Published by the government of Zimbabwe
Reason Wafawarova
17 April 2009
opinion
Harare — THE three-party agreement that established the inclusive Government currently running the affairs of Zimbabwe cannot and will not be a licence for the reversal of the gains of the Land Reform Programme.
As we celebrate the Independence of Zimbabwe from colonial repression, let us not be fooled into believing that the fuzzy feelings we get about the prospect of the inclusive Government bringing economic success to the country can over-ride the success of those who lost lives and limbs so that we could reclaim the heritage that had been systematically stolen from us -- the land.
There are sudden and increasing voices that are trying to paint a picture that President Mugabe's commitment to the success of the inclusive Government is to be measured by a measure of capitulation on the land policy.
The same voices have been painting the blatantly false picture that beneficiaries of the Land Reform Programme are, by definition, "Mugabe cronies."
The beneficiaries of land reform in Bolivia are equally labelled Morales' cronies and so has been the case with the beneficiaries of Venezuela's land reforms who are, by imperial definition, all cronies of Hugo Chavez.
Those farmers with long standing cases of fighting Government authorised eviction notices are now portrayed as victims of "fresh farm invasions."
It is clear that Sadc's position is that new farmers on acquired farm land should be equipped and helped to increase farming production so that Zimbabwe can once again be a net exporter of food in the region and abroad.
Yet for the same goal some people are for the unachievable objective of restoring land ownership to farmers who were evicted during the Land Reform Programme.
It must be noted that when the land occupation took place, the problem was not who owned the land but who did not have land and why that was so.
The issue was not whose property rights were to be protected but whose heritage had been stolen in the name of property rights and anti-people land tenure laws.
If Zimbabwe was a vast country with colonial beneficiaries occupying the same land space as was the case prior to 2000, but with indigenous people equally settled on productive land then there was never going to be a need for land reforms.
The Land Reform Programme sought to address, and still seeks to address, the issue of deprivation through dispossession and that underlying reality will remain the motivating factor that turned the agrarian tables upside down in Zimbabwe.
The issue of production is fundamental and cannot be downplayed by any sane person. However, addressing production by reinstating inequality is plain stupid and cannot be tolerated from whichever angle one may want to argue.
Production based on deprivation of the masses and a reinstatement of colonial imbalances will not do the future of Zimbabwe any good.
It is simply unacceptable. The only viable option is to follow the Sadc lead in empowering the new farmers with inputs, training and giving them the political will and support they deserve.
As Deputy Prime Minister Mutambara recently said, the focus must be on figuring out how best to make our new farmers produce.
The issue of the revolution going into reverse gear does not arise.
Denigrating the new farmers as "Mugabe cronies", "unskilled Zanu-PF supporters" or "incapable of farming" will not help increase agricultural production and neither will it help return the land to those who have already been moved off the land or those yet to be moved.
What the inclusive Government must be addressing are matters of multiple farm ownership, underutilisation of land, comprehensive support for the resettled farmers and a logical conclusion to land acquisition.
Without doubt, the inclusive Government must deal decisively with the issue of those who may be motivated by selfish and greedy short-term benefits like nice farm houses and ready harvests when in fact they have no serious plans on long-term commitment to serious farming.
The attempt to cheer some Zimbabwean politicians into a warpath with new farmers is ill-advised, dangerous and futile.
No Zimbabwean politician is too popular to the extent of reversing the land reform programme without dire repercussions.
Equally, the attempt by some economically powerful groupings to limit the potential damage on political mileage for some purported friendly political parties in Zimbabwe by suggesting that President Mugabe must be used to reacquire lost land cannot be a sensible suggestion, if only for the known principles of President Mugabe.
Some argue that if the MDC formations are going to help clean up the economic mess in the country by calling for the lifting of sanctions and helping mobilising aid for the country, then President Mugabe and Zanu-PF must "play ball" by reversing land reforms and reinstating ousted former commercial farmers.
The euphemism used for this is "restoring property rights" or simply "establishing the rule of law". The fact of the matter is that the land question in Zimbabwe is no longer about the former land occupiers but about the current occupiers.
The former land occupiers had their tenure by historical and political privilege and the new farmers have assumed their tenure based on moral justice and the inalienable right to a country and space to dwell and subsist.
If there are willing new farmers that wish to partner with the former occupiers from a position of strategic business partnership, that can only be encouraged.
However, the real focus should be to make sure that a comprehensive empowerment programme is adopted to ensure that the new farmers are adequately supported so they can produce.
The agreement that set up this inclusive Government in Zimbabwe is broad-based and cannot be measured on the radar of agricultural production alone.
It must be measured on national healing concerning matters of the most unfortunate polarity that had taken control of all our political faculties.
Its success must be measured on economic stability. This stability includes sectors such as mining, tourism, retail, manufacturing and the service industry.
There is this most expressive opinion in the West that the acquired land is in the hands of minority Zanu-PF elite and the masses that helped acquire the land have all been sidelined back to their original status of peasantry.
The assertion is that "an elite of a different skin colour" merely displaced another elite.
This is a diversion from the traditional line that the new farmers were unskilled and incapable of producing.
Now they are non-existent as they have been replaced by the Zanu-PF elite and that notorious club of "Mugabe cronies".
If indeed this were true, the question would be the measure of genuineness in the Western sympathisers purporting to be dead worried about the said poor displaced peasants.
Are the advocates of this most admirable truism of social justice on the part of Zimbabwean peasants really worried about the welfare of these people?
One would expect to hear loud cries that this land must be given to the said deprived masses and not returned to the said ousted elite.
The other question is the role of the inclusive Government. Is this Government going to be able to pretend that there are resettled former peasant families when in fact there are not?
