Bankers' ramp

Peter Paterson

Lusaka

The brokers' men from the International Monetary Fund are moving in all over Africa. In Nigeria they have provoked a coup. In Tunisia, their recommendation that food prices should be doubled over- night caused riots. But in Zambia, where they are due back in April to see how the programme of economic reforms they have asked for is progressing, all seems less catastrophic than elsewhere. Perhaps this is because of the impression Zambia gives to the visitor — a watered-down version of Black Mischief, with a Harold Wilson fill- ing the advisory role of Basil Seal.

The chief parallel between the Wilsonian style of political management and that of President Kaunda — or Seth — is the way in which exhortation has replaced policy. The central aims of the regime, apart from the stipulations of the IMF, are indiscerni- ble. Officially, the country is dedicated to a version of African socialism known as `Humanism', which has nothing whatever to do with the divine or human nature of Christ, and precious little to do with socialism. 'Man East, Man North, Man South and ...' after a slight groping pause, 'Man West,' is how Kaunda, somewhat vaguely, expresses it.

But, temporarily at least, Humanism is trying to fulfil the demands of the IMF so that Zambia may be granted the loans it needs to pay off the interest on the loans it has already received, plus extensions of time on the original borrowings: re- scheduling as it's known in the trade. Some of the IMF measures have already been adopted: the encouragement of farming by tax concessions and large increases in food prices; a realistic pricing policy by the state- owned manufacturing and trading com- panies; some semblance of an anti- corruption drive to allow the benefits of foreign aid to trickle down to the people in a more complete fashion. So far President Kaunda has not got round to another IMF demand — the sacking of 20,000 civil servants.

But the medicine is still proving bitter. Only months after an election in which Kaunda and his one-party government, unopposed, were returned with a vote within a point or two of 100 per cent, infla- tion is soaring, unemployment (insofar as it has any meaning in a society where only 300,000 out of a population of six million are thought to be in full-time paid employment) is increasing, and the despised kwacha, in spite of a devaluation of about 60 per cent in a year, still changes hands on the currency black market at five to the £ rather than the official exchange rate of two.

Almost anywhere else, the state and its president would be providing distractions in the hope of warding off riots, and probably arresting possible coup-makers. But Kaun- da remains faithful to his Humanism, call- ing a press conference through which to ad- dress his fellow Zambians, and employing his own uncomfortable but colourful English as the lingua franca in preference to any of the seven or so major languages spoken by the country's 70-plus tribes.

It is, I suppose, a trifle difficult to guarantee a decent turnout for a presiden- tial press conference when a country's only two newspapers are controlled, respective- ly, by the government and the ruling Party, and the single-channel radio and television stations are all state-owned. President Kaunda solves the problem by using the radio to advertise his press conferences, inviting ambassadors, high commissioners and anyone else in the diplomatic com- munity with a little time on their hands to come along.

Lusaka has grown a lot since the turn of the century when the late Sir Percy Sillitoe, later head of MI5, started his career in the British-South Africa Police and was posted to this railway halt as the local constable. The President now occupies State House, in colonial times the residence of the gover- nor, with its neo-Georgian colonnade and peacocks strutting and squawking on the lawns. The mansion itself is surrounded by an armed encampment, motor pools, barb- ed wire, and the rest of the paraphernalia of an overgrown presidential commando-style bodyguard.

In spite of the threat of rain, a fair crowd had gathered on the lawn by the time the President ambled through the shrubbery

surrounded by armed guards to take his place at a central table with members of the Cabinet and the Party's central committee ranged in a semi-circle behind him. Since the needs of the official press are easily satisfied by one or two photographers, this particular scourge is much less in evidence than in more pluralistic states. In any case, in the years following the independence of Zimbabwe from the yoke of Ian Smith an Bishop Muzerewa, Kaunda's 'front line regime in Lusaka has declined greatly in im- portance, and the American and European correspondents have largely drifted awaY' leaving a handful of Britons — mostlY freelances — to hold the fort. So Chinese, Russian and other assorted diplomats far outnumbered the press. Not that any such factors disturb the self- confidence of Kenneth Kaunda. His self- image is that of teacher, or, perhaps, moral tutor to his people. Reflecting on the out- come of the elections, he waves the white handkerchief twisted around the middle finger of his left hand — his personal trademark, like Kenyatta's fly whisk — and exclaims: 'Thank God the people of Zan' bia returned all my Cabinet ministers! The people endorsed my choice, so my choice, must have been good. Well done, Kaunda!

