NELSON MANDELA surprised delegates to the World Economic Forum in Harare, by saying that the West owes the region a debt of support “not as a question of charity, but because we are entitled to it. Our region was subjected to the most brutal form of exploitation in the colonial era which robbed us of our resources.”
His government had inherited a debt from the apartheid government that cost R30-billion each year to service, money that could be better spent on the needs of the people. He urged foreign invedstors to set up joint comanies with black entrepeneurs to close the gap between white and black.
Finance Minister Trevor Manuel phrased the same appeal more delicately, arguing that countries which had made rapid changes deserved to be rewarded, rather than “imprisoned” for the acts of previous regimes.