Big Men Are Back (The black heart of Africa)

Africa's despots are saber rattling again. Last week Sam Nujoma, the Namibian President, called white people 'snakes', and then Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe's disgraceful dictator, called the almost saintly Archbishop Desmond Tutu an 'evil and embittered little bishop'. Zimbabwe under Mugabe has been a lost cause for years, and the Archbishop's complaints about Mugabe's disregard for the law were likely to fall on deaf ears. But that the disease is spreading to Nujoma's Namibia is a rather worrying development. Collapsing or genocidal regimes, including Sudan's, are rife for providing cover for, if not directly encouraging, terrorism. Remember that Osama bin Laden lived and 'worked' in Sudan for years.

Africa has always been home to the 'big man' phenomenon, with its roots in tribal leadership — being tough, and standing up to outside pressures (especially white ex-colonialists) has always been a vote winner. Mobuto Sese Seko, the former head of Zaire (now Democratic Republic of the Congo), once infamously said that 'democracy was not for Africa'. But more African states are heading towards democracy — in the 1970s there were no peaceful handovers from first black African rule to a democratically-elected government. But by the 1990s there were several, notably Zambia and South Africa. It is worrying, however, that some nation states are heading in the other direction, back to big man tribal leadership.

Nujoma, shouting from a Lutheran Church pulpit, announced last month that he would expropriate land to punish white farm owners who "dumped" their workers by the roadside. Speaking at May Day celebrations at Karibib, Nujoma issued an unequivocal declaration that expropriation of farms would not only target underused land but would serve as a punitive measure. "My Government will not, tolerate insults in that way," he said after singling out "some white farmers" who had legitimately dismissed some of their farm hands. Nujoma later called these white farmers 'snakes'. But he denied he was a racist, claiming the whites were the racists, and would be removed from the land.

Zimbabwe: Property Rights

On June 8, 2004 Robert Mugabe’s ruling regime in Zimbabwe banned private farmland ownership and nationalized all farmland and privately owned game preserves. Special Affairs Minister for President Mugabe, John Nkomo ordered all private landowners to surrender their land immediately to the government. He added that former landowners could apply for 99-year leases to their land from the government. The legal owners of the land will not be compensated for their losses.

This process of stripping legally titled land owners of their property began in 2000. At that time, Nkomo boasted, “in the end all land shall be state land and there will be no such thing called private land.” He told private landowners to surrender their property to the government and stated, “the state should not be made to waste time and money on acquisitions.”

Since this program of stripping property rights from farmers has begun crop production has decreased, although there are conflicting reports on current levels of food production. The United Nation Food and Agriculture Organization predicted cereal production would be lower than the dismal output recorded last year, when emergency imports were required. The Zimbabwe government’s own Famine Early Warning System claimed that cereal availability would not be a problem this year. Inflation is soaring and market shelves are sparsely stocked, removing incentive to profitably and efficiently grow food by nationalizing the farmland will not encourage increased production or decrease inflation.

Nationalizing farmland will harm food production in the short run, and have catastrophic effects in the long term. Since farmers will not own the land, they will have few incentives to invest in improvements. People make investments and improvements on property they own, not rent. Reputable banks will not accept a lease instead of a deed for the farmland as sufficient collateral for a loan. Without capital loans most farmers will not be able to afford equipment like tractors and harvesters or be able to build or improve structures on the government farms. As the government seized the farmland from owners, they also confiscated machinery. This machinery will work for the short term, but in the future new machinery will be needed. Without capital accessed through the value of the land, most farmers will not be able to afford new machinery.

-snip-

(Garrett Glass in the Digital Freedom Network, June 17, 2004)
http://unix.dfn.org/ZimbabwePropertyRights.shtml

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