Kameraad Mhambi

The love affair with Thabo Mbeki endures.

Kameraad Mhambi attended a talk hosted by the Commonwealth Journalists Association (CJA) in London Thursday night. South Africa: Which way forward was the title of talk.

Odd, I never heard of many of these talks when Mbeki came to power. Yet its with the presidency of Jacob Zuma, that talks about the countries future occur every second week.

There were 4 panelists.

The first – Mark Ashurst – The director of the Africa Research Institute, identified Mbeki as a largely benign force. Simultaneously liberal and a guardian of rules. I kid you not.

Yes, Mbeki opened the South African economy, allowed it to flourish, but respected rules and regulations and institutions. Ha! And this from a guy who had read and reviewd Andrew Feinstein’s After the Party for the New Statesman?!

For the government of President Thabo Mbeki, his finance minister, Trevor Manuel, and the former minister of trade and industry Alec Erwin insisted – shabbily – that was all clean. These are no ordinary villains, however. The same triumvirate has been widely credited with the liberalising economic policies that have brought the longest boom in South African history. None is accused of benefiting personally from the arms deal. A likely explanation for the cover-up is that the arms deal fuelled an ANC slush fund for the 1999 election campaign.

That’s ok then. And wrong.

He went on to bracket Zuma as the last of a long line of liberal ANC leaders. After Zuma were in big trouble apparently.

Next up – Audrey Brown – South African journalist (now at the BBC world service) & documentary maker. She lamented the recent spate of Xenephobic attacks and wondered about South Africa’s place in the rest of Africa using football as a metaphor. I have blogged on this subject a lot, and you can read that here.

John Battersby, ex editor of the Sunday Independent in Johannesburg claimed he was not speaking in his capacity as the UK Country Manager of the International Marketing Council of South Africa. He was telling fibs me thinks, and that is the kind reading of his lame defence of South African foreign policy and high praise of the Mbeki economy.

“The world is hypocritical”, “look how dreadful Israel behaves, flouting security council resolutions” like clockwork.

Conceding that inequality had risen, he countered that so too had GDP per head had risen, while poverty was down as a percentage of the population. (He quoted a report which I could not remember.) Service delivery, like housing and water delivery was very good he continued. Really?

Onyekachi Wambu a Nigerian journalist and television producer offered much of the same. But also added this little gem. Mbeki’s approach on Zimbabwe will be proven to be right one. Really?

Lets deal with Mr. Wambu first. Mbeki’s Zimbabwe policy that started with the burying of a critical report by two judges he had appointed himself.

Mbeki commissioned judges Sisi Khampepe and Dikgang Moseneke to observe the controversial Zimbabwean election in 2002 – which the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) still claims was rigged.

On their return, the judges wrote a scathing report on the conduct of the election and submitted it to Mbeki.

This report was never released. In fact the South African government endorsed the election.

Since them the Zimbabwean people had to endure Operation Murambatsvina, violence, abduction and intimidation, cholera and more for seven years.

At all junctions Mbeki tried to protect Mugabe.

As Audrey Matshiqi noted:

“And what about the idea of a government of national unity? My concern is that Africa may be entering a period of “despocracy”. Despocracy means that dictators can avoid the implications of electoral defeat by imposing a climate of violence which leads to the installation of a government of national unity. Any such government must, therefore, be just an interim measure.”

Zimbabweans deserve democracy as much as the Romanians did under Ceaucescu. Why this loyalty to African big men Mr. Wambu?

You should know better than most how Thabu Mbeki’s deference to African leaders is counter productive, murderous even. Ken Saro Wiwa’s execution is another child of Mbeki’s inaction.

But what about all this praise by Mr Ashurst and Battersby for Mbeki’s liberalisation of the South African economy?

Firstly, the South African economy has consistently underperformed similar economies during the greatest commodity boom in recent memory. The government’s Trade policy has decimated the Cape’s Textile industry.

Neither do their numbers chime with this report by the South African Institute of Race Relations, where it is claimed that poverty has more than doubled.

A survey released by the SAIRR this month (Nov 2007) showed that poverty in the country increased “dramatically” between 1996 and 2005, said researcher Marius Roodt in a statement.

“Using the globally accepted measure of poverty, of people living on less than one US dollar per day, poverty has increased in South Africa, both in absolute numbers and proportionally.

“In 1996, some 1,9 million South Africans survived on less than one US dollar per day. This had increased to 4,2 million by 2005,” said Roodt.

The institute concedes that there are signs that the governments massive income grants are making a difference. I applaud that. But these measures were only introduced after severe pressure was placed on the Mbeki government by the likes of Cosatu. Hardly a product of his brilliant liberalisation.

Neither does their argument not take into account the failing schools, the privatised police force or the neglect of the water and power network I have written about before.

Mr. Battersby is mesmerised by the charm potential of his positive numbers. It’s the quality of the South African experience that I am interested in. He would be well advised to read this assessment by Ferial Haffagee of the state of the nation.

“Our Gini coefficient, the measure of the wealth gap, is now the highest in the world, an ignominious honour that we spend far too little time understanding and fighting.

Our children are less bright in the freedom years, our schools possibly worse than they were under the dead hand of Bantustan administrators. Our public hospitals are so bad that not a single provincial minister of health uses them.”

When times for questions arose, I declared that I did not agree with the panel. Mr. Wambu and Amhurst conceded a point here and there. Mr. Battersby refused to respond.

No related posts.