Why we muust stand on our own

The lesson here is clear for those who are observant. Once a Third World government is regarded as hostile to western interests, its products are demonised and its economy ruined.
The Financial Gazette

Letter from America By Ken Mufuka
The ongoing struggle between the Zimbabwe government and the Kimberly Process, which has restricted Zimbabwean diamonds from the world market, comes at a time when intellectual consensus is exposing the second recolonisation of Africa through economic means.
At the time of going to press, the Kimberly Process consortium was still debating whether Zimbabwe’s Chiadzwa and Marange diamonds should be admitted to the world market. The issue here is not that the Chiadzwa diamonds are blood diamonds (procured through slavery), but that its proceeds will be used by a government hostile to western interests.
These diamonds will allow Zimbabwe to stand on its own feet, if exploited properly.
There is also a crusade here about the use of Zimbabwean asbestos, even though the grain mined in Zimbabwe is less toxic than the Canadian species. The issue therefore is not entirely about the toxicity of asbestos but the fact that the asbestos mines are owned by a government hostile to western interests.
The Mashaba-Zvishavane asbestos have a huge market in Japan and China for use in automobile brakes. Once again, they could help make Zimbabwe self sufficient in foreign exchange.
The lesson here is clear for those who are observant. Once a Third World government is regarded as hostile to western interests, its products are demonised and its economy ruined. We could be doing better in tourism, which is the golden goose that lays golden eggs. Despite the lifting of sanctions on Zimbabwe by the US State Department, the wording in their “advisories” to travellers is that one travels at his own risk. Thus, the rapid expansion of tourism has been delayed.
Again the lesson is that unless our government comes to an amicable relationship with the US and the European Union, our trade will continue to be hampered and our progress slowed down.
Apart from that lesson, the majority of development scholars have now agreed that foreign aid actually does more harm than good. The new thinking, exemplified by Asad Ismi, who is regarded as the scourge of the World Bank, is that there is no such thing as foreign aid really.
Apart from the everyday issues, foreign aid restores the colonial virus of white supremacy with a vengeance. A university that trains graduate engineers and has professors carrying degrees in their rear ends, invites a 24-year-old German boy to dig a well for them. Even the worst imperialists did not create a more humiliating scenario than that.
Ismi says that when all the sheep are counted, foreign aid is a tool of recolonisation. “Twenty years of World Bank and International Monetary Fund’s (policies) have de-developed Africa and left it in a state of economic and social collapse.”
Very often the money is never delivered. Does anybody remember the U$2 billion dollar Zimcord donor conference in 1982? A look at the budget reports of 1980-1985 does not show any injection of “donor free money” exceeding 15 percent of the budget. So the money was just big talk.
During the government of national unity talks in 2008, does anybody remember the U$5 billion injection of donor funds promised? At the time of going to press, only U$2 million from Nordic donors can be identified as “free money” in the Zimbabwe budget.
In 1979, during the Zimbabwe talks with Rhodesian leader Ian Smith, US President Jimmy Carter promised billions to sweeten the Rhodesian land settlement scheme. None of it materialised.
The aim of this letter is to remind our Zimbabwean brothers that historically, the countries which received the most foreign aid, like Zaire under Mobutu Sese Seko are actually the poorest countries on the continent. The aid was never intended for the Zairian people. It was intended to buy off the dictator so he could become a surrogate apparatchik of the US.
Ismi says that while World Bank policies have led to increased exports, foreign investments and globalisation integration, the results are negative. By devaluing the local currencies, debt has quadrupled despite increased exports. When countries reach the “highly indebted level” the World Bank recolonises them. Most African exports have decreased in value; so that 1 000 bags of peanuts in 2000 would buy the same amount of goods 100 bags did in 1900. That is daylight robbery.
Americans do not even follow the blueprints they impose on others. In a recent recession provoked structural adjustment, US President Barack Obama asked the Federal Reserve Bank to print money and support banking instructions at zero interest. The Obama “stimulus money” was used to prevent teachers from being laid off. The budget deficit tripled to U$1 trillion, the highest since World War 2.
Obama has been lecturing the Greeks to reduce their expenditure all round by 15 percent and show a sense of self sacrifice.

Why then do African countries still seek advice from the West? The answer is very simple. The leaders and intellectuals are mentally colonised. Their home-grown solutions lack credibility unless they have foreign stamps of approval from their mental colonisers.

New economic thinking is that foreign investment is best utilised if invited by local entrepreneurs who already know the lay of the land. Government to government aid should at best be used as supplementary to already existing programmes.
Zimbabweans have enough mineral resources of their own to be able to jump start their economy. Non-governmental organisations are by nature political and increase dependency syndrome and contempt for African solutions.
It is a mistake, however, to banish them. They will go away only if hunger and health needs are being met by the local government.