Posted on 12/22/2017 1:23:46 PM PST by paltz
A white Zimbabwean farmer previously kicked off his land by the former Robert Mugabe regime received a hero’s welcome from his community Thursday following the new government’s return of his land, the Associated Press reported.
Guided by military escort, Robert Smart became the first white farmer who came back to the land he once owned before it was seized nearly two decades ago by Mugabe’s ruling Zanu-PF party.
In 2000, Mugabe ordered land seizures and evictions of white farmers and their families. According to the Telegraph, of the estimated 4,500 white farmers prior the seizures, only several hundred remain.
Zimbabwe’s farmlands fell into disarray after these evictions, causing the economy that what was once known as the “southern African bread basket” to collapse. By 2006, National Public Radio reported Zimbabwe’s economy shrunk by almost a third.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailycaller.com ...
Also remember that, under the Mugabe regime, if a black farmer was too productive, he was attacked and his land was confiscated. The fruits of socialism is the increase and spreading of misery.
I've often thought that we should have , back in the aftermath of WWII, offered a part of the desert SW to Jews, as a Jewish "State" of the United States of America. Can you imagine all that brain power here in the US, unencumbered by the ravages of defending themselves in the middle east.....
Thank you BobL for seeing things clearly. To ranchers and farmers the land is their child who never leaves home. If I were to guess I’d say he feels he’d rather return to his home and later die than not to get back at all.
Trump has led a revolution so quiet and he actually is so modest that no one thinks this has anything to do with him.
Yep. And we have stood by while a lot of white South African farmers were murdered or driven off their land.
The country used to be called Africa’s breadbasket before Mugumby took over and stole the land.
Exactly. And brutally murdered.
Jean Raspail was truly a prophet. Seeing the hoards slithering through Europe made me recall “The Camp of the Saints” and I wondered how a person could get it so perfectly right. If you read it you now have the image. That was a stunning book and I bought 2 of them about 8-10 years ago. Wanted one to lend out, and not risk losing my copy.
Jean Raspail was truly a prophet. Seeing the hoards slithering through Europe made me recall “The Camp of the Saints” and I wondered how a person could get it so perfectly right. If you read it you now have the image. That was a stunning book and I bought 2 of them about 8-10 years ago. Wanted one to lend out, and not risk losing my copy.
Has the leadership of Zim finally decided they want their people to have something to eat?
Indeed.
Trust me. No productive land in the Midwest is fallow. And unless the refugees have a few million dollars (American), they won’t be able to farm.
define midwest and productive.
at least in Indiana lots of former farms lie idle or converted ro housing tacts
If farmer immigrants don’t have the capital to buy a farm, they can have one leased to them by an old farmer who wants to retire.
This is a great move by the new regime. I hope they follow through in returning or compensating for all the theft and destruction that occured.
These Boers (literally “Farmers” in Afrikaans) are really like gold, from the viewpoint of human capital. A hundred Boer families fled Zimbabwe to Zambia, where they now grow 70% of the country’s grain. They are not just farmers -
they are World-class super farmers. Zimbabwe needs them badly, if they want to restore their agriculture.
This first restoral could just be for show, because everyone is watching for this. Investment could pour into Zimbabwe now that Mugabe is gone, but investors need reassurance that their property won’t be stolen like the Farmers’ property was. So they might just restore a couple of high profile properties, just to draw in a few bigger deals.
The farms were supposedly confiscated to distribute to “Blacks” and “War Veterans”, but the title to the land uniformly ended up in the names of the high-ranking members of the ruling Zanu-PF Party. This farm that is being returned, was held by Grace Mugabe, the former President’s wife, who has just been purged from the Zanu-PF, on very bad terms. So this might be as much about punishing her, as it is about trying to restore rule of law to property rights. The land held by Party Members in good standing could require a different deal.
In several cases, farmers have returned over the years, to work some of the farms as employees or tenant farmers, without getting title back. Sometimes they even end up clearing more money than when they owned the land (the owners give themselves sweetheart deals from the Government they run). But most farmers have stayed away, and most of the farms have have degraded into horribly unproductive patchy peasant gardens, or reverted to wild bushland.
It has been estimated that 8 or 9 billion dollars would be enough for a decent program of restitution, to kick off an agricultural gold rush of sorts in Zimbabwe (which in turn could provide the investor confidence for and actual gold rush - Zimbabwe is mineral rich). It is doable, but it will be much slower and less effective if they don’t make things right with the Boers, and entice them back to the farms.
If the welcome mat is put out for the Boers, and the terms are good, they will be rocket fuel for the Zimbabwean economy. With a business-savvy candidate just elected by the South African ANC Party (replacing the disastrous Jacob Zuma as the Party head), much of the wider South African Development Community could be set for takeoff next year.
I remember so well before I left the United Methodist Church how they cheered the removal of the white farm owners and murder of thousands of them . Today the united Methodist church is in ruins and white Farmers are going home in Southern Rhodesia. . Communism is a parasite on human achievement and should be destroyed with its proponents. It is not even observed any longer in China and Russia.
Back in 1980 in Uganda, I had an old African woman ask me, "Please, when are the British coming back?"
Agreed we need good farmers, and workers in this country back then and now.
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