35 years down the line, Botswana, which then was one of Africa’s poorest countries, now offers its people a standard of living which makes their country one that our people want to migrate to. Growing crops there is no easier than it was 35 years ago, but poor farmers have some social security. They have built up education and health services and their people have more voice in how their government runs than they did in 1978. Ask their Kalanga minority or those who supported the opposition Botswana National Front then. Their democracy is still not perfect, but it is stronger than it was then.
If everyone gets some share in a country’s wealth, they are more likely to tolerate a less than perfect democracy. Botswana now has independent newspapers, radio and access to outside TV stations. Their government is less afraid of criticism and independent thought than it was then. They made the best use of their diamonds because they recognised that diamonds are not really rare. The high price they fetched on the world market depended on controlling the supply; De Beers supported the international agreements that limited the rate at which diamonds were mined and marketed. That way their profits were safe, as were those of the Botswana government. With a 50:50 share in ownership neither party could overrule the other, but neither could do much without the agreement of the other. The government got a steady and large income and everyone gained, including their peasants, who needed help to make sorghum growing more profitable and their crop cheaper than maize, which cannot be grown profitably in their arid climate. That was important then to make them independent of imports from apartheid South Africa, and it is still important.
Their people now see the benefits of 35 years of careful management and steady development based on stable high diamond prices. Our people have seen no benefit from the conflicts with the international miners and diamond traders.
Of course, our Chinese “friends” and the Indian jewellery industry are happy to make a quick buck, but who pays for that? The last published prices I saw for our diamonds on the Indian market were some 20% less than we would have got if we had worked with the international marketing system. So our military get all the weapons they need to oppress us, but the government is by-passed. Even though Chihuri tried to get a share of the diamond fields for the police, he failed. If he had succeeded the cops wouldn’t need to milk us at half a dozen road blocks between Harare and Chegutu. We don’t just get nothing; we get robbed of the little we thought we had.
We have some of the world’s biggest diamond deposits, but the poor are threatened with hospital fee increases. Under such a regime, our diamonds will continue selling at a discount, we will mine them and exhaust the deposits faster. Even some of our military fat cats will live to see what happens after that. If we let things go that far, a crumbling military regime can only mean the same kind of chaos that destroyed Liberia and Sierra Leone, and won’t save the warlords from the fate that eventually caught up with Charles Taylor.
Even our generals should think on that. Can we make them think now, before it is too late?
Post published in: Opinions & Analysis