You may have seen that Zimbabwe has introduced a new currency. Back in 2008 they abandoned their worthless currency and adopted the US Dollar instead. Most transactions in Zimbabwe are now in US Dollars or the South African Rand.
In the west we don't get a fair picture of the reasons for the predicament Zimbabwe finds itself in, nor is there any reasonable debate about how to fix things. What we get instead, is a picture created by the British, that Zimbabwe's President, Robert Mugabe, is a fool and that white Zimbaweans are superior to everyone else. Neither picture is accurate.
Mugabe has done some remarkable things in Zimbabwe, when he took office the country was run to serve the white masters and the black community were third class citizens. He built a modern infrastructure which became the envy of the rest of sub-Saharan Africa, he educated soundly and the country still has the highest literacy rate in sub-Saharan Africa, and he kept his word in fighting the Lord's Resistance Army and his word with the British.
Let's look at those last two matters. When the illegal white supremacist government of Southern Rhodesia was finally defeated, a meeting was held between the freedom fighting leaders which included Robert Mugabe, and the British. It was pointed out at this meeting that old Cecil Rhodes had carved up the territory, giving the whites huge tracts of fertile land in the high rainfall areas to the north, while blacks had been pushed to the infertile and low rainfall areas to the south (I'm generalising but this is the nub of it).
It was agreed that the British would fund land reform. This would effectively buy out the white farmers, and return those farms to black ownership. Something needs pointing out here, something missed by all western media; those farms are often as big as small European countries. The white owners did not work the land themselves, their farm managers and labourers, who were mostly black, did all the work.
What followed is clearly the fault of, firstly, the white farmers and then, secondly, the British. Mugabe can carry no blame at all, not one ounce of it. Those white farmers refused to sell up, they dug their heels in and became intransigent. Some might say fair enough, but consider this was stolen land to begin with.
These white farmers are prize bigots who talk to their staff like they're six years old. I can tell you now, talk to any farm labourer like that in New Zealand and they'd kill you. So I can safely say that Zimbabweans are a very reasonable bunch, given they've put up with being treated like children for so long.
So we had a situation of the white farmers sitting on valuable land and refusing to budge, Mugabe, quite reasonably, started applying pressure after waiting fifteen long years. When white farmers did budge, the British reneged, informing Mugabe they couldn't afford it. This is a country that could afford to pay back Lend Lease to the USA but not a poor country whose land they stole.
So Mugabe lost the plot and went berserk. Not excusable conduct but understandable. He made a huge mistake in then dividing up these farms amongst his cronies, instead of sensibly distributing the land amongst the farm managers. Smaller holdings of manageable size that one man and a labourer can work. Say, about 400 acres give or take.
The farm managers and labourers became displaced, and moved to the cities and raised shanty towns on the outskirts. They hated Mugabe and joined the MDC (Movement for Democratic Change), which became the opposition to Mugabe's Zanu-PF. Thing is, the MDC are an even bigger bunch of criminals than Zanu-PF and everyone in Zimbabwe knows it.
So everything starts going downhill, but had the British not reneged, everything would be different.
Then we often see the sight of the African Union honouring Mugabe, like why would they honour such a criminal (this is the slant western media take). What they don't mention is that, firstly, they're all aware of what Mugabe has done for his country, it is obvious he loves his country very much, and they all know as they hang their heads, that he's the one and only man there who kept his word with them.
The Lord's Resistance Army are the most vile and evil sick bastards on the planet. They make ISIL look like choir boys. Well, the big talking and big noting African Union talked up how they were going to deal with the Lord's Resistance Army, and bla de bla. Then when push came to shove, they all vanished, leaving Zimbabwe holding the door handle alone. Mugabe then broke his own country while keeping his word. That's why the hyper inflation and the destroyed currency.
Mugabe isn't a bad guy, he's a man of honour and principle, he's a good man, he fights evil and teaches children how to read and to do arithmetic (he's a former teacher after all). The way western media portray this great man is a travesty.
Okay so that said, how to fix this broken country? Answer, you could see this coming I know it, let New Zealand do it.
Zimbabwe doesn't trust its neighbours or they don't have the experience. The most untrustworthy is South Africa.
New Zealand gave Garfield Todd to Southern Rhodesia, their first liberal Prime Minister who came to oppose white minority rule. Mugabe would trust New Zealanders to do a decent job as he worked with Todd in his early years as a teacher.
New Zealand shares common history in overcoming land trouble with Britain, and they share a common interest in the game of cricket. Kiwis love playing cricket in Zimbabwe too, which is a plus.
The deal is this, let NZ's Reserve Bank and Treasury take over the running of the Zimbabwe economy under a management contract. NZ could even promise to have Zimbabwe qualify for a Cricket World Cup Semi-Final.
What NZ would do is have the fertile land properly surveyed and come up with a ballot system to allocate the newly created farms of manageable size. NZ would broker the deal whereby Britain fronts up with the cash to manage the process, they broke it, they can pay for it.
Then fiscal policy would need to be managed with the right commercial partners. This business of looking to North Korea would have to stop, but not involve relying on South Africa either. The Kiwis are best to do this negotiation as they've had Australia to get the better of, something it has been doing for nearly 200 years.
