Posted on 10/16/2001 3:02:07 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
HARARE, Zimbabwe -- (AP) -- Zimbabwe will abandon market-based economic policies and return to a socialist-style economy, President Robert Mugabe announced Monday. Businesses opposed to the move should ``pack up and go,'' he said.
Mugabe said a price freeze on basic foods imposed Friday will be strictly enforced, and the government will seize firms that shut down, withhold their goods or engage in illegal profiteering.
``Let no one on this front expect mercy . . . The state will take over any businesses that are closed,'' Mugabe said. ``We will reorganize them with workers and at last that socialism we wanted can start again.''
Zimbabwe dropped its socialist economic policies a decade after it gained independence in 1980 and embraced Western-style economic reforms. In recent years, Zimbabwe's economy has become crippled by out-of-control inflation, unemployment and a shortage of hard currency.
Analysts say the crisis began with the country's expensive military involvement in the Congo war and worsened when ruling party militants began occupying white-owned commercial farms, which generate much hard currency in this agricultural-based economy.
On Monday, Mugabe offered a challenge to anyone unhappy with the country's new economic direction. ``Those tired of doing business here can pack up and go,'' he said.
Independent economist Howard Sithole said Mugabe's remarks set ``a depressing outlook for private enterprise.''
``We are putting the clock back to shortages and food lines we had in the 1980s. Manufacturers will have to scale down, forget about any new investment at all and hope this is a temporary political measure that can be removed'' after presidential elections early next year, he said.
On Friday, the government ordered price cuts of 5 percent to 20 percent on corn meal, bread, meat, cooking oil, milk, salt and soap. During the weekend, bread, cooking oil and margarine were unobtainable.
The liberal west has expended too much political capital in the success of black rule to condemn what Mugabe is doing. I feel for the hard working people of this once great country, but Zimbabwe will get what it deserves.
But the disruptions in farming have contributed to a looming famine. Relief agencies say up to half of the country's 12.5 million population face a severe hunger crisis in the coming months. The government says its land seizure program was launched in 2000 as a final effort to correct colonial era injustices. Critics say it is part of the increasingly authoritarian government's effort to maintain power amid more than two years of economic chaos and political violence.***
If he wants to make a career change, there is a Senate seat open in New Jersey. Mugabe sounds like he would fit in nicely with Corzine, Clinton, Kennedy and Leahy.
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