But how to explain huge price increases, apparently foisted on his government by foreign bankers? How to avoid the blame falling on 'the Party and its government' a curious formulation which seems to denY democratic principles? Kaunda reviews his stock list of excuses for his country's bankruptcy. The disastrous fall in the price of copper, Zambia's main product. The rise in the price of oil. The cost of supporting liberation movements in Angola, Zini" babwe, Mozambique, South Africa. 'The Party hasn't become cruel to the people of Zambia,' he pleads, 'the Party is our mother. If we want to survive, we have to make changes. If we don't do that, my dear brothers and sisters, we've had it. Write off Zambia.'

Zambia is not so easily written off by the IMF, however. The $3 billion foreign debt may look irrecoverable, and may, indeed, be small beer compared to the staggering debts run up by the likes of Nigeria, Mexico or Argentina. But the international bankers fear a default: if only one debtor country were to refuse to go through the motions of at least pretending to be willing to pay UP' others would swiftly follow, and the cons°. quences for the Western banking system would be calamitous. As one of the few economically-aware Zambians I met ex- pressed it: 'At the moment, we lie awake at night worrying about our foreign debt. If we ceased to do so, it would be the lenders who would be losing sleep.'

Away from the avenues and leafY suburbs of Lusaka, most Zambians lead 3 miserable, poverty-stricken existence. Presi-

dent Kaunda answered some of the criticisms of rising food prices by recorri] mending his own diet of vegetables an peanut oil, a Marie Antoinette ploy whic", would surely have made even Harold

Wilson blush. But the basic problem is that Since the Northern Rhodesian railway was constructed in Percy Sillitoe's day, from Livingstone in the south-western corner of the country and up through Lusaka to the Copper Belt, it has attracted the population like iron filings to a magnet.

Two thirds of the people of a country the size of France and Germany combined live clustered in execrable townships along this hne. With some of the richest farming land In Africa, Zambia still does not grow enough food to feed itself. For years this lopsided economy was supported by the copper industry, and everything else was neglected. Now, with copper prices at an all-time low and without enough foreign currency to modernise the mines or replace the decrepit rolling stock of the railways the emphasis has turned to agriculture. Self-sufficiency in food cannot be pro- duced by press conferences, however. Kaunda is fond of issuing public instruc- tions to his ministers and their counterparts to the Party. 'I'd like this to be investigated, with a deadline of six months', he says of some shortage or other. Today he offers his advice to farmers: 'Plant beans around Your maize crop now,' he tells them, It will make up for the lack of fertilisers.'

Then comes the turn of the diplomats. 'I have to thank the American government for stopping Israel from harassing Mr Arafat,'

he say, thank you, Comrade Am- bassador. I call you Comrade because you've done the right thing. Comrade Am- bassador of France — convey my thanks to President Mitterrand for protecting Mr Arafat and his people from where they were

to where they are now and so on, like a monarch in a Shakespeare play.

Kaunda has been in power for the 19 years since Northern Rhodesia became the independent Commonwealth republic of Zambia. Nothing he has touched has gone right for his country. Its poor are getting poorer. The governing class — the Wahbenze, or Mercedes-owners — con- tinue to grow richer. The problems look in- creasingly insoluble. Yet, irrepressibly, he goes on playing the world statesman at his footling Lusaka press conferences, denouncing the Western powers, rebuking the hankers, condemning South Africa (while increasing his economic dependence upon it), and vainly appealing for an end to corruption among his own people. After their triumphs in Lagos, Tunis and elsewhere, what now, I wonder, are the IMF preparing for Zambia?