Zimbabwe - Mugabe Threatens To Seize Anglo-American Corp. Local Assets

Associated Press | June 30, 2002

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HARARE, Jun 30, 2002 (AP)--President Robert Mugabe has accused mining giant Anglo-American Corp. (AAUK) of hoarding salt amid Zimbabwe's hunger crisis and threatened to seize the company's local assets, state media reported Sunday.

Mugabe said his government "will not tolerate companies bent on causing unnecessary suffering to the people by creating unnecessary shortages," state radio reported Sunday.

The radio said ruling party officials last week found 2,000 metric tons of salt in warehouses belonging to National Foods, a company partially owned by Anglo Zimbabwe, a subsidiary of London-based Anglo American.

A National Foods executive said on condition of anonymity the salt had not been put on the market because it had been imported from neighboring Botswana at the parallel exchange rate of 300 Zimbabwean dollars to the U.S. dollar.

At that rate, nearly six times the government's fixed exchange rate, the company would take a huge loss if it sold the salt at the market price set by the government, the official said. The company had been negotiating with government officials to find a compromise price for the salt.

In a speech to ruling party officials Friday, Mugabe attacked National Foods, which he described as "an Anglo American company of Nicky Oppenheimer," the chairman of the mining giant.

"They have been hoarding salt ... they want people on the streets against our government. What kind of mischief is this?" he said, according to the state-owned Sunday Mail. "We will take over their enterprises."

Officials from Anglo Zimbabwe, which owns 34% of National Foods, could not be reached for comment Sunday. In the 1990s, Anglo Zimbabwe sold off most of its industrial and agricultural investments in Zimbabwe, but retained some mining interests.

More than 6 million Zimbabweans, about half the population, are in danger of starvation after a drought and government seizures of white-owned commercial farms nearly destroyed this year's grain harvest, according to the United Nations.

The country is running out of corn and wheat and its supplies of cooking oil and salt are dwindling.

(C) Copyright 2002 Dow Jones

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fyi

[LarryLied]

If Mugabe does this, Anglo-American should sue the Beit Alfa Trailer Co.which just recieved a $105 million down payment from Mugabe for a fleet of armored crowd control vehicles.

[DH]

I'm confused! How do people STARVE from lack of SALT or COOKING OIL? How about an open fire and a stick!

[Criminal Number 18F]

Don't underestimate what's happening. People are starvinng here, in a country which exported food for over a century.

One thing that will come of this is, you can be damned sure that no one will import any more salt from Botswana. So when this 2,000 tonnes is gone (and if it is distributed as Mugabe usually does, it will go to his family, supporters, and fellow Shona tribesmen, in that order until exhausted), it's gone.

Salt is a necessary dietary component that we in the West think little about, because our rich diets provide too much!

The cooling oil comes in in preparing the staple of poor people in Zim, mealie meal (cornmeal).

One of the great ironies is that "resettling" the shiftless urban Mugabe supporters on the former commercial farms has displaced the hundreds of thousands of skilled farm labourers and stripped them of their ability to earn a living and support their families.

Imagine if some crazed Mugabe type -- Al Gore has potential -- nationalised all the agribusinesses, ordered all the farm workers to leave, and divided the farms up into subsistence farms of a few acres each, farmed by Crips and Bloods from the city. That's about what has happened (and is happening) here.

If you could have seen this country 25 years ago you would weep for what it is today.

d.o.l.

Criminal Number 18F

[Tacis]

The most amazing part of this is the dull silence from the rest of the world and, especially, the UN. Can you imagine the world's outrage had a white majority reduced a wealthy black minority from riches to poverty within 6 years? Can you imagine bands of white hooligans raiding prosperous farms and businesses owned by blacks and looting them? Mugabe (the African Gray Davis) reduces his country to the stone age, starving millions in the process, and blaming everything on the white farmers, the only efficient group in the country, and the world remains silent. That is pure racism!

[Clive]

BUMP

[backhoe]

Clive, I'll mass email this. Tacis, you mentioned:

The most amazing part of this is the dull silence from the rest of the world and, especially, the UN. Can you imagine the world's outrage had a white majority reduced a wealthy black minority from riches to poverty within 6 years?

People like myself- who long ago tried to get support for Rhodesia and the old South Africa- have well been aware of this. It's a crying shame.

About all we can do now is spread the word, and bear witness. It was all so drearily predictable.

AfricaWatch:

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[Ronin]

The U.S. government needs to issue a blunt warning to Mugabe that any nationalization of U.S. corporate assetts will be met with total economic sanctions -- including interdiction of private aid to Zimbabwe.