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.
Very interesting graphic. Thank you.
They were ethnic cleansed.
Let’s see...
Guy #1 uses proven farming methods and decades of hard work, learning from success and failure over the years, and is rewarded with vastly more successful years than not.
Guy #2 is handed the farm but has no experience outside a family garden. In the good years he has marginal results and marginal productivity. In the bad years there is no crop.
Lesson - Equality of opportunity does not ensure equality of outcome.
Positive results cannot be legislated.
I’m not buying the accuracy of the IQ map (or the usefulness of IQ either).
The highest IQ in Deep Purple includes the NorKs. No way highest IQ.
Don't trust them.
South Africa is now threatening to seize White owned farms without restitution.
I was going to point out that is why the democrat party of evil wants more flexibility in the Constitution, but went with the singular point.
If I were a farmer I would not get near Zimbabwe. Maybe the State Department could send James Taylor to sing “You’ve Got A Friend” to Mugabe instead.
Higher than Ian Gillian or Richie Blackmore?
What’s become of the ChiCom agri-businesses that he invited in to run the farms?
Did the slave labor concept not go over to well?
Who needs to know how to farm when you can just eat the seads, sell the tractors, and rip out the irrigation pipe for scrap metal?
Oh, I had to search for those names. Musical thoughts never crossed my mind. (I’m illiterate about Sports and certain genre of music.)
The phrase did describe the pic? hee hee hee
LOL - this is code for "Mugabe and his corrupt black 'elite' henchmen - and select whores" don't want to stave to death...
I recall we used to get Zimbabwe updates every few months from a woman named Buckles. For the life of me I couldn’t understand why her family stuck it out there as long as they did.
Don’t know if she was a Freeper or simply letters posted from another source.
You can only rob the grocery store once.
“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people” Ben Franklin
Excellent quote. No wonder Obama and the Clintons couldn’t make much use of it except to hurt their enemies.
It would be along drive to Zambia for Mugabe and his pals to get a decent meal.
I read that maybe the British government abandoned the white Rhodesian farmers. The media stopped doing horror stories on Mugabe a long time ago. It is like they do not want people to see what is going on. Do you know if some of the British nobility control the chrome mining in Zimbabwe? It seems like the British want Zimbabwe now for it’s mineral wealth with Mugabe as the puppet government.
Make no mistake, bo would have stolen land owned by whites in the blink of an eye if he thought he could get away with it.
Cruise missiles were designed with guys like Mugabe in mind.
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