Zimbabwe

アフリカのジンバブエ共和国。ムガベ大統領の独裁政権が２０年以上続いている。
経済は破綻し失業率９５％とも言われ、インフレは「１０００億ドル札」が発行されたことからも想像できるように、一日に３回も食料価格が値上がりしたという。旱魃による食料危機、コレラの大流行など、国民生活は疲弊している。
今年２月に連立政権が樹立し、モーガン・ツァンギライが首相に就任した。
オバマ大統領はツァンギライ首相に７０億円相当の支援を申し出たが、政府に供与するのでなく、ジンバブエ国民に直接の支援を行うと表明した。
Well, I want to welcome Prime Minister Tsvangirai to the Oval Office. He and his delegation have been meeting with my team throughout the day. I obviously have extraordinary admiration for the courage and the tenacity that the Prime Minister has shown in navigating through some very difficult political times in Zimbabwe.
There was a time when Zimbabwe was the bread basket of Africa and continues to have enormous potential. It has gone through a very dark and difficult period politically. The President — President Mugabe — I think I’ve made my views clear, has not acted oftentimes in the best interest of the Zimbabwean people and has been resistant to the kinds of democratic changes that need to take place.
We now have a power-sharing agreement that shows promise, and we want to do everything we can to encourage the kinds of improvement not only on human rights and rule of law, freedom of the press and democracy that is so necessary, but also on the economic front. The people of Zimbabwe need very concrete things — schools that are reopened, a health care delivery system that can deal with issues like cholera or HIV/AIDS, an agricultural system that is able to feed its people. And on all these fronts, I think the Prime Minister is committed to significant concrete improvement in the day-to-day lives of the people of Zimbabwe.
I congratulate him — they’ve been able to bring inflation under control after hyperinflation that was really tearing at the fabric of the economy. We’re starting to see slowly some improvements in capacity — industrial capacity there. So, overall, in a very difficult circumstance, we’ve seen progress from the Prime Minister.
We are grateful to him. We want to encourage him to continue to make progress. The United States is a friend to the people of Zimbabwe. I’ve committed $73 million in assistance to Zimbabwe. It will not be going to the government directly because we continue to be concerned about consolidating democracy, human rights, and rule of law, but it will be going directly to the people in Zimbabwe and I think can be of assistance to the Prime Minister in his efforts. He’s going to continue to provide us with direction in ways that he thinks we can be helpful. And I’m grateful to him for his leadership, for his courage, and I’m looking forward to being a partner with him in the years to come.