Zimbabwe Open for Business, Code for International Finance Capitalism

by Netfa Freeman from BAR

“Zimbabwe’s new president offered an open invitation to international capital investment and latecomers for Zimbabwe’s trek down the neoliberal development road.”

Over the last four months, peddling the mantra “Zimbabwe is open for business,” the country’s new president in cahoots with the Western press has been whitewashing a military coup into a popular, peaceful revolution that brought from exile a benevolent leader and placed him in power on an interim basis until elections. Omitted from the portrayal of the March 11, 2018 op-ed, “We Are Bringing About the New Zimbabwe ,” published in the New York Times and by-lined to Zimbabwe’s sitting president, Emmerson Mnangagwa, are all the maneuvers selling out the country’s political independence. Given reports of what happened to some of ZANU-PF’s G40 faction, including the killing of a bodyguard, and jailing with allegations of torture from November 14, 2017, until at least Robert Mugabe resigned as president a week later, the accounts in Mnangagwa’s op-ed are a pretty audacious rewriting of history.

Censored from mainstream headlines was the major news less than three weeks ago that former president Robert Mugabe was reported to have come out during his first ever briefing to outsiders since his ousting, saying his successor’s rule is “unconstitutional.” It shouldn’t be unreasonable to think such information would qualify as breaking world news. Addressing African Union Commission (AU) chairperson Moussa Faki Mahamat, among many others, Mugabe is reported to have declared that the Mnangagwa government was illegal and the AU should help to “restore normalcy and democracy in Zimbabwe.” Rescinding assurances he made at the time of his resignation, Mugabe said he was forced to resign under military pressure and that, “It’s tragic and sad that in Zimbabwe since November 15 government and state institutions have been taken over by the military which is now part of the current unconstitutional administration.”…

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