Bingu wa Mutharika puts Malawi on Highway to Hell

By Bekithemba Mhlanga
Lastupdated: 05/05/2006 21:54:35
THERE is something about the leadership of Malawi that makes it treat its people with disdain.I guess the late Dr Kamuzu Banda set this in motion many decades ago. When asked why he was ruining Malawi for his own personal aggrandizement, the late dictator retorted that before his arrival on the political scene in Malawi, people had no shirts on their backs and where walking bare-footed.Things have moved on a bit since then .

Now one Bingu wa Mutharika looks intent on removing their shirts and making sure they walk bare foot one again.He has decided to draw a line in the sand in his relationship with the European Union over some hard to understand affection to another leader who likes to treat his fellow citizens with disdain -- Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe.

It's all about the highway that the European Union Funded. It's important to put this discussion in perspective.Malawi is one of the poorest nations on earth, funding for most government activities comes entirely from the European Union. HIV and AIDS has taken its toll on the people of this Southern African country. The European Union has funded the country's food imports and anti-retroviral drugs to treat HIV victims.The Highway in question -- part of an overall strategy to fix the country' s infrastructure so that when some semblance of economic activity does take shape, now and the future, there will be some platform to work from.

Bingu wa Mutharika has decided to name this road after Robert Mugabe -- a well known critic and adversary of the European Union. What was going through President Mutharika's mind when he made what to him is a brilliant decision is anybody's guess.One thing for certain is that President Mutharika is not an idiot when it comes to issues of international relations and international politics. He once headed a body whose bread and butter was just that -- managing international relations and politics.Surely he must have known the financiers of this noble project will not be amused. What he probably did not know or figure with are the immediate and future repercussions of his actions. Malawians will live with the consequences of this bravado long after Mugabe's four day escapade.

Bingu wa Mutharika should know the age-old rule that people with no money have no right to speak in public. He should know that the words neighbour, tact, diplomacy and gratitude are not there simply to decorate the English language but rather they have value and that some people take them serious. The people of Malawi do not have to go and work in the farms of Zimbabwe anymore because the farms do not exist. They do not have to find jobs in the mines as these are nonexistent.All this has been because his much admired friend, Mugabe, has done his best to ruin the economy of Zimbabwe and it should be said, in a spectacular way. If he does not believe this he should make inquiries about the numbers of Zimbabweans traveling the world using Malawian passports because they cannot bear to be carrying Zimbabwean ones. He should make inquiries on the number of children who are unable to go to school. He can check with the motorists who have been queuing for fuel for years.

His ambassador to Zimbabwe will tell him about the long hours the people of this country spend without water or electricity. All this has happened because Robert Mugabe's vocabulary does not include words such as tact, gratitude, neighbour and diplomacy. However he does make up for this with the disdain that he shows to the citizens of Zimbabwe.Why on earth does Bingu wa Mutharika think Mugabe's ways must be copied and outdone where possible? If wa Mutharika thinks by next week all this will be forgotten and forgiven he must think again. All he needs to do is pick up the phone and check this out with Robert Mugabe.

Bekithemba Mhlanga is a Zimbabwean journalist and writes from Crawley, West Sussex, United Kingdom. He can be contacted at bekithemba68@yahoo.com