Posted on 02/11/2003 2:21:20 PM PST by blam
Mugabe signs land deal with Chinese to tackle food crisis
By Basildon Peta Southern Africa Correspondent
12 February 2003
Robert Mugabe, the President of Zimbabwe, has awarded a contract to grow food crops on more than 100,000 hectares to a Chinese company in a desperate attempt to avert an unprecedented farming crisis.
The land was mostly seized from white farmers and is now lying derelict after its new black owners failed to take it up because no agricultural equipment was available.
Mr Mugabe's decision to approve the land allocations to the China International Water and Electric Corporation, a state-owned company, contradicts his claims that he wants to empower black Zimbabweans by giving them land seized from white farmers.
State media said the deal would restore Zimbabwe's agricultural strength to its former position of glory in Africa's agriculture sector. It proved that Mr Mugabe's policy of co-operating with Asia and former Communist countries in Eastern Europe at the expense of the West was paying dividends.
Mr Mugabe has said that his government will no longer work with the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank but will concentrate on finding new friends in Asia.
But a senior government official said the deal was a direct indictment of Mr Mugabe's chaotic land reforms. "I think what it proves is that our system of chasing farm owners and confiscating their land has not worked,'' said the official, who was interviewed on condition of anonymity.
"We are now stuck with a huge amount of derelict land, which could have been under good use if the politicians had taken our advice to implement a phased and systematic land reform exercise.''
Joseph Made, the Agriculture Minister, publicly admitted for the first time last month that most of the seized land had not been taken by its new owners.
In some of the most important agricultural provinces, less than half of the land allocated to blacks has been occupied. New black occupants often become frustrated by the government's failure to give them resources to farm and return to communal areas, where there is infrastructure such as boreholes.
The government is trying to lure back commercial farmers displaced from their properties by violent occupations and seizures, which began three years ago and accelerated after the President was re-elected last year in polls that independent observers said were rigged.
Mr Mugabe's government claims that it has drafted a memorandum of understanding, which awaits signing. But farmers say nothing has materialised from talks that began a few weeks ago.
As part of the deal, the government wants to give back to white farmers some seized properties in exchange for farming equipment needed to help to resettle black farmers.
The white farmers have rejected the offer, saying the government is not sincere.
According to state media, the deal with the Chinese will yield at least 2.1 million tons of maize a year, enough to feed Zimbabwe's 12 million people. The project, which is expected to start soon, would play an important role in reducing inflation, which reached 200 per cent last month. The Chinese are expected to bring in massive irrigation equipment for use on the project.
Meanwhile, in a sign of the country's deepening economic troubles, a parliamentary inquiry said the national airline was heading for collapse. Silas Mangono, head of the inquiry, said two of Air Zimbabwe's six planes had been grounded because there was no hard currency for spare parts.
Immigrant black PhD's are qualified for more government support programs than me, the payee!
Mugabe will allow the Chinese to enslave the black farm worker population if that is necessary to be successful.
Millions of bushels of corn will be grown in Zimbabwe. Will that corn be sold internally, or exported for foreign currency?
Presumably people will be put to work (the same workers who farmed for the whites) and that will help.
The rent for the land will go to Mugabe's government without a doubt and not to the new "landowners".
And, of course, the profit will return to China.
Buying time -- maybe -- but not much of a solution.
Chinese. That's probably part of the deal to put more money in his pocket. The people be damned!
Full circle....and all the food is shipped to China.
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