New York Times
Editorial
29 March 2009
Zimbabwe’s new power-sharing government isn’t ideal. Robert Mugabe remains president, despite losing last year’s election. His loyalists remain in charge of the army, the Justice Ministry and other key posts that allow them to arrest and intimidate opponents.
Yet respected and competent former opposition leaders now run important ministries like health, education and finance. These reformers ran on the promise of improving the lives of Zimbabwe’s long-suffering people.
The United States and Europe can help them deliver on those promises by providing increased financial resources. Zimbabwe’s own economy has been bled dry by decades of Mr. Mugabe’s disastrous policies, which have destroyed its currency, crippled its agriculture, mining and industry, and blighted millions of lives through preventable famine and epidemics.
Any new resources must be packaged in ways that ensure they are used for their intended purposes. And without continued sanctions targeted against Mr. Mugabe and his thuggish collaborators, even the limited progress so far achieved could easily be reversed. The challenge is to keep the pressure on the relatively few villains committed to keeping Mr. Mugabe in power, while providing some relief to the millions of victims of his catastrophic misrule.
To this end, the United States and the European Union have rightly restricted travel and frozen assets of Mr. Mugabe and his top collaborators. They have banned trade with businesses and banks used to finance the repressive apparatus. These targeted steps mainly discomfit a narrow, privileged elite.
Washington has also suspended direct development aid to Zimbabwe’s government but provides considerable humanitarian aid, channeled through private and international agencies, to pay for emergency shipments of food, medicine and clean water. Over the last 18 months, while Zimbabwe has been ravaged by a cholera epidemic, American aid has been more than $250 million.
That conduit should now be expanded to cover such life-sustaining items as seed, fertilizer and water and sewage systems to help Zimbabwe stand on its own feet.
At least for now, American aid should continue to be channeled indirectly, not to Zimbabwe’s government. But increased humanitarian aid could free up more of Zimbabwe’s own funds to pay living wages to teachers, doctors and other essential civil servants. If Zimbabwe’s government acts on that opportunity, it might then be time to reopen discussion on resuming direct aid.