TIME EUROPE
May 1, 2000 VOL. 155 NO. 17
Power to the Mob
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Opinion polls indicate that Zimbabweans' main concern is not land but the disastrous state of the economy and the high level of corruption. The country has so little foreign exchange that it can't pay its fuel or power bills. Inflation has hit 60% and unemployment is around 50%. Outside the country, Mugabe has involved 11,000 Zimbabwean troops in a costly war in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The crisis over land only adds to Zimbabwe's woes. Agriculture accounts for half the country's foreign exchange earnings and two-thirds of its domestic economy. "The situation is a disaster," says John Roberts, chairman of EcoMed, a manufacturing and importing company hit hard by the economic downturn. "Until some normality returns to Zimbabwe the environment is simply not conducive to doing business."
Still, the unresolved issue of land ownership, which has dogged Zimbabwe since before the war of liberation, has provided Mugabe with a powerful and much-needed political weapon. Today about 4,500 commercial farmers, nearly all white, own some 11 million hectares of Zimbabwe's best agricultural land, while some 6 million black Zimbabweans live on 16 million hectares, much of it overfarmed and overcrowded. At independence Britain promised to help finance a land reform program and has to date spent around $70 million on redistribution.
But the former colonial power says much of the redistributed land — bought on a "willing buyer, willing seller" basis — has ended up in the hands of government officials and not the peasants it was intended for. In 1998 donors agreed to a new program of land reform as long as the government, donors and farmers worked together. But the government has yet to appoint a team to run the project. "Working together would prevent Mugabe touring the country as the great revolutionary telling people he had forced the British to hand the land back," says Iden Wetherell, deputy editor at the weekly Independent and a former lecturer in history at the University of Zimbabwe.
Most Zimbabweans agree that a program of orderly land reform is needed. But few back Mugabe's chaotic land grabs. In the past, land redistribution has often failed because poor subsistence farmers were given small plots without training, money for equipment or access to urban markets. At least 400,000 hectares of land taken from commercial farmers lie idle because the government does not have the money to relocate people. "We don't have a tin to fetch water, how can we take over farms?" asks Mary, who sells vegetables and peanuts by the side of the road on the outskirts of Harare. "Where would all the farm workers go? We don't have enough to pay them."
Mugabe insists he is merely righting past wrongs. The ZANU-PF-dominated parliament last month pushed through a constitutional amendment allowing land to be confiscated without compensation, overriding the referendum vote in February. The legislation insists that Britain should compensate farmers because it created the problem. The British government, which lowered the pitch of its rhetoric last week and is trying to engage African leaders to influence Mugabe, says it won't give any more money until the violence ends and an orderly program of land reform is in place. On Friday Mugabe hosted a summit of southern African leaders in Victoria Falls to discuss the war in Congo as well as Zimbabwe's land troubles. The leaders, including South Africa's Thabo Mbeki, urged the international community to back a comprehensive land redistribution scheme.
The Zimbabwean government will soon send a delegation to London to try to untangle the issue. "[Land] is the last colonial question, heavily qualifying our sovereignty," Mugabe said in his Independence Day speech. "We are determined to resolve it, once and for all." Perhaps sensing that events were moving beyond his control, Mugabe met with farmer and war veteran leaders late last week and promised to resolve the crisis, though veterans continued their attacks.
Mugabe's latest retreat to reason from the precipice of anarchy may have come too late, at least for him. When the government canceled 20th anniversary celebrations last week it said the money saved would be used to help flood victims. But Mugabe may have been more worried that turnouts at rallies would be low. "They thought empty seats would look bad," says mechanic Albert, 26, who had turned up at the National Sports Stadium in Harare only to find it locked. Instead of celebrating, vegetable seller Mary stood at her stall digging her knife into her wooden bench. "We are suffering, what is there to celebrate? We may have fought for independence but we are still not independent." The fight, it appears, will continue.
— With reporting by J.F.O. McAllister / London and Ian Mills / Harare
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May 1, 2000
COVER
Zimbabwe in Flames
Robert Mugabe has kept his grip on power by manipulation and intimidation. Now, it's all spinning out of control
Voice of Protest
Despite a ban on radio play of Thomas Mapfumo's latest song hits, detailing the grim state that Zimbabwe is in, his album is a best-seller
Viewpoint
The hired thugs who do Mugabe's bidding are threatening to hold peace a hostage to autocratic power
Web Resources
Links to web resources on Zimbabwe, including country facts, breaking news and land reform issues
TIME TRAIL
Zimbabwe
Twenty years after independence, Zimbabwe is still riven by political and economic turmoil
POLL
Crisis in Zimbabwe
How should the International community respond to the violence in Zimbabwe?
EUROPE
A New Arms Race?
Once consigned to the cold war trash heap, a U.S. national missile defense system — if revived and deployed — could shatter key accords with Moscow and renew the arms race
The End for D'Alema
Italy's first ex-communist Prime Minister is crushed by center-right election gains
Innocent No More
After symbolic bombings in France, Breton nationalists claim a life at a McDonald's outlet
Viewpoint
Going for the throat is Vladimir Putin's style
BUSINESS
Nordic Pace-setter
Finland's Merita-Nordbanken leads the way in Internet and mobile phone banking
A TV Triumph
Broadcasters and producers join the Web and go global
FASHION
The Suit is Dead; Long Live the Suit
Bankers dressing like Internet executives create the biggest threat to the suit in 100 years. Can it survive?
DEPARTMENTS
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World Watch
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