgan Tsvangirai was boxing Mugabe in by
offering some sort of compromise with the implicit risk in the background
that if Mugabe imposed a more open dictatorship he would suffer the
probable fate of other dictatorial opponents of the world bank. Perhaps I
got that wrong.
I do not doubt that in terms of formal non-coercive democracy, the MDC's
roots in the Zimbabwe congress of trade unions, make it more democratic
than the aging ZANU. I hope there is some sort of pluralist negotiation in
the new parliament, but I would want to see how the MDC can effectively
campaign against the World Bank and neo-liberalism and for land
redistribution, rather than merely stand back and let Mugabe take the blame
for economic poverty. What is the MDC programme of reconstruction and how
does it enhance the economic independence of Zimbabwe rather than make
Zimbabwe the dutiful junior partner of the World Bank?
Important other areas of Africa will be watching the policy outcome in
Zimbabwe, including South Africa and Kenya. I am unimpressed by British
government protestations that it wants to help rural poverty in Zimbabwe if
this is a cover for redistributive liberalism that does not address the
ownership and control of the means of production.
Chris Burford
London
