Posted on 05/02/2002 3:56:07 AM PDT by Clive
War veterans in Zimbabwe have demanded that the Indian community surrender a percentage of their commercial property in urban areas. The war veterans have also ordered Indians to stop dealing currency in the black market, bank in local banks and improve conditions for workers.
They claim that Indians have been sabotaging the economy because they had money to buy up property in 1980 when most whites left Zimbabwe. They say Indians are charging too much rent despite benefiting from the liberation struggle.
Zimbabwe is moving ominously close to the disaster that befell Uganda in 1972.
Land reform was necessary in Zimbabwe after 1980 but it has been grossly mishandled.
The few farms that were taken over by the state were parcelled out to ministers and functionaries and have mostly fallen into disrepair.
The wave of land invasions in the last two years has led to urban unemployed hijacking farms that they cannot manage. Agricultural production is collapsing.
Zimbabwe is becoming a permanent food importer after being a food exporter for decades.
Top officials and politicians are also joining the rush to grab the best farms and houses. Recovering European-owned land has become a feeding frenzy.
This new targeting of Asian business proves that it is greed rather than history that is driving the war veterans.
Indians in Zimbabwe are just businessmen. They had nothing to do with colonial land grabbing a century ago.
Seizing Asian property is the road to disaster for Zimbabwe. If the war veterans are allowed to continue, commerce and industry will collapse in Zimbabwe along with the agricultural sector, just as they did in Uganda in 1972.
Yep.
The vortex spinning down into chaos speeds up a little...
Top officials and politicians are also joining the rush to grab the best farms and houses. Recovering European-owned land has become a feeding frenzy...
At the risk of sounding hopelessly naive, but I am puzzled as to the reason behind the land grab by these politicians. Obviously they're not doing it for the agricultural potential, nor for the real estate cash value-- for to whom would they sell the land? Is their goal(s) to carve out little fiefdoms for themselves?
Property grabs by a government are never a good idea, as history has shown. The recent farm land grab which destroyed the farm industry in this nation should have taught them that. However, some people (like our liberals) never abandon failed plans; they just make them bigger. This of course just causes a bigger failure down the road. In the mean time, the peasants, who this was supposed to benefit, starve.
MARK A SITY
http://www.logic101.net/
Haven't you heard? There's nothing wrong with socialism, we just haven't had the right people in charge.
Too, too true.
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