Mugabe threatens theft of foreign companies

Reuters/NY Times:

Zimbabwe will transfer ownership of all foreign-owned firms that support Western sanctions against President Robert Mugabe's government to locals and investors from "friendly" countries, a state newspaper reported on Sunday.

The southern African state is struggling with an economic crisis many blame on Mugabe's policies, which has left it with an inflation rate of over 2.2 million percent and chronic shortages of food and other basic needs.

Mugabe's government blames the crisis on sabotage by enemies angry over his seizures of white-owned farms for blacks, and has followed up that policy with another controversial law seeking to transfer majority ownership of foreign-owned firms to locals.

The Sunday Mail said Zimbabwe had begun auditing the ownership of Western firms in the country as part of a black empowerment drive "and to counter the possible withdrawal of investment under sanctions imposed and proposed by Britain and the U.S."

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Mugabe's racist polices have brought his country to ruin and he appears ready to do for other businesses what he has done for farming, i.e. ruin them by turning them over to thugs and cronies. In the process he will drive off foreign investment and make himself a hostage to arms suppliers like China.