Zimbabwe plans 'Disneyland in Africa'

Tourism minister outlines scheme to build $300m entertainment complex, with banks and casinos, near Victoria Falls

The Guardian, David Smith, Africa correspondent, Monday 26 August 2013

Victoria Falls: tourism in Zimbabwe was devastated by a decade of conflict
and hyperinflation but has recovered in recent years. Photograph:
Patrick Ward/Corbis

The formula has worked in California, Florida and Paris. Now officials in Zimbabwe, eager to rebrand a country notorious for economic collapse and political violence, want to build a "Disneyland in Africa".

Walter Mzembi, the tourism and hospitality minister, told New Ziana, the official news agency, that the government was planning a $300m (£193m) theme park near Victoria Falls, the country's top tourist attraction.

Mzembi was quoted as saying the resort would be a "Disneyland in Africa", although he did not appear to suggest that the statue of explorer David Livingstone, which overlooks the falls, would be supplanted by a jobbing actor in a Mickey Mouse costume.

Instead, he outlined plans for shopping malls, banks and exhibition and entertainment facilities such as casinos. "We have reserved 1,200 hectares of land closer to Victoria Falls international airport to do hotels and convention centres," Mzembi told New Ziana on the sidelines of the UN World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) general assembly , which Victoria Falls is co-hosting with the town of Livingstone in neighbouring Zambia.

Mzembi said the project would cost about $300m.

"We want to create a free zone with a banking centre where even people who do not necessarily live in Zimbabwe can open bank accounts," he said.

The government has plans to invest $150m in expanding the town's airport to accommodate bigger aircraft, according to the report from Ziana. Mzembi said the government had found funding partners including multilateral financial institutions.

Visitors travel from across the world to see Victoria Falls where water plummets more than 100 metres into the Zambezi gorge, generating mists of spray so high they can be seen up to 30 miles away. A bridge linking Zimbabwe and Zambia offers bungee jumping but made headlines for the wrong reasons last year when an Australian tourist narrowly survived her cord snapping.

The nearby town offers few reasons to linger or spend money, however, despite the launch last month of an open-top bus tour in an attempt to drum up interest. Mzembi hopes to appeal to a younger market.

Zimbabwe's considerable tourism potential was devastated by a decade of conflict and hyperinflation but has recovered in recent years. The government says it recorded a 17% increase in tourist arrivals in the first quarter of 2013, up 346,299 to 404,282. It has predicted the tourism sector will contribute 15% to GDP by 2015 if the country remains stable.

Following a mostly peaceful, though bitterly disputed, election last month, Zimbabwe's co-hosting of the UNWTO conference this week is seen as another milestone towards that stability. But the decision to award the conference to Zimbabwe as a co-host was condemned by the independent UN Watch human rights group as a "disgraceful show of support – and a terribly timed award of false legitimacy – for a brutal, corrupt and authoritarian regime.

Hillel Neuer, head of the Geneva-based group, added: "Amid reports of election rigging and continuing human rights abuses, Zimbabwe is the last country that should be legitimised by a UN summit of any kind. The notion that the UN should spin this country as a lovely tourist destination is, frankly, sickening."

President Robert Mugabe's associated status as UN "leader for tourism" has also been questioned by critics of his 33-year rule.

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Archangel Michael: Prepare for the Celebration – August 21, 2013 (An Hour with an Angel, with Archangel Michael)

“… SB:  All right, Lord. Thank you for that. Let’s turn to the area of government, world governance. We just saw Robert Mugabe get elected to Zimbabwe again. And I know that readers have written me and said how disappointed they were. Can you talk to us about the progress that’s being made in the area of cleaning up world government, please?

AAM:  I will tell you this. There is phenomenal — and I use that word in the true sense of the word — phenomenal progress being made on the forefront of changing — what you call cleaning up — world government, government in general.

This is happening, a great deal is happening, on the unseen level. And what do I mean by that? It is exactly the same as what I’ve been speaking to each of you, my beloved friends, about in terms of finding your heart, your balance, your worth and eradicating doubt.

Do you not think that every leader — and we use the term not simply to represent the official leader of a government, of a nation, but the leadership in terms of the collective — they are being worked on, some in containment, some not?

Some are already very clearly having what you would think of as a change of heart, an awakening. The face of leadership is changing, period. And what you think of as leadership is going to shift back to the collective, to the people.

And that is true not only in what you think of as, oh, very violent, controlling, subversive, suppressive, dictatorial, whether it is declared as such or not, situations. It is also going to shift in what you’ve thought of as perhaps more liberal or open societies. Because even in what you think of as the open, clear, democratic nations, the cadre of the inner circle and the back-door politics have to shift.

So is the angelic realm and the masters, particularly Sanat Kumara, working overtime? Yes. But it is changing one heart at a time.

And you say, “How are we going to do this?” Each of you, at different times in your life, has experienced a change of heart. And there have been the changes of heart that have taken a long time, in your view, perhaps years or even a decade, but each of you has also experienced a change of heart because your perspective, the lens of your consciousness perceives differently, has informed your heart and allowed your heart to see the truth. And your change of heart happened in a moment, in a millisecond, in a heartbeat.

So don’t think in terms of shift of leadership that we’re talking decades. Don’t forget, Gaia is anchored in the fifth. Do you really think — aside from anything we would do — do you think that Gaia or your star brothers and sisters, all of whom are existing in a higher dimensional reality, can or will tolerate government that is not based on love, on fairness, on serving the people, not taking from the people? They will not.

So you’re talking rapid change. You’re asking timelines. Next year when we speak on this very program — so let us mark the day — your world and government will look very different. …”