Category: ACAS in the Press

ACAS in the Press

Oct 26, 2008

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United States and other major powers still doggedly refuse to negotiate their lifestyles.

In a Globalized World, Winners and Losers
Published: October 22, 2008 [New York Times]

To the Editor:

Re “The Great Iceland Meltdown” (column, Oct. 19):

Writing about the current financial debacle, Thomas L. Friedman holds that in a globalizing world, “we are all partners now.” He hopes that “globalization will saveth.”

More than 20 years ago, a global commission headed by Willy Brandt, the former chancellor of West Germany, called for a partnership in international development. What have been the results?

At this month’s civil society forum (in which I participated), held just before the World Bank and International Monetary Fund annual meetings, representatives of grass-roots movements complained that the United States and other major powers still doggedly refuse to negotiate their lifestyles.

The market-driven form of globalization cannot “saveth” in the absence of democratic accountability and without restructuring the debt sustainability framework for developing countries.

James H. Mittelman
Bethesda, Md., Oct. 19, 2008
The writer, a professor of international affairs at American University, is the author of books about globalization.

Sep 18, 2008

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Robert Mugabe’s Legacy

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The National
21 August 2008

Review of Heidi Holland’s biography of Robert Mugabe, Dinner with Mugabe (Allen Lane, 2008)

Excerpt:

One of the legacies of that time – and a testament of the power of the nationalist narrative that African independence leaders embodied – is that few if any of Mugabe’s present Western critics publicly denounced these murders. Instead he received a knighthood from Queen Elizabeth II in 1994 and honorary degrees from American universities. The economy was growing steadily even in the hostile shadow of Apartheid South Africa and access to education and health services markedly improved. As Lord Corrington, the British foreign secretary during independence negotiations, tells Holland: “But other than the killing of the Ndebele, it went tolerably well under Mugabe at first, didn’t it? He wasn’t running a fascist state. He didn’t appear to be a bad dictator.”

Read the rest here

Jul 25, 2008

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After the Vetoes on Zimbabwe: What’s the Next Step?

NYT

To the NYT Editor:

Re “2 Vetoes Quash U.N. Sanctions on Zimbabwe” (front page, July 12):

Now that efforts to impose sanctions on Zimbabwe and regional mediation have failed to topple the Mugabe regime, what are the alternatives?

Having lived and worked intermittently in southern Africa since 1971, I believe that there are lessons to be learned from the defeat of apartheid.

A divestment campaign in the United States pressured the minority regime. Eventually, in 1985, Gavin W. H. Relly, the chairman of the Anglo American Corporation, defied South Africa’s official policy and led a delegation of business leaders to meet privately with the banned African National Congress in Lusaka, Zambia, where they discussed the transition to a new order.

In Zimbabwe today, there are fissures within President Robert Mugabe’s cohort. The objective should be to hive off the elements ill served by a sham regime and collapsed economy. Absent the Mugabe clique, the prospects for democracy in Zimbabwe, a country with a vibrant civil society and highly skilled work force, are excellent.

James H. Mittelman
Bethesda, Md., July 12, 2008
The writer is a professor of international affairs at the School of International Service, American University.

Original: After the Vetoes on Zimbabwe: What’s the Next Step?

Jun 25, 2008

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Washington Post: How to Handle Dictators

In a June 22 Outlook commentary, “The Only Answer to the Mugabes of the World May Be a Coup,” Paul Collier advocated encouraging coups to topple dictators and achieve “improved governance” in “such sad little states as Zimbabwe and Burma.”

For him, those countries’ governments are equivalent to their leaders, President Robert Mugabe and Senior Gen. Than Shwe. But history shows that coups beget counter-coups. While living and working in Southeast Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, I witnessed sprees of illiberal governance that only worsened the prospects for democratic rule in those places. And if developed countries were to adopt Mr. Collier’s recommendation, Mr. Mugabe would be likely to interpret that approach as
vindicating his contention that neocolonial rule is the cause of Zimbabwe’s ills.

The government in a country such as Zimbabwe or Burma is not merely a strongman but a collection of interests and groups.

Western countries should step up external pressure on the ruling cliques and support local initiatives that promote good governance.

This course is morally right and politically wise.

JAMES H. MITTELMAN
Bethesda

Original

Jun 24, 2008

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ACAS Press Release: Zimbabwe Crisis

Press Release: Zimbabwe Crisis
June 24, 2008
4pm EST

The Association of Concerned Africa Scholars (ACAS), has published a special issue on Zimbabwe in the ACAS Bulletin. It introduces the issues surrounding Zimbabwe’s March 29 elections and the current political violence leading up to the June 27th Presidential run-off.

