ZIMBABWE
The driving force behind land seizures
By Monica Moorehead
On Aug. 15, the Zimbabwean government, led by President
Robert Mugabe, began the process of physically expropriating
the land from white farmers who had defied the timetable given
them to abandon their farms.
The Western capitalist press reported that as of Aug. 18,
over 130 white farmers had been arrested for refusing to
relinquish the lands to war veterans. These veterans are Black
Zimbabweans who fought a national liberation struggle against
Ian Smith's white racist regime.
Smith ruled what was then called Rhodesia from 1965-1980. It
was much like the apartheid regime of South Africa. Smith
remains a landowner in Zimbabwe while the masses remain
landless.
The Lancaster House agreement the liberation forces of the
Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) and the Zimbabwe African
Peoples Union (ZAPU) signed with the Smith regime in 1980 fell
far short of winning total liberation for the masses. In
essence, the agreement helped the white farmers and corporate
interests to maintain economic control of Zimbabwe, while
former members of the liberation forces took over the
administrative reins and ran the country politically.
In the 19th century, Zimbabwe was made a colonial possession
by the racist colonizer, Cecil Rhodes, on behalf of the then
British Empire, which named the nation after Rhodes for this
conquest. For many generations to the present day, the
Zimbabwean people along with the rest of the African continent
have been brutally robbed of land, resources, cultural and
economic development and subjected to slave labor under
colonialism and neo-colonialism.
The capitalist press has characterized Mugabe in the most
horrible racist way, calling him a dictator and a tyrant. But
what is really behind this demonization? It is a cover-up for
the main crime against humanity.
Poverty: Who's to blame
What is the relationship of these land seizures to the
deepening impoverishment of the Zimbabwean people?
The Zimbabwean economy is based mainly on agriculture, like
most of Africa, due to colonial underdevelopment. Before the
recent land seizures, 4,500 white commercial farmers controlled
at least 70 percent of the most arable lands. Most Zimbabweans
were reduced to being peons or tenants in relationship to the
land. Others exist in barren, Bantustan-type conditions.
Black Zimbabweans do not hold the reins of the real
power--they neither own the major means of production nor
control how the economy is run. The Zimbabwean people are
dispossessed not only of their lands but of the economy as a
whole.
Baffour Ankomah spent two weeks in Zimbabwe after the recent
reelection of Mugabe. In his special report called, "Zimbabwe:
Life after the election," in the May edition of the New African
publication, he makes this point on the economy: Black
Zimbabweans control just 4 percent of the economy while the
white farmers control 30 percent and the British-dominated
transnational corporations control 66 percent of the
economy.
That means that 96 percent of the economy is out of control
of the Black Zimbabweans people.
The life of Black workers on these white farms is very
similar to a slave plantation in the old U.S. South. The New
African report states that on one farm in the northern part of
the country, Black workers are forced to work 13-hour days for
Z$1, 500 per month. The Zim dollar amounts to Z$55 to the US$1
on paper but in reality, on the informal market, the Z dollar
is really Z$300 to the US$1. So in U.S. dollars this amounts to
an astounding $5 for these Black workers, not per week but per
month!
Ankomah quoted a number of Black workers who described this
super-exploitation: "If you are employed on January 1, you get
your first pay check on February 15, and the cycle goes on. At
the end of the year, it adds up to three months lost pay. And
we never get paid our full salary, never; because by the end of
the month, we already owe the boss money that he takes out of
our salaries before paying us."
The highest paid farm worker in Zimbabwe reportedly makes
Z$3,000, or US$10 per month. Urban Zimbabweans are relegated to
being servants for corporate management.
Food Production
The land question ultimately leads to the issue of food
production. Zimbabwe is in the throes of a horrible famine
brought by a long period of drought. Pro-imperialist critics
have accused Mugabe of wielding food policies as a "political
weapon."
Some of the big-business press and Western imperialist
apologists state that yes, war veterans should have the land,
but white farmers are needed because they have the expertise to
grow food to turn around the famine. This is not only a racist
insult to justify these white-owned farms, but a lie to
boot.
These racist farmers couldn't care less about the plight of
six million starving, malnourished Zimbabweans. These farmers
are tied to the worldwide capitalist market, meaning that they
are driven to sell their harvest to the agribusiness market to
make the most profits.
It has been documented that these white farmers have
destroyed maize, the main staple crop of the country, for
political reasons or have turned this crop into animal feed
rather than provide it for human consumption.
George Monbiot, in his article "Our Racist Demonology" that
appeared in the Guardian (UK) on Aug. 13, states that 70
percent of the maize crop is not grown by white farmers but by
Black peasant farmers, who are desperately trying to feed their
families. In reality, a majority of the white farms grow
tobacco and not food for the population.
In the aftermath of the national liberation struggle,
Zimbabwe was able to produce enough food to feed its
population. Today, as a victim of the globalization of
capitalism, it is forced to rely onfood aid. Meanwhile, the
Inter na tional Monetary Fund forces the government to use
money that used to go for education, health care and other
social services to pay the foreign debt.
It is no wonder these war veterans have decided to take
matters in their own hands to reclaim the farm land that should
be theirs by birthright. By expropriating the land, these
former colonized masses are carrying out their own form of
Reconstruction or reparations that is long overdue. What is
going on in Zimbabwe today is really another stage in the
ongoing revolution for winning democratic rights.
Reprinted from the Aug. 29, 2002, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyrighted
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