HomeOld_PostsFinancial manipulation and the spectacles of unbalanced development

Financial manipulation and the spectacles of unbalanced development

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By Dr Tafataona Mahoso

THE July 3 installment for this column opened with a reference to the Constitutional requirement which the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) has been evading at the behest of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the collusion of the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development, many members of Parliament, journalists, editors and so-called economists.
Section 317 of the Constitution of Zimbabwe requires the Central Bank, “to protect the currency of Zimbabwe in the interest of balanced and sustainable economic growth.”
It does not require research and debate to establish that in order for the Central Bank to protect the currency of Zimbabwe it must first create that currency.
The same Constitution of Zimbabwe in Section 13 (1) (d) requires the entire Government of Zimbabwe to commit itself to the pursuit of balanced and sustainable development, saying:
“The state and all its institutions and agencies at every level must endeavour to facilitate rapid and equitable development and in particular must take measures to – – –
(d) bring about balanced development of the different areas of Zimbabwe, in particular, a proper balance in the development of rural and urban areas.”
Now, if we go by what was said and reported at the last annual congress of the Zimbabwe National Chamber of Commerce (ZNCC) in Victoria Falls in June 2015, the Central Bank at that congress did not foreground or articulate its central mandate. It substituted advice from the IMF and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), which advice recommended Panama, Ecuador and El-Salvador as countries who like Zimbabwe had abandoned their own currencies in favour of the US-dollar.
So according to UNDP’s Amarakoon Bandara, there was nothing abnormal about Zimbabwe’s use of the over-valued US-dollar as its own money.
The journalists who reported Bandara’s slip of the expert’s tongue did not proceed to investigate the relationship of the United States of America with Panama, Ecuador and El-Salvador to see if it was worth emulating for Madzimbahwe.
UNDP’s Amarakoon Bandara’s slip of the tongue as a warning for Madzimbahwe
Bandara’s idea that Zimbabwe might need to retain use of the US-dollar indefinitely as a substitute for its money might have been proposed innocently and in ignorance, but the real time experiences of the countries said to have developed happily with that US-dollar as their currency in fact serve as warnings about the regime change intentions of financial projects and programmes of international financial institutions such as the IMF, World Bank, World Trade Organisation (WTO), and UNDP under the pervasive influence of the US State Department and USAID.
Panama
Panama was a province of present-day Colombia until it was made to secede by US force of arms in 1903-1904.
So the year 1904 which Bandara mentioned as the year Panama’s use of the US-dollar started is noteworthy not just for the adoption of the US-dollar, but as the year the Panama province of Colombia was set up by the US military as a separate state!
That marks illegal regime change and secession through invasion!
After the secession the former Colombian province of Panama accepted the Panama Canal Treaty dictated by the US and granting the latter permanent possession of the Panama Canal.
No Panamanian actually signed the treaty, but “the treaty gave the US the right to intervene in the internal affairs of the new country, which essentially became a protectorate of the US,” according to the authors of the book Dollars and Dictators.
Subsequently the 1908, 1912 and 1918 elections in Panama were supervised by the US military.
The Panama Canal Treaty was ‘reworded’ in 1977 in order to use more polite language.
But, according to lawyer Mario Galindo, “In fact, the new (1977) treaties make us more subservient to the (North) Americans than ever.
“The 1903 treaties at least pretended Panama was sovereign.
“The 1977 treaties give the US the right to intervene here without even asking permission.”
Panama’s continuing use of the US currency as its own money helped to facilitate the porousness of the country’s borders for North American forces.
In addition, as the authors of Dollars and Dictators noted:
“(The US) Committee for the Ratification of the Panama Treaties noted that the rent received by the Empire State Building in New York City in 1970 exceeded US $13 million while Panama (the state) was receiving only US$2,3 million for the lease of 553 square miles occupied by the Canal and 14 US military bases.”
The United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is accused of being behind the assassination of two Panamanian Presidents: Josē Antonio Remòn Cantera on January 2 1955; and Omar Torrijos on August 1 1981.
These are not experiences which Madzimbahwe would want to be associated with.
Ecuador
In 2000, Ecuador’s parliament voted to adopt the US-dollar as national currency.
The decision was clearly unpopular and then President Jamil Mahuad was overthrown as a result of conflict over that decision.
In the 1980s Ecuador was subjected to intense campaigns of destabilisation by the US. One chapter in John Perkins’ book Confession of an Economic Hitman is called ‘Ecuador’s President Battles Big Oil’.
The President, Jaime Roldos was assassinated by the CIA on May 24 1981 in what was seen as the Reagan administration’s war against ‘resource nationalism’ which we call indigenisation.
Ecuador has never been satisfied with its use of the US-dollar as a national currency.
So in 2015, Ecuador created digital currencies in order to revamp its monetary policy and systems.
In February 2015, the Ecuadorean Sucres exchanged at 25 000 to the US-dollar. Professor Lawrence White remarked on the significance of the Ecuadorean Sucres as currency saying:
“(The people of Ecuador) keep linking it to their frustration with being on the US-dollar standard.
“It is hard to make any sense of the project other than as a tactical manoeuvre that paves the way toward official de-dollarisation.”
Therefore, so-called expert information which Madzimbahwe have been fed by the IMF, UNDP, World Bank and others with the help of journalists has been presented with the aim of misleading people in order to entrench the destructive US-dollar here.
Panama has always retained its own currency, the Balboa, at the rate 1:1 with the US-dollar.
Vietnam at one time used the US-dollar side-by-side with its own Dong, but in recent years the Central Bank of Vietnam moved to restrict the US-dollar to foreign reserves and to strengthen national use of the Dong.
The only places using the US-dollar as unmediated and unmitigated currency are dependencies and territories such as Micronesia, Marshall Island, Palau, Virgin Islands, Guam, Puerto Rico and Bahamas.
Like UNDP’s Amarakoon Bandara, the authors of the 2009 paper called, A Review of Zimbabwe’s Optimum Future Currency Regime also glossed over the contexts in which some countries have used the US-dollar as national currency.
The majority of those countries did not demonetise their own currencies.
That is true of Cambodia, Vietnam and Panama.
This means the financial elite in Zimbabwe are pursuing a wild and unique class experiment at the expense of the povo.

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