Throughout the coverage of Zimbabwe there is an undercurrent both of racism and of regret that Britain ever let Rhodesia go. Some of the articles in the Telegraph may as well have been headlined "The plucky men and women holding darkest Africa at bay". Readers are led to conclude that Ian Smith was right all along: the only people who know how to run Africa are the whites.
But, through the IMF, the World Bank and the bilateral aid programmes, with their extraordinary conditions, the whites do run Africa, and a right hash they are making of it. Over the past ten years, according the the UN's latest human development report, the number of people in sub-Saharan Africa living on less than a dollar a day has risen from 242 to 300 million. The more rigorously Africa's governments apply the policies demanded by the whites, the poorer their people become.
Just like Mugabe, the rich world has also been using "food aid as a political weapon". The United States has just succeeded in forcing Zimbabwe and Zambia, both suffering from the southern African famine, to accept GM maize as food relief. Both nations had fiercely resisted GM crops, partly because they feared that the technology would grant multinational companies control over the food chain, leaving their people still more vulnerable to hunger. But the US, seizing the opportunity for its biotech firms, told them that they must either accept this consignment or starve.
But, through the IMF, the World Bank and the bilateral aid programmes, with their extraordinary conditions, the whites do run Africa, and a right hash they are making of it. Over the past ten years, according the the UN's latest human development report, the number of people in sub-Saharan Africa living on less than a dollar a day has risen from 242 to 300 million. The more rigorously Africa's governments apply the policies demanded by the whites, the poorer their people become.
Just like Mugabe, the rich world has also been using "food aid as a political weapon". The United States has just succeeded in forcing Zimbabwe and Zambia, both suffering from the southern African famine, to accept GM maize as food relief. Both nations had fiercely resisted GM crops, partly because they feared that the technology would grant multinational companies control over the food chain, leaving their people still more vulnerable to hunger. But the US, seizing the opportunity for its biotech firms, told them that they must either accept this consignment or starve.