The West and the folly of resuscitating a dying vampire

By William Muchayi

In the world of diplomacy as one observer realised, some things are left unsaid but it doesn’t necessarily imply that they don’t exist.  It is on this premise that an understanding of the backdoor dealings between the Mugabe regime, the Breton Woods institutions and the British government has to be understood within the context of Zimbabwe’s debilitating economic morass.

As perennial wisdom has taught mankind that rarely does smoke exist in the absence of fire, it is with shock that the majority of Zimbabweans learnt from The Telegraph that Lord Mandelson, the former UK Labour cabinet minister made a historic visit to the impoverished Southern African state to meet Patrick Chinamasa, the country’s Finance Minister in the company of Catriona Laing, the British Ambassador to the country.

As if the visit itself wasn’t shocking enough considering the fragility of relations between Harare and London, eyebrows were raised when it became clear that behind doors, Mandelson’s visit aimed to facilitate the Mugabe regime borrow $1.1 billion to offset the impoverished country’s debt through Lazard International, a division of the Investment bank Lazard of which Mandelson is its Chairman since October 2012.

Indeed, the drama became even more complicated and bizarre when it was revealed that Catriona Laing not only arranged the appointment but actually accompanied Lord Mandelson to meet Chinamasa.

On this evidence, in spite of public denial by the British Foreign Office in Harare, it leaves a bad taste in the mouth to imagine that the British government is reluctant to see the Mugabe regime fall on the pretext that a power vacuum in Zimbabwe will destabilise the whole of Southern Africa.

As all this drama unfolds, a leaked World Bank report reveals a potential plan for clearing $1.1 billion of Zimbabwe’s arrears with the IMF, World Bank and African Development Bank, which in turn will open the door to a bailout from the International Monetary Fund.

In order to justify this sudden change of policy, the leaked World Bank report claims that there has been progress on Zimbabwe’s human rights record as evidenced by a ‘decrease’ in arrests of opposition figures.

In fact, it is no mere coincidence that there is this bizarre change of policy by the Breton Woods sisters towards the Mugabe regime and Lord Mandelson’s visit with the blessings of the British Foreign Office at such a crucial phase in Zimbabwe’s history as the cabal gasps for dear life.

What is difficult to dispute is that there appears to be coordinated efforts by the World Bank, IMF and the British government to save the Mugabe cabal from total collapse, the wisdom being that a power vacuum following the regime’s fall will be more catastrophic to the region than its existence. 

This being said, Zimbabweans need to realise that whatever the Bretton Woods institutions and the British government do does not in any way prioritise the plight of the oppressed ordinary citizens.  By granting a bailout to the rogue regime when it is indisputable that the cabal can’t repay the debt, such a bizarre gesture is tantamount to blackmail of ordinary Zimbabweans who will be trapped in debt for eternity as they won’t afford to refuse to pay since that will be a stain on their credit worthiness long after Mugabe’s death.

On this premise, it implies that the IMF, World Bank and the British government by bailing out Mugabe are complicit in perpetuating the plight of ordinary Zimbabweans, for, it is no secret that any bailout money the regime receives will be used to entrench its grip on power at the expense of the oppressed.

In any case, are there any mechanisms in place for these ‘Good Samaritans’ to ensure that the bailout money given to the regime is accounted for and benefit the poor people of Zimbabwe?

In fact, this is not a new phenomenon in the way the IMF, World Bank and certain Western governments operate to the detriment of innocent people in Third World countries. The late Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire(DR Congo) became one of the beneficiaries of the Bretton Woods Institutions’ evil machinations in developing nations.

In fact, at the time of his death in 1997, Mobutu’s personal wealth was estimated at more than $10 billion. And, it is well documented that in 1978, the IMF  appointed its representative Edwin Blumenthal to a key post in Zaire’s Central Bank only to resign two years later complaining of ‘sordid and pernicious corruption’  that was so serious that ‘there is no chance, I repeat no chance, that Zaire’s numerous creditors will ever recover their loans.’

