Zimbabwean president visits Cuba, criticizes IMF
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2005-09-11 12:22

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe on Saturday criticized the International Monetary Fund (IMF), saying big powers dictate what the lending organization should do.

After arriving in Cuba, which voluntarily withdrew from the IMF many years ago, Mugabe said the IMF is almost never a real assistance to developing countries.

The IMF is "willed by the big powers which dictate what it should do," Mugabe said.

Meanwhile, Mugabe welcomed the organization's decision to defer the African nation's expulsion for six months, describing it as an achievement against countries such as the United States and Britain that are "opposed to Zimbabwe's economic turnaround."

It is Mugabe's ninth visit to the Latin American country since 1978.

The IMF suspended aid to Zimbabwe in 1999. By 2001, Zimbabwe stopped making payments on all foreign loans.

Two years later, the IMF suspended the country's voting rights and began the process that could lead to the country's expulsion.

Before the IMF decision to defer the expulsion, Zimbabwe made a surprise 120 million US dollars payment of its IMF debt of 295 million US dollars.

The IMF has only expelled one country in its history, Czechoslovakia, in 1954.

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