Crisis in Zimbabwe worries international community

By Tichaona Sibanda
12 December 2006

There are renewed fears in the international community that plans by the Zanu (PF) regime to extend Robert Mugabe’s presidential term by two more years will further ruin the country’s economy.

Speaking on Monday in Cape Town , South Africa , the Commonwealth secretary-general Don Mckinnon said the fears are based on the current political and economic crises that have shown no signs of abating. According to Mckinnon the country’s collapse was putting pressure on its neighbours. He said; ‘We would like to think there could be productive change in Zimbabwe to see all the economic indicators move the other way, but there is no sign of that happening at all.’

Luke Zunga, a Zimbabwean economist based in Johannesburg , agreed with Mckinnon’s assessment saying the country still lacks basic fundamentals that can ensure any meaningful growth. ‘First of all there is no production in the country. Secondly the political atmosphere is not conducive for any change. And lastly they are printing money and so these shortfalls do not in any way encourage development,’ said Zunga.

Mckinnon, who is in Cape Town attending a conference, said there were few signs of Mugabe being replaced. He told journalists that a lot of people talk about a post-Mugabe plan and that many people certainly have ideas. But the only problem with that he said, was they don’t see anything coming out that suggests change is really imminent.
He said repeated efforts by the Commonwealth, the United Nations, the Southern African Development Community and nations such as Britain and the United States had failed to stem Zimbabwe ’s economic slide.‘Everyone has tried and all of us have failed. With all the effort we put into it we didn’t get any result at all,’ he said.

The secretary-general revealed that he was looking for new ideas that would see Zimbabwe get back into the Commonwealth. He added that he had evidence that every African leader of a Commonwealth nation had publicly criticised Mugabe at one time or another, including South Africa, which has been repeatedly criticised over its policy of ‘silent diplomacy’ towards Zimbabwe.