Letter from Zimbabwe

A Canadian expatriate explains why President Mugabe steered Zimbabwe into its current state of mayhem

By: Geoff Stiles

  June 5/00 - In Lament for Zimbabwe, Clyde Sanger blames Margaret Thatcher for Zimbabwe's current problems. As an inveterate Thatcher-hater, it sounds like a great idea, but as a Zimbabwe resident for the past twelve years, I frankly find it a bit simplistic.
  Yes, Robert Mugabe attempted a verbal reconciliation in 1980, and the whites were both surprised and pleased. Because of this, Zimbabwe retained a small but productive white population of commercial farmers and industry leaders (less than 1% of the population), who otherwise would have joined their friends and families and "gapped" it to South Africa or Australia or Canada. More than half of the whites did leave, but those who remained believed that their participation in rebuilding the country was welcomed. Since large tracts of white farmland were left virtually unoccupied by those who left, it would seem logical for Mugabe and his government to have used these lands first to resettle landless blacks.
  That they did not, and instead managed the economy solely for the benefit of themselves and their party, is the real source of today's problems -- not a failure of will on the part of the British government. Britain, in fact, contributed over £35 million to Zimbabwe's land reform program throughout the 1980s, on the understanding that the money would be used to both compensate commercial farmers for purchase of their land and help build the infrastructure required to provide adequate services to newly-resettled black farmers. In fact, it was used mostly to acquire quality land for ZANU-PF faithful and to resettle only small numbers of communal farmers on the remaining inadequate land, which was never properly serviced. In response, communal farmers began to occupy land themselves without government assistance in the early 1990s. There is evidence of this all over the country, but particularly in the area east and west of Karoi, a major commercial farming area. Government did nothing to facilitate this process or to alleviate the impoverishment of those who resettled themselves.
  In response, the British withdrew their assistance to land reform in the early '90s, and clearly stated the conditions under which they would resume it: acquisition on a willing seller basis, with fair compensation; re-distribution to be done equitably and fairly, i.e. without political favouritism; and use of the programme to alleviate poverty, not to enrich black politicians and ZANU clients. These same principles were reiterated in the 1998 agreement reached between the donor countries and Zimbabwe, and thereafter a task force of very capable Zimbabwe specialists spent nearly two years analysing land availability and creating the procedures for implementing an effective support program. Given a few more years, this process could have resulted in Africa's first really successful land reform exercise, and would have been a model for others, such as South Africa, to follow.
 

These recent seizures were never really about land at all; they are simply pre-electoral posturing, since Mugabe reasons that by occupying farms he can insert a wedge between farmers and their workers and undermine the efforts of the opposition parties to recruit these two elements to their cause

  Of course, effective land reform takes time as well as money. Because Mugabe has never previously given it the support it requires, and has nothing to show yet from the '98 agreement, he is now making desperate efforts to bolster ZANU's election fortunes by supporting the chaotic farm seizures initiated by so-called "war vets" in the past 3 months. He has had to do this because disaffection over his government's failures is so deep, even in rural areas, that he risks a substantial defeat at the polls. And as everyone in Zimbabwe now realises, these recent seizures were never really about land at all; they are simply pre-electoral posturing, since Mugabe reasons that by occupying farms he can insert a wedge between farmers and their workers and undermine the efforts of the opposition parties to recruit these two elements to their cause. Even more cynically, he has used the mayhem created by the seizures to unleash a truly vicious pogrom on rural and peri-urban areas of the countries generally, hoping to intimidate the populace to the point where they will vote for him, or at least not vote for the opposition.
  Could this have been avoided if Britain, or other donors, were more sympathetic and supportive from the start? It might well be that spending lots of money on resettlement in the 1980s could have produced an economy based on small-scale commercial (black) farmers, but it is unlikely this would have resulted in sufficient economic growth to support the government's other programs (expansion of black education, improved medical services), and it would certainly not have produced a more diversified economy. Mugabe seems to have realized this early on, having looked at the disasters which resulted from the loss of white farmers and industrialists in nearby Zambia and Mozambique in the '60s and '70s, and that is why he took a conciliatory stance at Independence: not because he really wanted whites to become part of his country, but because he cynically needed their inputs to the economy to support his social reform programs.
 

