Posted on 02/10/2006 5:21:23 PM PST by blam
Zimbabwe muddle at offer to white farmers
By David Blair in Johannesburg
(Filed: 11/02/2006)
The fate of Zimbabwe's dispossessed white farmers was uncertain yesterday after the regime publicly contradicted private assurances that some landowners would be allowed back to their properties.
Ministers close to President Robert Mugabe are considering a partial reversal of the land grab. Assurances have been given that some farmers will be allowed to lease back their holdings.
After this was disclosed in The Daily Telegraph, Didymus Mutasa, the security minister also responsible for land reform, denied any U-turn. "We are not going to change our land policy and we are not going to surrender any land that has been given to our people," he told state television.
A constitutional amendment passed last year made every acre of agricultural land the property of the state.
Mr Mutasa pointed out that the last handful of about 250 surviving white farmers need official leases to stay on their properties.
"To my knowledge there are not many, if any, white commercial farmers who have the permission, so most of them who are farming now are doing so illegally," he said.
Senior figures in the regime have told farmers that, as a first stage, the surviving 250 will be given leases allowing them to stay on their holdings. Then a limited number of displaced landowners will be given leases allowing them to return.
The thinking behind this policy is that it will ease pressure from the International Monetary Fund, which has threatened to expel Zimbabwe for failing to pay its dues.
But Joseph Made, the agriculture minister, told the state press that white farmers were "irrelevant". He added: "The country's land policies are very sound and will not be frozen or set aside."
Mr Mugabe's regime has invested too much political capital in the land seizure programme to back down in public.
The president made the dispossession of white farmers the central objective of his regime, winning two elections on the promise to hand out seized land to supporters.
But senior officials have privately tipped off displaced farmers that if they apply to lease back their land, some will be allowed to return.
A number of ex-farmers have duly submitted the paperwork required, but no one has been granted a lease yet.
Mr Mugabe's land grab has displaced almost 4,000 white farmers over the past five years. Agricultural production has crashed, plunging Zimbabwe into an economic crisis.
The contradictions have long been a feature of Mr Mugabe's regime.
Its more pragmatic figures, notably Gideon Gono, the powerful governor of the Reserve Bank, are appalled by the economic collapse and recognise that returning some skilled farmers to their land is unavoidable if recovery is to happen.
Meanwhile Mr Mugabe, who turns 82 in 10 days, appears increasingly detached from day to day government.
L
Ping.
What a disgusting situation- the sad truth that there were many, many at the rally, er, funeral on Tuesday that would love for this to happen here in the good old US of A.
But senior officials have privately tipped off displaced farmers that if they apply to lease back their land, some will be allowed to return.
Must be getting hungry.
And the Panama Canal.
Its a close competition between Al Gore , John kerry and Jimmy carter, but I think maybe you are right, jimmy may indeed take the trophy as stupides, White man on the planet.
Now that would be with the exception of any white farmer who takes Mugabe's deal.
Let them eat dirt.
And they would be totaly, outrageously, out of their tiny little minds to consider re-starting the engine so the next despot could pull the plug on their kids.
Of course, they are totally, absolutely, out of their minds if they are still in Zimbabwe at all when there is a complete melt down and anarchy-with-knives right around the corner.
So....maybe.
I sure hope those farmers tell mugbaby to go eat dirt.
Mugabe misses few meals.
grace. can they have a few of their houses back?
If it did happen here in the USA, the whole country would look like downtown Mogadishu in six months.
Africa has gone to hell with its takeover by Africans. Name ONE country on that continent that can feed itself, clothe itself and provide basic services (chiefly water and very basic medical care) to one fourth of its population.
They then use this supposed fact as an argument for the donor nations, IMF, sanctioning western powers to remove sanctions, allow Zanu PF to control food distribution, extend debt repayment limits, supply petrol, lift arms embargos, etc.
Once the argument has had its desired effect or once it is clear that it will not have its desired effect, the undertaking gets quietly abandoned.
BTW, it is too late for any commercial farmer to come back, reinstate the farm infrastructure, (including damaged drip irrigation lines, bore holes and mpound dams) obtain inputs such as fertilizer and seed, arrange borrowing, import fuel, and rehire their skilled workforce that hav scattered the ends of the earth. The southern hemisphere summer is well advanced, farmers at this point should be tending crops long since planted and be preparing for harvest, It is too late even for the coming winter planting.
This is not the rich black alluvial soil on which an indigenous farmer can plant a small plot with a pair of oxen and let nature take care of the irrigation and supply the nutrients. This is red soil veldt land. It takes capital, technology, expertise and experienced labour to bring in a commercial crop.
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