Posted on 02/23/2003 4:37:30 PM PST by blam
Namibia targets land owned by white farmers
By Basildon Peta, Southern Africa Correspondent
24 February 2003
The Government of Namibia has taken the first step towards a Mugabe-style seizure of land owned by white farmers.
Farmers who fail to disclose details of the number of farms they own by Friday have been warned that they face five-year jail sentences. Data verification forms were distributed as the government, under President Sam Nujoma, prepares to introduce a land tax in April aimed at farmers owning "excessive" land. But farmers' representatives say Mr Nujoma, who has threatened to seize white farms in the past, also wants to use the data for his plan to force some farmers to give up their land for resettlement.
President Nujoma is the staunchest ally of the Zimbabwean President, Robert Mugabe, and his government appears to be copying the chaotic reforms that have forced most of Zimbabwe's 4,500 white farmers from their land.
Namibia, which became independent from South Africa in 1990, has 4,045 white farmers. The main difference in the two countries' land reform schemes is that Mr Nujoma, who like Mr Mugabe came to power after leading the fight against white rule, is paying the farmers whose land is acquired for resettlement. Mr Mugabe has flatly refused to do that, saying the British taxpayer must pay to compensate for "colonial settler robbery".
The Namibian government says less than a quarter of the country's white farmers have returned the land data forms.
Forget Zimbabwe and Namibia. Look at Scotland!
Land Reforms in Scotland Give Big Estates the Jitters (Communisim comes to Scotland)
And this, along with the situation in Scotland, is crucial.
I can understand the need to spread land ownership amongst the population. We met similar situations in the US in the early days. But it can only happen successfully when the current landowners are compensated at market prices.
Taiwan did it in the fifties. They paid the feudal landlords for their holdings with a requirement that a portion of that money be re-invested in the country.
The eventual result was an economic powerhouse.
Would that Namibia (or Scotland) should be so wise.
Don't do that unless you want to starve. Subsistance farming doesn't hack it.
Whites make great targets. They have no allies or supporters. Any resistance by them is racism.
Dicsussions were about Namib having been making statements in denegration of its white farmers and in approval of Mugabe's way of "redistributing" land.
We have also discussed similar noises that are being made in South Africa, albeit at present advanced as minority opinions.
We know more about this stuff, than most of the rest of the world; including those who actually live in Africa. If ONLY the media didn't ignore this stuff. *sigh*
What are the chances of Canada, with its "come one, come all" immigration policies taking in all these white Southern Africans ? Have those from Zimbabwe and South Africa had any luck in obtainng visas as refugees ?
Leftists are responsible for famine. They make me sick.
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