For Mugabe, the continued presence and success of whites has been a constant thorn in his side, and his conciliatory gestures are increasingly rare, while his electoral rhetoric is always explicitly racist and derogatory

  It is indeed interesting that Kenya succeeded in keeping some of the white population intact, and integrated them more effectively into its economy, but I do not believe they did this through deliberate policy, so much as through an absence of negative policy. For whatever reasons, Kenyan leaders have maintained their conciliatory stance towards white participation whereas for Mugabe, the continued presence and success of whites has been a constant thorn in his side, and his conciliatory gestures are increasingly rare, while his electoral rhetoric is always explicitly racist and derogatory. He periodically reverts to a statesmanlike posture, as he did after losing the referendum, but everyone here knows this will be short-lived, and that his ultimate aim is to rid the country of whites, and indeed of opposition of any kind. He is no democrat, and it is now apparent that his only real sympathies lie with his own party and those who have benefited directly from his patronage; people who through supporting ZANU have become increasingly affluent, not in the service of the masses, but at their expense.
  Luckily, we are now seeing that ordinary Zimbabweans, who have always struck me as incredibly trusting and reserved in the face of often dreadful adversity, do have a threshold of pain, and that this has been reached in the past few years. They know who has caused their problems, and they do not blame the Brits, or for that matter, Margaret Thatcher. And they will do their best, in the face of incredible violence and threats to their livelihood and to their lives, to rid the country of Mugabe and his ilk forever. If they fail this time, because of orchestrated intimidation, they will succeed before much longer. There is still some hope (albeit fading fast) that Zimbabwe will prove to be the only African country which has rid itself of a dictator before its economy is shattered beyond repair...

Geoff Stiles is a Canadian who lives in Harare, Zimbabwe.

Clyde Sanger responds:   Geoff Stiles has written a detailed and obviously well-informed account of the present situation in Zimbabwe and the events leading up to it. There is really nothing in this account with which I would disagree. I said some of the same things in my article. However, the different point I was making in my 'Lament for Zimbabwe' was that a big opportunity was lost during the 1980s for orderly resettlement because Margaret Thatcher placed stringent conditions on financing the purchase and resettlement of white-owned land. Obviously she is not responsible for all the crazy moves Robeert Mugabe has made from, say, 1990.   Geoff Stiles concedes that well-financed resettlement in the 1980s "could have produced an economy based on small-scale commercial (black) farmers" but he goes on to doubt that this could have supported the expanded programs of black education and improved medical services or made for "a more diversified economy". At the same time, he approves (as I did) the tactics followed in Kenya in "keeping some of the white population intact" and a generally conciliatory attitude towards whites. We are into a field of speculation here. Who's to say that an orderly resettlement scheme during the 1980s would not have produced the same result as in Kenya: leaving many white farmers on their land (while others were bought out) and building true reconciliation? Stiles argues that "for Mugabe the continued presence and success of whites has been a constant thorn in his side". I call that hindsight. When I was working there in 1982 there were no overt signs of racial animosity.   He calls my view "simplistic". Well, we have both left out other factors. The Mugabe-led forces were still fighting Ian Smith's men right up to 1979, whereas the Mau Mau insurgency in Kenya ended seven years before independence there - more time for cooling off. The Rhodesian or Zimbabwean economy was in an artificial state in 1980 after 15 years of sanctions, and needed a complete overhaul. And so on. Mugabe spent funds - rightly - in resuscitating the rural areas where the war had devastated schools and clinics. Eventually Britain came through with more money than promised in 1979 for land reform, but the opportunity for a cooperative effort was by then lost. Oddly, the countries that seem to be coming to the rescue now with funds for resettlement are South Africa as the broker, and Norway and Saudi Arabia as the donors through the United Nations Development Programme. Let's hope that Zimbabwe and all Geoff Stiles' friends see better days soon. Clyde Sanger

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