The aim of this special Zimbabwe issue is to provide details and analysis often left out of mainstream news sources. The reader will find a variety of articles from different perspectives, by Zimbabwe experts from the fields of political science, sociology, history, and theology, as well as from seasoned Zimbabwe journalists and an NGO worker reporting from the field. The special issue concludes with a historically-inflected editorial on Zimbabwe’s politics of violence, an open letter to Thabo Mbeki, and provides a listing of on-line resources for further research and information.

The issue was edited by Tim Scarnecchia and Wendy Urban-Mead, and contains articles by (among others): Norma Kriger, Jimmy G Dube, Augustine Hungwe, Sabelo J Ndlovu-Gatsheni, David Moore, Amy Ansell, and Peta Thornycroft.

Contact:
Tim Scarneccia
Kent State University
(330) 672-8904
tscarnec@kent.edu

Wendy Urban-Mead
Bard College
(845) 264-1805
wum@bard.edu

Read the issue here | PDF version: https://concernedafricascholars.org/docs/acasbulletin79.pdf

Feb 14, 2008

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Tanzania: A haven of peace

By Goran Hyden
February 14, 2008

Originally published in the Gainesville Sun

President Bush is on his way to Africa this week. One of his destinations is Tanzania. He will be the first American president to ever visit the country.

Unlike its northern neighbor Kenya, Tanzania is relatively little known in the U.S. although it is the location of Kilimanjaro, the highest mountain on the African continent, Serengeti, the richest endowed wildlife reserve in the world, and – for all Valentine lovers – the exquisite Tanzanite gemstone.

There are reasons why no U.S. president has visited Tanzania and why the country remains little known to Americans. For a long time, Tanzania was devoted to building a socialist state – an experiment that collapsed in the 1980s leaving the country to rebuild its economy along market economy lines.

There was no love lost between the United States and Tanzania during those socialist years, although, paradoxically, according to a study of foreign aid to Tanzania, Republican presidents – Nixon, Ford and Reagan – gave more money for its development than their Democratic counterparts Lyndon Johnson and Jimmy Carter did.

Today socialism is history in Tanzania. President Bush will visit a country that is an African economic success story. Its growth rate in recent years has averaged over 6 percent. Its mineral and natural gas resources are drawing in foreign investors. Its large tracts of unused land are being developed for agriculture and cattle ranching. Its beautiful beaches on the islands of Zanzibar as well as the mainland are attracting increasing numbers of tourists.

Some of these developments may be met with mixed feelings by ordinary Tanzanians but there is little doubt that Tanzania is now on the move.

Rapid changes like those taking place in Tanzania now have caused social and political upheavals in other African countries. No one can rule those out even in Tanzania. Yet, it has a record of political stability that none of its neighbors, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo or Mozambique can match. It is a true haven of peace in Africa living up to the name of its largest city. Dar es Salaam means exactly that.

Governments in Africa have been difficult to hold accountable. Despite corruption and misrule they have stayed on, a shortcoming that afflicts these countries as they try to democratize. President Bush will come to Tanzania just a few days after it struck a political first in Africa.

Its Prime Minister, Edward Lowassa, was forced to resign after parliamentarians in his own party revealed his involvement in a scandal involving misappropriation of government funds. President Jakaya Kikwete immediately dissolved the cabinet and has just appointed a fresh one with a new Prime Minister, Peter Mizengo Pinda.

This change of government is all the more remarkable as Lowassa was a very close ally of the president. Kikwete’s decision to let him go is an indication that he is ready to tackle the issue of corruption that has eluded so many of his fellow African heads of state. It raises eyebrows among investors and foreign donors alike. It augurs well for Tanzania.

The country’s political stability is not a coincidence. Ever since independence, the ruling party – Chama cha Mapinduzi (Revolutionary Party) – has been careful in choosing presidents who come from small and insignificant ethnic groups rather than from the larger and more prosperous ones. This has spared the country from the tensions that have afflicted Kenya and Uganda where the largest ethnic group has tried to rule the country and ignored the interest of other groups.

Tanzania was for a long time the darling of European donors. Ever since its socialist days, China has also been an important investor and donor.

In the past two years, Tanzania has gone out of its way to lure Americans to take an interest in the country. President Kikwete has visited the U.S. three times and not only attended the odd meeting at the United Nations as his predecessors did. Kikwete has been as interested in Washington as in New York.

President Bush will get a warm welcome in Dar es Salaam when he arrives this week. He will see for himself an African country that is a genuine haven of peace; one that has turned its economy around and is now a showcase of what other African countries should aim for.

Goran Hyden is Distinguished Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Florida. He can be reached at ghyden@polisci.ufl.edu