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Edited on Mon Sep-26-05 09:41 PM by I_am_Spartacus
isn't so bad. Or, at least it isn't bad for the reasons you imply. Mugabe didn't murder anyone, and the land they seized had been promissed by the british years ago in the Lancaster Agreement. The European owners (who used it to harvest crops which were sold in european supermarkets and drug stores -- tobacco was the number one export) didn't return very much of the money they made to Zimbabwe. There was a long drawn-out legal process which Mugabe stopped putting on hold in 98 or 99. The European owners were finally held to their promise. For some background, here's a good interview: http://www.swans.com/library/art9/ankomah7.htmlBaffour: So Ian Smith carried on...
Mugabe:...So Ian Smith carried on.
{snip}
Baffour: He says in that book that his regime was winning the war against the terrorists, he still calls you terrorists...
Mugabe: Yes, to him we are terrorists, we will remain terrorists unto death.
{snip}
Baffour: Finally, Lancaster House, 1979. And the vexed question of the land came up. Tell us what exactly happened. Why didn't you demand that the British promises be written down? I have seen BBC interviewers telling your high commissioner in London: "Show us the paper on which the promises were written."
Mugabe: Well, this is what people who do not live by promises, dishonest guys, do. When we discussed the land issue, the British and those who participated in the talks would know that we were deadlocked on that issue. And the British government was insisting that we accept the full burden of paying compensation to the farmers should we get their land. This is over and above our observation of the principle of willing buyer, willing seller.
We said no. We would not accept the burden of paying the full price for the land unless Britain gave us full funds. The British then said they would give us some funds but the funds may not be adequate.
And we said we could never ever tax our poor people in order to get the funds to buy their land back. It was never paid for in the first place. Those who seized it from them, from our ancestors, never paid for it, they never paid our ancestors.
So we were deadlocked, and there is evidence that the American ambassador in London invited us to discuss it in Sonny Raphael's house . It was Sonny Raphael who extended the invitation to us, saying the American ambassador would want to meet us. "He is proposing something in order to break the deadlock," Raphael said.
So we met the American ambassador over dinner, and there were just the four of us. What was it that he was proposing?
He said: "I notice that you've made headway on various issues and you are now deadlocked over this issue of land. America is prepared to assist by giving funds, making funds available, in quite a generous way. Those funds plus what the British are going to give, will enable you to purchase most of the land that you require. In addition to that, Britain and ourselves are going to appeal to other donors to mobilise more funds."
But he added: "We would not want the funds to be known as funds for compensating the British nationals. Just imagine what the American national would think, funds coming from his pocket going into the pocket of the British nationals. So we will give you the funds under the general rubric of the land reform. How ever you use the funds is your own affair. But we would say the funds had been given for land reform. You can use it for compensating the farmer, in that process that is up to you, but we would deny that it had been given for that purpose." That is America. And we said, well, we would respect that.
{snip}
... goodness me, always tight-fisted. "For every pound we give you," they said, "you must have an equal amount in Zimbabwe dollars." At that time, of course, our dollar was 10 cents higher than the American dollar in value. So we had to give 1.4 or 1.5 of our dollars for every British pound for a start.
And this is how they gave it: If we wanted £10m, we had to find £10m on our side to match it, and Bernard Chidzero was the finance minister and we objected to this in the strongest way. We said: "Well, we haven't got those funds. And this was not the understanding at Lancaster."
So you can see how the British tried, even the £44m they eventually gave, they gave it reluctantly.
Anyway, it was the Thatcher government, and when they had given £40m they wanted to stop, and we said no, we haven't finished the land reform programme, and they said we can give you another £4m. That was the maximum that they made available.
{snip}
Baffour: They stopped funding the land reform because they say you gave the land to your cronies.
Mugabe: There were no cronies, no cronies got any land. Those who acquired any land from amongst the ministers, and we had of course a leadership code which also prevented anyone acquiring the land, we were following our socialist principles at the time, but even after we had modified our ideology, very few people in government acquired the land, and they bought it. Those who wanted the farms bought their farms.
The giving of land to cronies is a theory propounded by Blair in recent times, he is the one who has been talking about cronies.
But who are cronies and who are not cronies - members of the party? And we've lots and lots of people, we've got support across the country, and should they be denied land anyway? They are part of the population. Of course we didn't go out and say our so-called cronies would get this farm or that farm. We never did that. They are lies that you get from No.10 Downing Street these days - they never know the truth there.
More worthwhile reading: http://www.swans.com/library/subjects/africa.html |
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