The ruin of the "breadbasket"

An unpopular truth

[Reprinted from Issues & Views May 2, 2005]

Every time you think that President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe has made as much of a mess of his country as possible, he does himself one better. When a tyrant brings destruction to the world around him, it's usually done with some beneficial goal or purpose in mind. What could possibly be Mugabe's goal in wrecking his country's once prosperous and stable economy?

Why would Mugabe, almost two decades after he took power in 1980, have targeted for displacement the very class of people most responsible for Zimbabwe's prosperity, i.e., the experienced, competent white farmers? Even if redistribution of some of Zimbabwe's land was the goal, how could an entire government administration not see that there were more viable ways to achieve this than mass evictions and persecution of the country's most productive class?

In 2002, economist Walter Williams wrote that "Mugabe has created a disaster for both black and white Zimbabweans in the name of reparations and land redistribution." Members of Mugabe's ZANU-PF party torched at least 10 million acres of cropland, in order to prevent farming on the part of whites. This government-sanctioned action sent signals to thugs to rampage farmland and chase away or kill landowners.

Columnist Nat Hentoff writes that Mugabe, the self-styled "liberator" of Zimbabwe, has actually become its "ghoul." Williams, Hentoff, and others have rebuked those black leaders, here in the U.S. and abroad, who continue to give Mugabe a pass. Few will publicly decry the documented evidence of arbitrary arrests, torture, and political killings -- all initiated by Mugabe's government.

The loss of thousands of resourceful farmers led to the inevitable. Due to food shortages, there is now near-starvation in rural regions, with thousands of Zimbabweans fleeing the country as refugees. The land once known as the "breadbasket of Africa" now faces famine. And, as is also inevitable, corrupt bureaucrats and politicians are using the distribution of food as a weapon against their opponents or as a gift to their supporters. Mugabe himself has stopped all international donations of food, in order to be in a position to punish his enemies by denying access to food supplies.

Now comes news that hungry people are invading Zimbabwe's wildlife reserves, where elephants, lions, leopards and cheetahs roam. In times of natural disaster, where men have no choice but to kill for survival, there is no question of what must be done. But in wake of this totally unnecessary tragedy, a second tragedy would be the swift elimination of massive numbers of animals unique to the continent. The food crisis also has opened the reserves to once-banned hunters, who merely wish to kill the big animals, not for food, but for trophies.

The Independent (4/28/05) reports that Mugabe has ordered Zimbabwe's national parks to work with rural district councils to "begin the wholesale slaughter of big game."

The wildlife directive is a major blow to efforts by conservationists to rehabilitate a wildlife sector devastated by Mr. Mugabe's confiscation policy. The chaotic farm invasions saw party militants storming into conservation areas -- private and state-owned -- to slaughter animals.

Elephants and giraffes are being killed for food, which in many cases is not reaching the starving poor, but is appropriated by government officials, often the military and police.

Meanwhile, many displaced white farmers have moved to neighboring Zambia, where they are once again putting their skills to work in the farming of tobacco and maize. In "Zim farmers help Zambia," News24.com (UK) reports:

In the southern town of Choma, some 25 Zimbabwean farmers are leasing farmland to grow tobacco and maize for export and creating jobs for many poor Zambians and an "outbreak of money," officials say.

"Tobacco production has increased in the last three years because of the white Zimbabwean farmers who have introduced highly mechanized farming in Zambia," says Finance Minister Ngandu Magande.

The group is part of Zimbabwe's 4,500 white commercial farmers who had been targeted by Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe's government since 2000 and whose prime land had been taken away and given to landless blacks. . . .

The Choma agriculturists are farming on long-term leases from individual Zambians who were unable to develop the land because of a lack of capital and equipment and are being financed through $25m in loans from US tobacco company Universal.

"Each farm employs about 120 local people," says Tim Carter, 47, a Zimbabwean who owns Nkanga Farms, a tract of land of around 1,200 acres west of Choma. . . .

Mugabe's policy sparked an exodus with farmers leaving for Zambia, Mozambique and a handful even going as far away as Nigeria to rebuild their lives. Most farmers crossed into Zambia without equipment because the Zimbabwean government imposed a ban on the movement of farm machinery.

And back in Zimbabwe, the government is planning for major grain imports. It seems that the country has run out of maize, the staple diet of Zimbabwe's 12 million people. As shortages of other basic commodities increase, Mugabe talks like a man living in a personal fantasyland. In an apparent attempt to stave off public upheaval, he downplays, with lies, the seriousness of the country's problems, a pattern that some of his opponents call "treacherous." Wellington Chibebe, of Zimbabwe's Congress of Trade Unions, calls Mugabe's chicanery "a war against the people's minds, playing football with people's brains."

Back in 2002, Ghana's Osei Prempeh implored Mugabe to "put your house in order." And an official of Botswana blamed Mugabe's misrule for the refugees that are now becoming economic burdens on Botswana. Mugabe appears oblivious to criticism, and has an excuse for all Zimbabwe's woes -- usually having to do with conspiring whites.

An economy once envied and considered a model in Africa has been ruined and sent into a tailspin by fools and incompetents. Present life in Zimbabwe is grim and the future looks even grimmer.

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