During the transition from Rhodesia to Zimbabwe, many of the white citizens fled the country, but the farmers stayed and tried to “make a go of it”. It worked for about 20 years until Mugabe needed a scapegoat for political purposes, then he started his “land reform” (forced sales and/or confiscations of white-owned farms) back about 2001.
It has been downhill, of course, since then. Before Mugabe’s communistic rampage, Zimbabwe was able to feed itself and sell food to surrounding nations.
One could perhaps make an argument that the land was “taken” from natives by an earlier generation of white settlers, but as we know, two wrongs do not make a right.
Besides, when a nation has a successful farming system, it is national suicide to destroy it. But then Marxists, such as Mugabe, were never long on common sense.
Exactly! I spent a month there during 1981 in Bulawayo about 6 months after Mugabe took over. Nice infrastructure thanks to the former Rhodesia. But we were not accustomed to this on February 11: two tribal factions within the Zimbabwe army got into a dispute. Net result: 300 dead citizens caught in the crossfire over the next week. Hours after we turned off an intersection, one army faction ambushed a armored convoy killing 60.
Returned to Bulawayo in 2000. What a change! On flying in, I was pulled out of the customs line. As a U.S. citizen, they required a special entry fee - $10 (US) as I recall.
Infrastructure had gone down the tube. Gas lines ala our 70's. Yet later while traveling in neighboring Botswana, there was gas aplenty -- modern well stocked supermarkets.
Economically, Zimbabwe has shot themselves in the foot. Yet, Jacques Diouf, Director General of the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization, denounces the West about Africa's problems:
"No one understands… how over-consumption by obese people in the [Western] world costs $20 billion each year."