Another Blow to Mugabe

A couple of weeks ago I wrote THIS post about the German company Giesecke & Devrient, who supply paper to the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe to print their bank notes. Critics claimed the money helped prop up the government of President Robert Mugabe. The Wall Street Journal reports today...

Giesecke & Devrient has now announced that it will stop supplying Zimbabwe with paper used to print money. The Munich company said its decision was made in response to an official request from the German government and calls for international sanctions on Zimbabwe by the European Union and United Nations.

"Our decision takes account of concerns about the worsening political situation in Zimbabwe which we had expected to improve," Karsten Ottenberg, managing director of Giesecke & Devrient said in a statement released yesterday. "It also reflects the critical views from the international community, the government and general public."

Zimbabwe is in the midst of an economic meltdown and economists say the inflation rate is at least 2 million percent. Mugabe, under criticism for the violence leading up to last week's run-off elections, is said to be keeping himself in power by printing money to pay his ministers and supporters.

The violence leading up to the elections and the country's continued runaway inflation have led some nations to call for UN sanctions. A dozen human rights activists demonstrated in front of the company headquarters on Friday, holding up banners reading: "No cash for terror."

Germany's Development Minister Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul made an official request last week that the paper shipments stop, saying that the money was helping to keep Mugabe in power.

The firm is believed to have supplied about half of the country's currency, according to media reports. Giesecke & Devrient reportedly provides banknote paper to more than 100 countries and is thought to be the largest printer of euro banknotes.

John Simpson's Strange View of Mugabe

What on earth is John Simpson on? Danny Finkelstein diagnoses a case of foot-in-mouth disease HERE. The BBC's World Affairs Editor seems to have taken leave of his senses in his analysis of what is going on in Zimbabwe.

Time to Put Pressure on Mbeki

There's a very good op-ed in today's New York Times which castigates South African president Thabo Mbeki for his weakness in the face of Mugabe's bloody reign of tyranny. The author, Peter Godwin, reckons the best way to put pressure on Mbeki is for the international community to threaten to take away the 2010 World Cup from South Africa unless things change in South Africa's attitude to Zimbabwe.

South Africa could use its economic power to draw Mr. Mugabe’s rule to an end in weeks rather than months. Yet Mr. Mbeki has steadfastly refused to act, providing a protective cloak for Mr. Mugabe’s repression. And just a few weeks ago, even as opposition members were being tortured, Mr. Mbeki visited Zimbabwe, allowing himself to be garlanded at the airport and displayed on state-run TV with a broadly grinning Mr. Mugabe. In the United Nations Security Council, where South Africa currently has a seat, Mr. Mbeki has opposed attempts to put the political situation in Zimbabwe on the agenda.

If Mr. Mbeki’s cost-benefit calculus has been such that he hasn’t seen it necessary to take tougher action, perhaps it’s time to change that calculus. Perhaps, for example, now is not the time for you to book a safari to South Africa. Or for you, or any institution that manages your funds, to make new investments in the country.

Most important, there is the FIFA soccer World Cup, for which South Africa is to act as host in 2010. That may seem like a long way off, but South Africa is already investing huge amounts both financially and politically, for what is supposed to be its triumphal coming-out party. Maybe Zimbabwe should become to the South Africa-hosted World Cup what Tibet has been to the Beijing Olympics — the pungent albatross that spoils every press conference and mars every presentation with its insistent odor.

Perhaps it’s time to share the Zimbabweans’ pain, to help persuade Mr. Mbeki to bear down on its source by threatening to grab the world’s soccer ball and take our games elsewhere.

Mbeki even tried to stop the UN discussing Zimbabwe in the last two days. It has a seat on the Security Council at the moment yet seeks to appease an evil dictator at every turn. The one thing Mbeki cares about is the 2010 World Cup. I'm not suggesting a boycott, but the international community has leverage here.

