TESTIMONY ON ILLEGITIMATE COLONIAL
AND APARTHEID CAUSED DEBT

Witness:  David Malungisa (ZIMBABWE)

I come from Zimbabwe, a former British colony.  My country's resources were looted over a period of 100 years by the British.  My country has not recovered from this looting.  Today we live in a social and political crisis that has been caused by a huge foreign debt now linked to a suffocating domestic debt.  With 80 percent of the population impoverished by the perpetual effects of colonial history and now by genocidal IMF and World Bank aid conditions and policies, I stand before this jury as a victim; angry and dejected.  I stand before you to demand the cancellation of the illegitimate debt of and reparations from the northern government and those who, either by commission or omission, benefited from the loot from my country.  I am afraid, really afraid, that if not redressed now, imperial forces will continue to introduce more mechanisms of bondage to rob me and the future of our livelihoods.

I accuse the Bristish government for looting my country's resources and imposing on us an illegitimate debt and fascist system that degraded, demonised, demoralised, maimed and killed people during a century of colonialism;

I accuse the institutions and governments that supported the colonial regime, went on to support the Apartheid State in South Africa as it destabilised, bombed and invaded my country.  These institutions sustained colonialism and the Apartheid Regime forced my country to borrow money for its defence.  I know these institutions as Swiss, United Kingdom and Germany Banks, the World Bank and the various arms dealers in the North.  They forced us into a debt trap that we are still paying with our life and hard earned resources.  This is in spite of United Nations sanctions that declared the racist system in Zimbabwe and South Africa a crime against humanity,

I accuse the British government, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund for ignoring the real problems that we confronted at independence such as racial and class inequality and the unfair land ownership structure in Zimbabwe.  Instead, these institutions disenfranchised us and, working in cahoots with our elites, imposed a system of free market economics which they called Economic Structural Adjustment Program.  Their promises of milk and honey have turned to nothing but an Extended Suffering of African People.

My Resource Rich Country Is In A Crisis That Started In 1890 with British Colonialism!

In 1890, the British invaded my country and stopped our community life in a war that killed my ancestors.  At that time, my people enjoyed food security, entertainment, livelihood skills and social security.  The British settlers dispossessed us of our land, looted our cattle, rabbits and chicken, burnt our huts, raped women.  They introduced dubious laws of property ownership to protect their loot.  They introduced a tax system that forced black men into the cash economy, in mines, plantations.  Here they worked under forced labour.  Poverty was feminised.  A brutal government system was introduced, based on racial discrimination that treated my parents as animals.  The brute force that the colonialists used facilitated a process where my country's wealth such as minerals were extracted and sent to Britain to subsidise the empire's wasteful lifestyle. 

In 1965, the racist government officially declared independence from the British government and intensified their plan of Separate Development, a system that is known as Apartheid in South Africa, a crime against humanity.  My parents were further marginalized and impoverished.  They had to live in crowed townships, farm and mine compounds.  Deprived of their freedom of association, movement and expression, they had to walk with passes where ever they had to go.  And they had no right to vote or be represented.

The black majority's conscience refused this oppression.  My brothers and sisters put their life on an armed liberation struggle against the fascist Rhodesian regime.  They left their families, their beloved ones and heroically set on an emancipatory path.  Under pressure from the progressive international community, the United Nations put sanctions on Rhodesia.  My people thought independence was at hand.  This was not the case.  The evil forces that seek profit and privilege busted the sanctions and donated towards the sustenance of the pariah regime.

In return, the colonial government strengthened its military machine, police force and armoury.  They bought weapons of destruction; guns, bombs machetes, teargas and dogs.  They built prisons instead of houses, hospitals and clinics.  War trenches instead of schools.  They invested in biological warfare using anthrax as a weapon, instead of fighting polio.  In a ruthless period of rage, the white government set on a bloody path of destruction; maimed life, raped women, suppressed civil liberties and killed blacks in cold blood.  Whole communities were displaced and put in concentration camps in rural areas.  Innocent children were bombed.  My sisters and mothers were raped.  This was an intensification of repression against the rightful claim of indigenous groups to their land.  At least 60,000 people lost their lives in the struggle for liberation.  The war took longer than my countrymen expected as the sanctions were not honoured by the West, Apartheid South Africa, Transnational Corporations such as Old mutual, Anglo America and Lonhro.  The World Bank, British, German and Swiss Banks ensured that the regime sustained its brutal system by giving it credit.  Thus, clearly violating a United Nations declaration on sanctions, the genocide unleashed on my people continued. 