As if Blumenthal’s trumpet wasn’t loud enough, shortly after his report, the IMF gave Zaire the largest ever loan given to an African country by the time as it suited their Cold War interests as opposed to that of the impoverished Congolese.

It is on record that when Blumenthal’s report was published in 1979, Zaire’s debt was $5 billion and by the time Mobutu died in 1997, the debt had ballooned to over $13 billion and about 50% of that debt is alleged to have been siphoned by the dictator and his cabal only to be deposited in Western Banks with the rest wasted on elephant projects.

It is clear that loans extended to Mobutu never trickled to the ordinary Congolese and decades after the dictator’s demise, the poor people of the country live on less than a dollar a day while hundreds of millions of dollars are paid to the IMF and World Bank every year as fees for loans borrowed then.

Given all this evidence, it raises eyebrows when the World Bank contemplates to bail out the corrupt Mugabe regime when it’s apparent that the burden to repay the loans will fall on the shoulders of the poor who never benefit from loans extended to the cabal. 

Nor, does the Bretton Woods sisters care about their collusion with dictators in perpetuating oppression of the vulnerable as was the case in Chile, Brazil, Nicaragua, Congo and Romania?

As if the Bretton Woods institutions’ machinations in this drama are not enough, of what interest is the British government on the whole saga as evidenced by Catriona Laing’s involvement?

Firstly, British foreign policy is not as transparent as is acclaimed in public as evidenced by contradictions that leave many perplexed. After Russia’s invasion of Crimea in 2014, the British government in public claimed to have cancelled all licences to sell British weapons to Russia.

However, contrary to these claims, a report by a cross-party group of MPs chaired by Sir John Stanley, former Conservative defence secretary and Chairman of the Commons arms control committee by then reported that by July 2014, more than 200 licences to sell British weapons to Russia were still in place worth billions of pounds and up to now the issue has not yet been resolved.

The same committee unearthed that more than 300 export licences for arms worth £12 billion were approved for 28 countries cited by the Foreign Office for their poor human rights record including Israel, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Sri Lanka.

It is the very weapons being used to massacre Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and West Bank by the Israeli government while on the other hand the Saudis commit serious atrocities in Yemen. According to Amnesty International, Saudi Arabia, a close ally of the British government in the Middle East executes one citizen every two days.

In spite of this appalling human rights record, it is alleged that David Cameron’s government struck a backroom deal with the Saudis which guaranteed the Gulf dictatorship position as head of the UN human rights panel. What a fuss!

Or, could it be that the British government wishes to influence the succession conundrum in Zanu PF and expect Mugabe’s successor to reciprocate the gesture in the future? However, what is clear is that whatever is being discussed behind closed doors between Ambassador Catriona Laing, Lord Mandelson and Patrick Chinamasa stinks and will never solve the plight of ordinary Zimbabweans.

It is evident that what Zimbabwe needs is good governance and not financial bailout in this toxic environment as the money is to be embezzled by a clique in power at the expense of the poor. In 2015, the regime splashed $1.4 million on top of the range vehicles for seven ministries while it struggles to pay civil servants beside the fact that it has a bloated cabinet.

As Mugabe himself acknowledges, from 2009 the country produced diamonds worth about $15 billion in the Marange fields and yet none of that fortune has been accounted for. Is it not in the public domain that Vice President Phelekezela Mphoko spent almost 2 years holed  up at the Rainbow Towers Hotel , gobbling a cool $430 per night(minimum) excluding accommodation costs for his security, all at the taxpayers’ expense?

And, what about Mugabe’s globe-trotting that has drained the treasury and not excluding the security provided for Bona and her husband all footed by the taxpayer?

With all this evidence of poor governance by the Mugabe cabal, do Ambassador Catriona Laing let alone Lord Mandelson believe that Zimbabwe’s economic morass can be addressed by a financial bailout from the Bretton Woods Institutions? Zimbabweans must be vigilant and expose those that dine with the devil for hidden agendas that advance their interests at the expense of the underprivileged. 

William Muchayi is a pro-democracy activist and political analyst who can be contacted on [email protected]