Zimbabwe president, in Cuba, decries IMF
By ANDREA RODRIGUEZ
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
HAVANA -- Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe arrived in Cuba on Saturday, criticizing the International Monetary Fund, even though the organization a day earlier deferred a decision for six months on whether to expel the African nation.
Mugabe blames Western sanctions and boycotts for many of his country's problems, including 255 percent inflation and 80 percent unemployment, and says powers influential in the IMF have imposed the strictures.
The international lending organization is "willed by the big powers which dictate what it should do," Mugabe told reporters. "We have never been friends of the IMF and in the future we will never be friends of the IMF."
But last week Zimbabwe made a surprise $120 million payment on its IMF debt of $295 million and the international lender deferred for six months whether to expel Zimbabwe, saying the arrears payment and economic changes figured in the decision.
In Harare Saturday, Zimbabwe state radio called the postponement an "achievement against all odds" because of what it said was a campaign against the United States and Britain and others "opposed to Zimbabwe's economic turnaround."
The European Union, the United States and leading Commonwealth countries including Australia and Canada have imposed sanctions against Mugabe.
The IMF suspended aid to Zimbabwe in 1999 after disputes over unbudgeted expenditures, the value of its currency and the cost of its participation in the war in Congo. Within a year the World Bank and the African Development Bank followed.
By 2001, Zimbabwe had stopped making payments on all foreign loans. Two years later, the IMF suspended the country's voting rights and began the process that could lead to the country's expulsion.
"IMF is almost never a real assistance to developing countries," Mugabe said after arriving on the communist-run island, which withdrew its involvement with the IMF many years ago.
Mugabe, making his ninth visit to Cuba since 1978, said he was looking forward to meeting with his ally and "brother," President Fidel Castro.
Zimbabwe's economy has been in free fall since March 31 parliamentary elections, widely seen as fraudulent, gave Mugabe's African National Union-Patriotic Front 55 of parliament's 120 elected seats.
The IMF board said the deferral gives Zimbabwe with a further opportunity to strengthen its cooperation with the IMF in economic policies and payments.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/nation...uba%20Zimbabwe
By ANDREA RODRIGUEZ
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
HAVANA -- Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe arrived in Cuba on Saturday, criticizing the International Monetary Fund, even though the organization a day earlier deferred a decision for six months on whether to expel the African nation.
Mugabe blames Western sanctions and boycotts for many of his country's problems, including 255 percent inflation and 80 percent unemployment, and says powers influential in the IMF have imposed the strictures.
The international lending organization is "willed by the big powers which dictate what it should do," Mugabe told reporters. "We have never been friends of the IMF and in the future we will never be friends of the IMF."
But last week Zimbabwe made a surprise $120 million payment on its IMF debt of $295 million and the international lender deferred for six months whether to expel Zimbabwe, saying the arrears payment and economic changes figured in the decision.
In Harare Saturday, Zimbabwe state radio called the postponement an "achievement against all odds" because of what it said was a campaign against the United States and Britain and others "opposed to Zimbabwe's economic turnaround."
The European Union, the United States and leading Commonwealth countries including Australia and Canada have imposed sanctions against Mugabe.
The IMF suspended aid to Zimbabwe in 1999 after disputes over unbudgeted expenditures, the value of its currency and the cost of its participation in the war in Congo. Within a year the World Bank and the African Development Bank followed.
By 2001, Zimbabwe had stopped making payments on all foreign loans. Two years later, the IMF suspended the country's voting rights and began the process that could lead to the country's expulsion.
"IMF is almost never a real assistance to developing countries," Mugabe said after arriving on the communist-run island, which withdrew its involvement with the IMF many years ago.
Mugabe, making his ninth visit to Cuba since 1978, said he was looking forward to meeting with his ally and "brother," President Fidel Castro.
Zimbabwe's economy has been in free fall since March 31 parliamentary elections, widely seen as fraudulent, gave Mugabe's African National Union-Patriotic Front 55 of parliament's 120 elected seats.
The IMF board said the deferral gives Zimbabwe with a further opportunity to strengthen its cooperation with the IMF in economic policies and payments.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/nation...uba%20Zimbabwe
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