If indeed the assertions we hear are true then it must be explained how Zanu-PF has managed to secure MDC complicity in the displacement of the masses by an exclusive elite.
One needs to know why the loudest voices complaining about who owns which piece of land in Zimbabwe are coming from the same quarters that sanctioned the country purely on the basis of total opposition to the principle of redistributing the same land.
It is ironic that the cause of these poor peasants is now being furiously fought for by the people who created the initial crisis of dispossession on their part, and later the crisis of sanctions as punishment for their daring efforts to reclaim their land.
It is like the holier-than-thou fire and brimstone human rights gospel that is often preached with unparalleled Western righteousness.
In this gospel, the victims (real or imagined) of leaders who lack compliance to the world order sought by Western foreign policy are always receiving the highest media sympathy one can ever imagine.
Victims of brutality elsewhere are totally ignored.
That is why Darfur's alleged 300 000 lost lives are mathematically more than the 655 000 Iraqi lives that were lost because of George W Bush's excesses.
This is why genocides are by definition, a preserve for those East European communists and the uncivilised Africans while the Israelites are all fine massacring the Palestinian people ritually every time their inspired leadership feels like it is "a time to fight."
This writer thinks that it must be unequivocally spelt out that attempts to abuse the inclusive Government for purposes of gaining leverage on matters involving disgruntled ex-commercial farmers will not and cannot be tolerated in the spirit of rebuilding.
Those politicians who might have the mis-privilege of being tasked to push for the agenda of any form of reversal to the land reforms may really need to explicitly inform their constituency or friends that reversal of the land reform programme is mission impossible.
What is reversible are the sanctions targeted at crippling land reforms.
What is reversible is the ill-wish that the programme should collapse to prove a racist point that blacks cannot farm.
What is reversible is the hostility to the justice of redistributing land in a country where 75 percent of arable land was in the hands of 4 000 white farmers. What are reversible are racial attitudes that say African solutions should be treated with scepticism.
What is reversible is the corruption that crippled the farm mechanisation support programme. What is reversible is under-utilisation of land by uncommitted jokers who applied for land for the sake of adventure and fun.
These are the issues that the inclusive Government should be focusing on.
When it comes to the Land Reform Programme, those still spoiling for a fight may need to be advised to consider not the size of the dog they want to engage in this fight but the size of the fight in the dog.
The war against land redistribution is simply unwinnable and the earlier we move on with empowering the new farmers the better for everyone.
Zimbabwe we are one and together we will overcome. It is homeland or death!
Reason Wafawarova is a political writer
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Slam dunk, encore.
Nietzschean 'prose' rocking in an ocean of cold analytical truths: soul lifting writing and analytically rigorous graphe. Compared to the trash from BUNKUM PROPAGANDA and SOUTH WEST RUBBISH, this piece from the HERALD is like an oasis in the desert of journalism.
"No Zimbabwean politician is too popular to the extent of reversing the land reform programme without dire repercussions."
Truth has never been expressed so poignantly, so adamantly; truth devoid of spin---truth spoken to power.
And, the power? "No Zimbabwean politician."
And that includes the son and sun of Africa, Cde. Mugabe, the two Ms of MDC-2.
Are we understood?
The principle of THE IRREVERSIBLITY OF THE LAND is built on a rock, not on the shifting sands of emotional immaturity, not on the jurisprudence of the equivocal West, and certainly not on rhodie historical revisionism, not to mention rhodie archaic attitudes that some call "racism," but we simply deem archaic, reactionary, and silly and delusional.
Beggarson88, go ask your dad "Bob" whether he himself believes in his supposedly land reform ?
Criminal Bob knows how to fire up Zimbos emotions by dangling the land reform! He knows he can cheat people, but for how long? People are realising that Bob's land reform is just a land grabbing exercise by his cronies, Grace and ZANU-PF high cadres.
Beggarson88 will continue to beg even if he changes his name to Richerson88. That will not make him richer. Neither will Bob allow him to grab somebody's farm since this young imbecile never took part in the liberation struggle.
Beggarson88, an opportunist! Yes, indeed.
This post was deleted because it contravenes AllAfrica's commenting guidelines.
This post was deleted because it contravenes AllAfrica's commenting guidelines.
Only a Jabba-dyte with a brain the size of a pea, could possibly see merit in this article . Who cares about the land? It's just the thieving way it's being done now,under the pretence of land reform. How do you reform the land? It (the land) will still be there long after this new mob of INVADERS are long gone and buried deep within it. Right now they're so busy fighting over it nothing wiill grow on it anyhow. Carry on like this and the rest of the world are just gonna hve to tell you THE SANCTIONS ARE IRREVERSABLE ...............dude (drop the "e")
BUDBOOBS, you are incapable of understanding that article, period.
Above and beyond that, it is really boring interacting with the losers of history, and you are a token of that type.
This, we are reasonably certain, you understand.
The issue of the sanctions, moreover, has nothing, except in the pathological rhodie imagination, with the principle of THE IRREVERSIBILITY OF THE LAND.
We can do no better than reproduce the Herald's pithy cris de guerre: "It is the land or death."
Get that, BUDBOOBS? This ain't no circus: it is a matter of life or death, according to the HERALD.
Now, if you have a problem with that, please take it up with the HERALD, not some imaginary "Jabba-dyte with a brain the size of a pea....".
O.K, BUDBOOBS? Cool.
This post was deleted because it contravenes AllAfrica's commenting guidelines.
See all comments (21).
So this statement means, no one will be able to farm ever again. The gains of the land reform, where? Anyone , can you see the farms which have been seized working to full capacity, feeding the country? If this is gains then I must be Barrack Obama.