BY EDDIE CROSS I OFTEN say to visiting experts and diplomats, that if you say you understand Zimbabwe, you have not been here long enough. We are a tiny blip on the global radar but we punch well above our weight and are in fact a very complex and difficult to understand economic and political entity. On the economic front many experts who have responsibility for interpreting our situation are most often astonished as to how we actually survive, given the crazy decisions we have had to live with over many years. Just take the era of the late Rhodesia Prime minister Ian Smith regime from 1964 to 1980. He declared independence from Britain in 1965, against the advice of just about everyone except his political acolytes. That was followed by the toughest sanctions regime ever imposed by the UN Security Council and then a civil war involving the struggle for equal rights and democracy by the majority of our people against the minority government of the day. Yet, at independence in 1980, the economy that the new leaders took over had a national debt of just US$700 million, a currency that was worth US$2, virtual self-sufficiency in all basic consumer goods with food prices at export parity and well below regional levels and virtually no inflation. How was this achieved? I defy traditional analysts to explain how the Rhodesians achieved this state of affairs, even the late former President of Tanzania Julius Mwalimu Nyerere said to then Zimbabwean Prime Minister the late Robert Mugabe: “You have inherited a jewel of Africa, do not mess it up!” Then 20 years of determined activity to provide health and education to the great majority. By 1990, Zimbabwe had the highest rate of literacy in Africa. In the first five years after independence, we built a new school every day. We built a modern hospital in every district with a national network of referral hospitals and 1 600 basic health centres. In this frantic effort, we had the support of the world and it was partly funded by the international community. But we also borrowed money. By 2000 we were heavily in debt and were forced to default on our international obligations. Over those 20 years, we ran a fiscal deficit that averaged 8 to 9% per annum — completely unsustainable in the long term and disastrous in an economy that was not growing strongly. With a leadership that was not being renewed by fresh blood and was tired and aging, Zimbabwe gave in to the pressure from the veterans of the war and also went into the Democratic Republic of Congo to support the takeover by the late Laurent Kabila. The costs crippled the country and faced with the first default on debt, the international community began to isolate the regime financially. These restrictions were intensified when the Mugabe regime lashed out at the opposition and took action to protect its grip on power. Financial isolation morphed into sanctions. Even so, it was not the sanctions that crippled the country, but decisions by a rogue central bank that desperately printed money in an effort to prop up the regime. In