Debt Thwarted Real Independence in 1980

When the liberation struggle finally triumphed, we hoped that real freedom had come.  We had new songs that pointed at prosperity, political and economic freedom and land restitution.  That was not to come.  What then was Zimbabwe's gift? ODIOUS DEBT.  After suffering for almost a century under colonial rule, we were handed a bill of outstanding debts from Northern creditors.  Indeed paying twice for our suffering!  Instead of rehabilitation, reconstruction and development, we were forced to honour the debts taken on our behalf by our oppressor.  We were also instructed to pay pensions for the retired oppressors and murderers who killed the 60,000 indigenous people.  Construction of schools, roads, clinics and houses had to be delayed to service the odious debt.  Workers had to work hard to ensure that we had sufficient revenue to pay the colonial debt so that we remained the sweet darlings of international creditors.  Indeed, the British-brokered Lancaster House Peace Treaty ensured that British children retained economic power.  The small white population -less than 1% of the 13 million Zimbabwe population- retained 90 percent ownership of industries and land.  This meant that the status quo remained.

In the 1980s, Apartheid Caused Debt added to my country's Illegitimate Debt that I need cancelled.  Seeing the intensification of the liberation spirit in Southern Africa, the Apartheid government set on a destabilisation terrain in the region.  My country, together with Angola, Mozambique and Zambia were directly attacked by Apartheid South Africa to thwart any support for freedom in the region.  From the war of liberation we were forced into another war of self-defence.  Apartheid South Africa destabilised Zimbabwe's transport and trade routes to the cost effective ports.  South Africa created another war in Mozambique that forced refugees into Zimbabwe.  People were killed through direct Apartheid South Africa invasions.  Zimbabwe, coming from one war into another and in the middle of reconstruction following the damage and looting of resources under colonialism, the government borrowed to finance the growing defence budget.  More resources were needed to ensure that the influx of refugees fleeing from Apartheid wars in Mozambique were housed well.

Under such a situation, economic development was foregone.  The number of the unemployed increased.  Government reconstruction could not be sustained.  In areas such as health and education where the government had made gains started to suffer massive reversals.  There was no sufficient money to pay teachers.  No money to buy books.  The World Bank and the IMF were curiously watching the situation sending so-called advisors to Harare to solve the land crisis, the apartheid war and related economic problems with 'free markets'.  The coming of the IMF and World Bank in 1990, resulted in a fast track process to the impoverishment of my country people.  Now 80 percent are in poverty from only 25 percent when the IMF and World Bank came.  The health delivery and education system are down due to the privatisation of services.  People are walking for more than 10 kilometers to work.

My father, who I dearly loved, could honestly have lived longer; but he died a painful death.  He could not afford decent health care.  He died at home in my hands.  IMF had ordered the privatisation of the health delivery system.  He died poor, working for my education.  My sisters had to sacrifice their education so that I got the priority.  When I finished university education, there was no employment for me to at least show him my appreciation.  It is only when I received my first salary that he fell ill and died in a month and I could only afford to contribute to his funeral expenses, because of the IMF and World Bank policies.  If only the former colonial power, Britain had returned the looted resources of my country, I could have enjoyed filial bliss with my father.

That my father died struggling against poverty, and my mother continues to live under poverty, I dare say enough is enough and call for this Tribunal to declare the IMF and World Bank genocidal institutions that are killing innocent people every day.  In the name of natural, economic and social justice, why on earth are we being forced to pay twice for being victims.  Because of these tangibles, on behalf of my country men and women.  I want this jury to declare the debt illegitimate and odious and has to be cancelled unconditionally; I demand reparations for what the British owes us.  I demand reparations for what the Swiss and Germany Banks owe us!