Zimbabwe's
Land: A Racial Issue That
Should Have Been Dealt With 20 Years Ago
By JONATHAN
POWER
April 12, 2000
LONDON - Memories are short, too conveniently so.
The life and death drama now being played out in Zimbabwe
in southern Africa is a tragic illustration of this human
weakness that knows no colour line.
Thirty five years ago the then named Rhodesia, a
British colony, ruled by a white minority, made its
unilateral declaration of independence. The break with
the mother country had come after an acrimonious period
of resisting pressure from London to modestly widen the
franchise. For fourteen years Rhodesia was a pariah
state, boycotted by order of the UN Security Council, yet
finding ways to circumvent the embargo and prosper in a
way that, if it had happened today, would make Saddam
Hussein green with envy. Even the big British oil
companies, Shell and BP, connived in the sanctions
busting with, if not a nod, at least a wink from
Britain's Labour government.
That was Britain's mistake number one: forcing the
Africans to fight their cause by guerrilla warfare for
want of pressures on other fronts. Led by Robert Mugabe,
now Zimbabwe's prime minister, the guerrillas weakened
the white government to the point where it was persuaded
to sue for terms. Both London and Washington favoured a
compromise with a less militant black leadership than the
avowed marxist, Mugabe. Yet, as is usually the case, the
lack of British and U.S. commitment in the early days of
the struggle meant that the militants held most of the
cards, not only on the battlefield but in electoral
appeal as well. Once the whites had capitulated and
returned to London the power they had temporarily
arrogated and open elections were held, Mugabe's faction
swept the board.
The stepping stone to black rule had been the
constitutional conference held at Lancaster House in
London. One of the sticking points had been the question
of land reform. I interviewed Mugabe at the time and when
I asked him what the main issue for his party was he
replied,"land, land, land, land, land." The British,
however, were constrained by public opinion at home- the
government could not be seen to be giving the whole of
Rhodesia, lock, stock and barrel- and that meant the
highly productive white owned farms- to the insurgent
blacks. So the British mumbled their way through the
conference, saying that while they favoured a sensible
land reform they couldn't be explicit about how much
money they would set aside to buy out the white farmers.
The Americans who, under Jimmy Carter, had been active
partners with Britain in seeking a solution to the
conflict were even more reticent. "We would never get an
appropriation for land reform through Congress, if it
means giving white farmers a tough deal, " Andrew Young,
the U.S. ambassador to the U.N. told me.
Nevertheless, I assumed, somewhat naively, that once
the election was over, and independence was formerly
given that the new Zimbabwe would tackle land reform as
its number one issue, even if it had to borrow the money
from the World Bank or seek aid from a willing
Scandinavia. The facts spoke for themselves. At
independence a quarter of the white farmers produced
three quarters of the output of white-owned farmlands.
The others, as Mr Mugabe himself rightly observed,"were
unoccupied, underutilized or under absentee ownership". A
study by the German Development Institute concluded that
if this 75% of the European land were bought it would be
enough to settle the landless African population.
Yet from Mugabe's new government there was a deafening
lack of initiative. Mugabe appeared to lose interest in
the issue. A few months after independence I met an old
acquaintance on a London street, Bernard Chidzero,
Zimbabwe's minister of finance. "What's going on about
land reform? What are you planning to do?", I asked. "Not
for now," he replied. "It's not on our list of
priorities"
I couldn't believe my ears, even though I knew it had
a superficial rationale. The white farmers with their
exports of tobacco and fruit kept the country's trade
balance in the black. With the grain and vegetables they
kept the urban population fed. Moreover, and this seemed
the sensible part, there was much to be done in upgrading
the productivity of those millions of peasants who did at
least have land. Their holdings and soils may have been
of inferior quality but they knew nothing of modern
scientific methods. Under the vigorous prodding of the
Ministry of Agriculture led by a benign and dynamic ex
white farmer, production leaped.
Yet, as time passed, momentum, as in so many other
things Zimbabwian, slackened. The leadership lost its
way. Its reforming instincts, first briefly marxist, then
capitalist-liberal-pragamatic, returned to an old
fashioned socialist state supremacy, with highly
centralized political authority.
The arrival of black power in South Africa which
should have been liberating for Zimbabwe seemed to pose a
personal challenge to Mugabe. He made it abundantly clear
in more ways than one that he didn't like the limelight
of liberation moving from him to Nelson Mandela. Mugabe
seemed to take a personal delight in going in an opposite
direction to South Africa. That became clear with
Mugabe's nonsensical military escapade in the Congolese
war. This has only worked to help bankrupt Zimbabwe while
unnecessarily complicating an already fraught situation-
all, it seems, so that members of Mugabe's inner circle
can pad their bank accounts with diamond and other
financial deals in the Congo.
The land reform issue being brought to the rapid boil
in Zimbabwe today is more of the same. Until now what
little land reform there has been has taken productive
white land and put it into the hands of Mugabe's rich
friends and cronies. But, desperate to find a winning
issue at the polls in May, Mugabe is using his land
reform crusade as a vote-getter. Defying the courts, he
has encouraged old warriors to invade 700 white-owned
farms while he promises to expropriate them without
compensation if Britain doesn't give him the money.
For once, very belatedly, the British government, is
trying to occupy the high ground. If the election is
honest, says the British Foreign Secretary, Robin Cook,
then London will help finance an orderly and honest land
redistribution program. (Over the years Britain has given
modest sums towards land reform; these it suspended in
1992, criticizing the program as mismanaged and
corrupt.)
But it could well be the promise has come too late.
Britain -in its second grave mistake- made its own
contribution to the present day imbroglio by not putting
serious money on the table for land reform 20 years ago.
Now nobody can be can sure if Mugabe got his money he
would spend it on the people who really deserve it. That
is the tragedy of modern day Zimbabwe.
I can be reached by phone +44 385 351172 and e-mail:
JonatPower@aol.com
Copyright © 2000 By JONATHAN POWER
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