AFRICAN POLITICS

One of the most noticeable things about politics in Malawi is the almost deification of the president. Every government billboard has a giant picture of the “Honorable Dr. Bingu Wa Mutharika” on it. Political cartoons attacking the president are unheard of, and I have never yet seen a newspaper article in Malawi criticizing him or his policies. All of the Malawian presidents have had this policy of “no criticism or else”, and it has finally caused a lot of trouble for Malawi as a nation.

The UK’s ambassador to Malawi sent a government message to London some time ago, in which the Malawian president was referred to as an “autocrat” and his policies were strongly questioned. Somehow, the Malawian government found out, and the UK ambassador was called to the Foreign Ministry of Malawi and informed that he was being expelled from Malawi.

Upon hearing of this, the UK government retaliated by withdrawing all fiscal aid from Malawi. This is not the first time this has happened. In another incident several years ago, the UK withdrew £3 million of aid from Malawi when the president spent £8 million on a brand new executive jet. The official reason the UK gave for its withdrawal of aid is poor fiscal management and lack of responsibility on the part of the Malawian authorities.

That the Malawian government is fiscally corrupt is undeniable, but I doubt that the UK’s reaction was entirely due to this. One reason I think this is that the UK retaliated to Malawi’s action by kicking the Malawian ambassador out of England. I would say that revenge is one major factor in the UK’s response.

Following the UK’s lead, the EU, the World Bank, and Germany (among others) have also withdrawn their aid from Malawi. This is a very serious situation for a nation in which 40% of the economy is stimulated by foreign aid.

The situation definitely took a turn for the worse when the DPP (the current ruling party) made its move regarding peaceful protests planned by the opposition for yesterday. They passed an injunction in the Malawian Parliament making any form of protest illegal. When the protestors learned of this, they proceeded with their demonstrations. Youths turned violent against DPP members, burned DPP houses, and damaged DPP vehicles. Other troublemakers not involved with the protests took advantage of the chaos and proceeded to loot stores, break into banks, and wreak havoc in general. Here in Mzuzu, all of the Chinese-owned shops have been looted, and the police have been turned out to deal with the rioting. Numerous people have been injured, and at least seven have been killed. The police are blocking off central Mzuzu, which is where the rioting is centered. Out by the nursery and our house, which is where we are remaining for now, there is practically no evidence of the damage being caused downtown. Only the occasional faint gunshot or the occasional police vehicle passing is indicative of trouble. Apparently, the actual riots have been limited to Mzuzu and Karonga, with a slight skirmish in Lilongwe that has been mostly quelled. Blantyre and Zomba have been largely peaceful. Hopefully the unrest will end soon. Joyce, the director of the nursery, says that things were fairly calm this morning, which sounds promising. I hope that things return to normal soon, and that there will be a quick resolution to the problem.

Matthew

(P.S : The first house we were originally to stay at was the house of a DPP member of parliament, and is under police guard because of the risk posed to it by the mobs. It looks like God knew what he was doing when we got a different place to stay at.)