The Chronicle Newspaper (Lilongwe)
Alfred Phiri
5 January 2004
column
Lilongwe — There are different ways of imposing economic sanctions in order to force a country to comply with certain demands. The most common sanction is the suspension of aid for different reasons. In Malawi it is the mismanagement of the economy and lack of good governance on the part of the UDF that has resulted in aid being suspended by the donor community.
Close examination of the whole scenario shows that it is the ordinary Malawian who is suffering as a result rather than those responsible for the problems. Those in the UDF led government still continue to lead a very comfortable life and are so obsessed with maintaining their lifestyle no matter who is hurt in the process.
It is hard for them to realise, never mind acknowledge that something is drastically wrong. That is why there will be no indication on the part of the government that things are out of control.
While it is right that the UDF is, of necessity to blame, a question still remains as to whether it is also proper for the donor community to allow innocent people to suffer through the suspension of aid. What must be known is that, whereas suspension of aid is designed to force the government to make change, our leaders do not react to situations easily and are too slow to comply with any demands placed on them to do the right thing. Zimbabwe is a typical example. Ordinary people are suffering because of the serious sanctions that have been imposed as a result of President Mugabe not behaving appropriately Sanctions of this type do not work in most cases. If they do, they only take effect after so many years, long after the people who created the problem in the first place have left office or are dead and buried. By that the time other innocent people will have suffered a lot and some even dying due to a lack of medicines in hospitals.
Although these sanctions are in the long run for the benefit of people in the country, this future benefit should be balanced with the loss of lives that might take place during sanctions. As I can find no justification for the loss of life, I would think that suspension of aid to developing countries like Malawi is not an appropriate solution as it defies the sense of morality because the innocent get caught up in an economic crisis created by the sanction. Anyway, the people whom the sanctions are meant to put pressure on are not willing to even listen. They are blind and deaf to the situation because they are not affected in any way.
International debt also is causing a lot of economic problems to developing countries. The servicing of these loans is so burdensome because it brings in international trade laws, which mostly favour the more developed Western countries.
The application of these laws makes developing countries benefit very little from international trade.
There still exist obstacles to the world economic order that makes our countries fail to penetrate the market easily and yet they are supposed to pay back these loans. Where there is such penetration, the prices will be dictated to us. One example of this is the price of a bar of chocolate in the past ten years.
Its price has increased by about 50% in the some countries in Europe. This suggests that demand is so high for chocolate although there might be other reasons for this. Chocolate is made from cocoa that is mostly grown in West Africa, particularly in Ghana. Whereas the price of the finished product has been on the increase, the price of cocoa has actually reduced in the same period by almost 60%. The explanation here is mostly one of the imposition of price regimes with the help of international trade laws.
On the basis of what has been said I would like to ask the donor community to consider some other, more creative ways rather than the blanket suspension of aid. Secondly, they should also put into consideration the need of having all debt owed by these developing countries cancelled and, finally they must make attempts to change the international trade laws so that they reflect the needs of all countries in the world trade.
The European Union meets this month, January 2004 and we would like to ask the EU Representative in this country, Wepke van der Goot to take up these issues with the appropriate authorities within the EU structure so that they emerge as some of its agendas. Although the EU is never in favour of 'regime change' it must not succumb to the propping up of a failed regime because they feel it is the best that Malawi has to offer.
There are better leaders waiting in the wings that should be given opportunity to rule this country.
Finally, these issues should not to be construed as justification for the UDF's failures. Since the management of the economy and good governance has proved to be a task impossible of achievement by the UDF, it must offer very good reasons why it feels it is necessary for it to win the forthcoming general elections and continue allowing the people, especially in the villages to suffer their failures.
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