The crackdown on opposition protesters by Malawi's democratically elected government led to the deaths of 19 people last week and triggered the U.S. suspension of a prized $350 million development grant to the tiny sub-Saharan African nation.
According to Kim Yi Dionne, a political scientist at Texas A&M University and former Fulbright Scholar in Malawi, the U.S. held off in announcing the suspension until this week in hopes that Malawian President Bingu wa Mutharika might condemn the crackdown.
"The U.S. probably waited to see if he didn't order the police to shoot people," Dionne told Trend Lines yesterday. "They didn't withdraw or hold the grant until after Mutharika made several public statements that didn't seem sympathetic to the deaths of his countrymen."