Business Daily (Nairobi)
31 March 2008
editorial
Whoever wins the Zimbabwe polls - it will be time for the international community to help the country get back on her foot by addressing land inequity.
Zimbabwe has been sabotaged from without and cannibalized from within. At the moment, neither President Robert Mugabe nor the Western nations that have been part of the sabotage can escape the blame.
When the final script on Zimbabwe is written the blame will fall squarely on Mugabe, the Western nations and their propaganda machine which has brought down a showcase nation in Southern Africa as they try to squeeze a President out of power.
For his part, Mugabe has resisted the push with paranoia. But the solution to the Zimbabwe question, land distribution as agreed in Lancaster with the British government, will not be solved by either Simba Makoni or Morgan Tsvangirai.
Zimbabwe has a real post-colonial challenge; how to address inequities on land brought about by senseless movement of people from ancestral lands to pave way to colonial white farmers. The land adjustment policy of Mugabe, as was that of Kenya's Jomo Kenyatta, was insulted and a new crop of land barons were born overnight. That was reckless.
For a start the British should honour their promises on Zimbabwe and not hide behind polemics. Mugabe, or whoever wins, must do a transparent land re-distribution and solve the land crisis.
As Kenya is learning rather too late, historical injustices if not addressed at the right time can boil to dangerous clashes. We should not lose sight of the land factor in Zimbabwe and that much of the Western propaganda misses the point when they go for the person of Mugabe.
Mugabe can leave power today, but land issues unresolved will haunt the nation for ages.
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