students require patience and patience is a virute. maybe cannabis can do the
trick
- Original Message
From: Rui Correia [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: PEN-L@SUS.CSUCHICO.EDU
Sent: Tuesday, December 12, 2006 11:18:49 AM
Subject: Re: question on imperialism from Loren Goldner From Zimbabwe
[a bit confused about the “from” Loren Goldner in the subject, but here is a
response to what is said by the ‘student’]
Tobacco is one of Zimbabwe’s major crops, but this is certainly not what this
person has been smoking
How can she go on about exchange rates, loans etc, and not a word about Mugabe,
his destructive policies, how these drove away capital how he destroyed the
agricultural sector, how corruption and cronyism saw to it that confiscated
assets were parcelled off among the elite ….
Then again, with prices and inflation what they are in Zimbabwe and cannabis
growing wild and easily in any back yard throughout any country in Southern
Africa, I could also write stuff like that about the Zimbabwean economy.
Rui Correia
Advocacy, Human Rights, Media and Language Consultant
2 Cutten St,
Horison, Roodepoort,
Johannesburg, South Africa
Tel/ Fax (+27-11) 766-4336
Cell (+27) (0) 83-368-1214
Quando a verdade é substituída pelo silêncio, o silêncio é uma mentira -
Yevgeny Yevtushenko
When truth is replaced by silence, the silence is a lie - Yevgeny Yevtushenko
-Original Message-
From: PEN-L list [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of soula avramidis
Sent: 12 December 2006 08:53
To: PEN-L@SUS.CSUCHICO.EDU
Subject: [PEN-L] question on imperialism from Loren Goldner From Zimbabawe
a student from Harare who says the internet will not go far:
Certainly an interesting expose. What Loren Goldner asserts happened to Japan,
as its reserves got reduced by 32%, and contends, China is likely to go through
and see its owed loans and reserves reduced as it devalues to the expected
RMB4:US$, is but a prototype or mirror image of what was done to Zimbabwe.
Zimbabwe was seduced with supposedly generous loans when its exchange rate
was Z$1:US$2 at independence in 1980. With external debt pegged at 3.4% of GDP
in 1980, this rose to 40% by 1990, 62% by 1995 and 80% by 2000, and to
anybodyʼs guess to the now declining GDP. Exchange rate changes at the
appropriate time of transfer form a critical basis for the primitive
accumulation. Most of Zimbabweʼs external debt was maturing around 1991,
1996-2000 periods. The Z$ plummets from Z$0.50:US$ in 1980 to Z$2.27 in 1989;
$5 in 1991; $9 in 1995;$18 in 1997; $37 in 1998 ; $55 in 2000; and now $300 000
and many times over on the parallel market. As all this happens with no
relevance to purchasing power parity, Zimbabwe has to sacrifice more export
goods to meet the initial loan injections with value transfer in some kind of
Gypsy great trick as it were. Like happened during the colonial imperialism,
this exploitation will require local collaborators, and these are strategically
positioned among the ruling elite in both ruling and opposition parties. Thus
Zimbabweans demonise each other, are demonised, and when all is said and done
exploited. Because manufacturing, which was around 25% of GDP has now fallen to
below 10%, the exploitation has now gone to primary commodities including
labour force, with over 20% of its skilled workforce now abroad. Increased
mineral extraction for export, which is not rewarded by conspicuous forex
earnings. Minerals such as platinum, which are known to be mined with lot of
other raw high value minerals like gold; silver, copper, etc. are exported as
raw platinum, extracted across the border/s and value
accorded to raw platinum only.
Talk of primitive accumulation, it is probably gone worse than the slave trade
error, save for the human face and bits of human rights funding to divert
people from the core problem. Your stomach is the slave driver. At the heart of
the imperialist modus operandi is the existence a local collaborative cluster,
with some semblance of legitimacy, and a local and international agenda to
divert the genuinely concerned and more empathetic from reading the signs.
Harare, 7/12/06
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