Posted on 03/21/2017 8:36:51 AM PDT by grundle
In 2000 Robert Mugabe shocked the world when he made dramatic changes to land ownership laws in Zimbabwe which resulted in thousands of white Zimbabwean farmers being forced to give up their farms and many to leave the country.
Those white farmers owned 70% of the most arable land in the country which they had inherited from a colonial past built on racial hierarchy.
But now the tide is shifting again. Mugabe’s people have hinted strongly, for the first time, that farmers can return–at least some of them. This will be some 15 years after the Zimbabwe government began seizing their land.
A few selected white farmers will be granted security of tenure on farms regarded to be ‘of strategic economic importance.’ Meanwhile black beneficiaries are expected to start paying a small rental fee per acre that will be used in part to compensate the more than 4,000 evicted white farmers according to the country’s minister of lands, Douglas Mombeshora.
Last year, BBC reported Mugabe told an audience, “We say no to whites owning our land and they should go.” It is the first time that the Zimbabwe government has publicly hinted on the failure of its unsustainable land policy.
The country that was once dubbed “the breadbasket of the region” has suffered an estimated $12 billion in lost agriculture production since the land occupations took place and has had to rely on donor handouts and food imports from neighboring countries. At least 1.8 million tonnes of the staple grain, maize, is required annually to feed the nation.
Zimbabwe’s transformation from exporter to importer of food is blamed by some analysts on the land reform program, which saw white commercial farmers lose farms to landless blacks who are said to lack the skills to farm or capital. Agriculture used to contribute some 40% of the country’s foreign currency earnings through exports.
What has been Zimbabwe’s loss, has been a gain for neighboring Zambia, where some of these farmers moved bringing with them decades of expertise for farming similar arable land.
British failure
And even though the Lancaster House agreement between the British government and the Zimbabweans had provisions for land redistribution and guaranteed compensation for white farmers, when the time came the British and other countries, including the United States, did not fulfill their part of the deal to fund the program.
It didn’t help that Zimbabwe’s government had no land distribution systems in place which made the aftermath a free-for-all. Politicians, senior members of the security forces, judges, civil servants and war-veterans picked their share. Most of them had no prior farming experience or capital.
Today, fewer than 300 white farmers remain on portions of their original land holdings in Zimbabwe and many of the seized farms lie fallow prompting the slow changes in attitude and policy.
Mugabe’s hard stance was more a reaction to growing political opposition and waning voter support. He blamed the white farmers for betraying his benevolence and threatening his power base. He declared, “If white settlers just took the land from us without paying for it we can, in a similar way, just take it from them without paying for it, or entertaining any ideas of legality or constitutionality.”
For Mugabe the land occupations had little to do with righting a wrong but much about exerting power and force. He has been in power since 1980 and one of the longest ruling presidents in Africa. It was therefore no surprise that the rule of law was suspended. Mobs of self styled war veterans and youth militia had carte blanche. There was violence and terror. Several white farmers and their black workers were killed, beaten or chased away and their properties taken over.
The chaos had adverse effects on the economy, food production, and civil rights. One of Africa’s strongest economies shrank to half the size it had been in 1980. Soon record hyperinflation would render supermarket shelves bare and the national currency worthless. 10% of the population fled to neighbouring countries in penury, hunger and fear.
After many years of operating as a pariah state, Zimbabwe is desperate to restore its pride and reintegrate into the international community. However, foreign businesses are still reluctant to invest in the country because of policy uncertainty and politicized property rights.
I would have plowed rock salt into my fields and left never to return.
We had a Zimbabwean grad student in the department @ 15 years ago. His family had a large beef operation and dairy. His family saw the writing on the wall and smuggled all of their wealth out in gold.
IQ < 85 found it a hard roe to hoe. Farming didn’t turn out so easy huh? Didn’t realize the personal investment required to make the difference between rough acreage and abundant production.
Now the value is nil, want someone else to build it all back up. Dictator seized a large time investment in the first taking! Now realizes it wasn’t the land, but the people working the land, that were of value. Can’t openly admit it, without losing face.
When I went to Zambia 2 years ago on safari I met a couple who had owned a farm in Zimbabwe and lost it to Mugabe. We talked a lot over dinners, and are still in touch via Facebook. Lots of interesting stories, and they lost several friends in the fighting that led up to their having to finally flee. He and his family do live in Zambia now.
He has been flying his little Cessna into Zimbabwe and over his old farm to see what's been going on, and the fields have not been used and the buildings are just falling down... they haven't been doing anything with the farm.
He's been working with the World Court for years now, and is still hoping that will eventually result in some sort of compensation.
Does anyone know how the white farmers were received in Zambia? Were they welcomed with open arms and integrated into Zambian society? Were they grudgingly accepted? Were they barely tolerated? Were they resented and discriminated against?
Why? So the whites can be butchered by mugabe’s hatchetmen again?
Nope, let them starve to death on their land free of white men.
Actions have consequences.
The article has much correct information, but fails to accurately record the history of the actual race relations--the most peaceful in the world, before the lynching of the Rhodesian people;--and the pattern of settlement, as well as how the White settlers actually protected Mugabe's tribe from the Matabele. (The settlers developed land in the highland areas. They did not dispossess either of the Rhodesian tribes.)
Bad juju? Evil spirits? Not enough Brawndo (it's got electrolytes!!!)?
It ain’t workin’ so hot here, either!
Actions have consequences. The people who cheered land “reform” are the ones who are starving today. Unfortunately, some decent people were hurt too, and a few of them were foolish enough to stay.
Zimbabwe was just a test run for what they want to do in the US. Just look at what they are doing to the ranchers out West. Communists are Communists are Communists. When will people ever learn?
Evicted White Farmers Feed Zimbabwe
https://www.dailynews.co.zw/articles/2016/03/23/evicted-white-farmers-feed-zimbabwe
That is a very good point
Expect Zimbabwe to invade Zambia down the road.
I think you might be alluding to a “Bell curve” here. Don’t say that stuff near Middlebury.
Fool me three times, don’t get fooled again.
“white commercial farmers lose farms to landless blacks who are said to lack the skills to farm or capital. “
Not exactly. The land went to cronies of Mugabe who probably never worked a day in their lives.
“Mugabe has some nerve asking these farmers to come back”
Come back? From the dead?
May the maggot eat Mugabe.
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