Mugabe sticks to his guns

2001-07-06 20:05

Harare - Despite a looming food crisis and widespread discontent with its economic policies, Zimbabwe's government is set to nationalise almost all white-owned farms and to give itself a monopoly in maize sales.

During the last three weeks, President Robert Mugabe's government has added more than 2 500 farms to the list of properties it plans to seize and resettle with black farmers in a bid to redress colonial-era inequalities in land ownership.

Agricultural officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, estimated that almost all of the 5 500 white-owned farms in Zimbabwe have been earmarked for resettlement. Only half the white-owned lands in Zimbabwe were due to be resettled under the government's original proposal.

The move comes despite a looming food shortage, which the government only admitted to on Thursday despite months of warnings from regional, national and local crop monitors that the normally self-sufficient nation would not produce enough grains to meet its needs.

"That there will be shortages in national production is confirmed. The uncertainty is the magnitude," Finance Minister Simba Makoni said Thursday.

Commercial farms in Zimbabwe have struggled since February last year, when veterans of the liberation war began leading the violent occupations of white-owned farms, which account for most of the country's commercial production.

Small farmers who produce food for their own consumption have also suffered because of erratic rains and rampant inflation, which made it difficult for them to buy fertilisers and other supplies.

In a decision aimed at heading off the grain shortages, the government announced earlier this week in the state-run Herald newspaper that it would soon introduce legislation to restore its monopoly over maize sales.

The parastatal Grain Marketing Board held a monopoly on maize sales until the early 1990s, when the market was liberalised as part of World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF)-backed reforms.

The IMF suspended aid to Zimbabwe in October 1999 after government efforts to liberalise the economy went off track, prompting most other lenders to pull out and leaving the country with little credit and practically no foreign currency.

The loss of international aid, along with Zimbabwe's unpopular military role in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), an enormous unbudgeted pay-out to liberation war veterans three years ago, and the crippling of agriculture by the land reforms, has left the country in its worst-ever economic crisis.

That has translated into popular discontent with Mugabe's economic policies, which manifested itself this week in a widely observed two-day stay-away that succeeded in bringing the nation to a standstill.

The strike cost Zimbabwe's economy up to $9.1 million, according to the Herald. The strike cost $5 million in delayed tobacco sales alone, Tobacco Sales Floor managing director Pat Devenish said.

Workers want government to rescind last month's 70 percent hike in fuel prices, but government has yet to respond to their demands.

Despite all the problems hobbling this once thriving nation, Mugabe shows no signs of backing down on his land reform scheme - which has been heavily tied to political violence targeting the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).

His government recently pushed through a law legalising the presence of squatters on white farms listed for resettlement. With the latest lists, that law gives the war vets and their followers free run over huge swaths of the country.

Despite Mugabe's recent overtures to the international community, most Zimbabweans are bracing for a resurgence of the violence that rocked the country before last year's parliamentary elections as the nation nears the presidential poll due in April.

At least 34 people died before last year's elections, while 19 000 people suffered various forms of torture, according to rights groups. - Sapa-AFP

- SAPA