The German Company with Zimbabwean Blood On Its Hands

A company with direct links to such household names as The Post Office and the Royal Bank of Scotland is propping up Robert Mugabe's despotic rule in Zimbabwe by printing its bank notes. In the past month, these increasingly worthless notes have been used to bribe officials in the public sector, army, and other public-security services to curry votes for the Mugabe regime, and to pay the security forces and thugs who are implementing Mugabe's reign of terror.

In the weeks prior to the first round of the Presidential election in March, with Zimbabwe's economy collapsing and inflation already running at 100,000 per cent, a German company called Giesecke & Devrient (G&D) ran its printing presses at maximum capacity, delivering 432,000 sheets of banknotes to Mugabe's government each week. The money, equivalent to nearly Z$173 trillion (U.S. $32 million), was then dispersed among targeted voters.

Mugabe has also used currency printed by G&D to pay the thugs who squat on some of the few white-owned farms remaining in the country, and who have undertaken the campaign of electoral cleansing that has seen Zimbabwe's election turn into a blood bath.

G&D has directly contributed to a meltdown in the country. According to the Sunday Times earlier this year, the company is receiving more than $750,000 a week from the Mugabe regime "for delivering notes at the astonishing rate of Z$170 trillion a week." Inflation caused by this reckless currency printing has destroyed once-sustainable food markets and stymied business investment, and has contributed to thousands of deaths a week from malnutrition and disease.

It is obvious that many in the international community would just like the issue to disappear. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has taken a rhetorically strong stance against the Mugabe regime, and has supported EU travel and banking sanctions against its cronies. But her government says that G&D's involvement in Zimbabwe is a private matter...

While the U.S. government has placed effective sanctions on the leaders of the regime in Harare, it is still contracting with G&D's American affiliate to provide security-card and banknote services. (The Treasury Department's latest contract with the company is worth $381,200). It appears that there is no official policy or position on G&D.

G&D could bring Mugabe's campaign of terror to a halt overnight, by turning off the currency flow. If G&D does not take action, both the British Government, the British people and the EU must. They should threaten to deny any future contracts to companies providing direct services to the Mugabe regime. It's appalling, as MDC Shadow Justice Minister David Coltart says, "that a German company is profiting out of Zimbabweans' despair," fueling inflation by printing dollars, "which are then used to fund Mugabe's campaign of repression."

I hope that the British companies that are doing business with G & D are doing so in ignorance. If not they are complicit in the genocide that Mugabe is imposing on his people. The main business partners of G&D according to their Annual Report are The Post Office, Halifax Bank of Scotland, Royal Bank of Scotland, HSBC, Vodaphone and Group4Security. Perhaps you might like to write to them telling them what you think.

Let's Not Forget Zimbabwe

In amongst all the local election fall out, the fact that the Zimbabwean opposition won the Presidential election seems to have been virtually ignored. We hear nothing of any international pressure being put on Mugabe and we hear little of what the South African government thinks. If anything.

The Opposition is threatning to boycott any runoff. This would be a mistake. They are the protectors of democracy in that strife ridden country, but they need the support - both overt and tacit - of Zimbabwe's neighbours.

If there is to be a run-off, surely South Africa needs to step up to the mark and use its economic might to ensure it is organised on a fair and equitable basis with a clear timetable for the count - and more importantly to ensure that the count is conducted fairly.

Zimbabwe: China and South Africa are the Keys

Whatever one's politics I think most of us will share the same fears about what is about to happen in Zimbabwe. It is almost inconceivable that Robert Mugabe will retire gracefully and release the levers of power which he has held for more than a quarter of a century. But the truth is that it matters not a jot what we in this country think. It will make no difference to the situation. The only two countries which can really affect the long term future of Zimbabwe are China and South Africa.

Of course Britain, the USA, Europe and every one else should make their views known if indeed the election results are shown to have been rigged, but they all need to put pressure on South Africa and China to tell Mugabe that his time is up. Whatever diplomatic pressure that can be applied, should be applied. China has been a strong supporter of Mugabe for decades and Zimbabwe has in some ways been a Chinese client state. South Africa, also, has a particularly shameful role in ignoring the plight of the people of one of its neighbours, and shoring up the Mugabe regime. It's time that stopped
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