Posted on 01/23/2015 5:15:01 PM PST by Altura Ct.
The government of Zimbabwe has pledged to seize the last remaining handful of white-owned farms in the impoverished African country, confident that turning over a few hundred farms to the majority black population will improve its terrible living standards.
Since 2000, President Robert Mugabe and his Zanu-PF party have pursued a series of land reforms that have seized farmland belonging to whites in order to redistribute it to landless blacks. About 4,000 farmers had their lands seized in the first wave, leaving only a few hundred commercial white farmers operating in the country.
Now, that number is poised to drop even further, as ministers vowed to finish the land reforms in areas that were protected from the first wave in order to give land to thousands who still lack it.
The white farmers who are carrying out farming activities on gazetted land will not be tolerated as it is illegal in terms of the laws of the country, Zimbabwe State Minister Joel Biggie Matiza said on Wednesday, according to the Zimbabwean news source News Day. In this province, we were protecting the very people who yesteryear were our erstwhile oppressors.
Similar statements have been made by other members of the government, who have also pledged to dispossess larger landowners in general.
Those with multiple farms, we will take them, the few whites on farms, we will look into that and those with big farms, we will cut to size, promised Zimbabwe Vice President Emerson Mnangagwa last weekend.
Meanwhile, Land and Resettlement Minister Douglas Mombeshora said that whites in land disputes with blacks have only 90 days to leave if they want to avoid trouble with the law. He also said whites will be barred from entering joint contracts that would let them operate farmland (and take most of the earnings) while making payments to black owners.
Joint ventures with white former commercial farmers, we say no to that, said Mombeshora, according to the Zimbabwe newspaper News Day. We have never allowed that.
Zimbabwe, formerly known as Southern Rhodesia, is almost entirely black, but its tiny white minority has historically been very economically influential. Mugabes government argues that land seizures reverse the damage from decades of British colonial rule, but the seizures have also been blamed for the countrys continued economic backwardness, as the new owners have often lacked either the skills or the means needed to maintain output.
Since the land reforms, Zimbabwe has been in a near-constant state of economic distress. Once a major food producer and one of Sub-Saharan Africas wealthier countries, Zimbabwe is now quite poor even by African standards, and has to rely on food imports. Before the country abandoned its own currency entirely, inflation was so severe that the countrys trillion-dollar bills werent worth enough to buy a candy bar.
Mugabe has also used the seizures to enrich his family and other politically connected individuals, often at the expense of the poor blacks the seizures were supposedly supposed to help. Recently, Mugabes wife Grace Mugabe aroused anger for burning the homes of poor farmers in order to take their lands and merge them into a wildlife sanctuary.
I do not understand why someone has not pushed a button on Mugabe and his inner circle. The man is a curse on all who live there
You’re right; prior to seizing the farms the communists beat/chased out the blacks working there, and they’ve lain abandoned since then (hence the need to import food). While this country continues its death spiral, just remember that there were productive, hard-working blacks that paid a price for working on those farms before the takeovers.
I don’t think they need to sabotage anything; they probably haven’t replaced any equipment in years, and there is nodoby to operate & maintain the equipment anyway.
The problem for the farmers is that their foturnes were tied up in those businesses; they are leaving with very little.
Big Al needs a oneway ticket to the Zimbabwe homeland
Bermuda is part of the British Empire, so they don’t really count. I would happily substitute the Bahamas, though; they’ve been independent for decades and while not perfect, it is a place where people go to work every day and it works. It is a far cry from Jamaica...
Trinidad has a large Indian population (which actually causes tension with the black population as they assume increasing control over the economy). In many former British colonies, there is tension between transplanted Indians and other populations; in British East Africa many Indians were expelled as parasites by the new black governments (that is how Freddie Mercury’s family ended up in England - from Zanzibar).
Bermuda is still a British colony anyway.
Sorry, the political transfer of Hong Kong to China in 1997 marked for many the end of the British Empire.
Bermuda is one the fourteen British Overseas Territories (BOT) are territories under the jurisdiction and sovereignty of the United Kingdom; they do not, however, form part of it.[1][2] Instead, they are those parts of the former British Empire that have not chosen independence or have voted to remain British territories. While each has its own internal leadership, most being self-governing, they share the British monarch (Elizabeth II) as head of state.
The poster says, "Away With Kulaks"
Whatever you want to call it, I don’t think they should be considered an independent country run by blacks - they aren’t. By all accounts I’ve heard, it is a great place with nice people; however, they shouldn’t be treated as a black success story. I did substitute a truly independent country (Bahamas) in its place, which compared to many other nearby countries is very much a success.
look for US taxpayer assistance if famine occurs.
“get their families out of the country”
probably will happen here too.....not just farmers though.
Thank you very much - that’s it. I will enjoy reading her material again.... Wonder why she doesn’t leave!
Seems to be the only home she knows.
What a truly racist country.
“Rhodesia was the breadbasket of Africa. Now Zimbabwe has to import food.
How is that racist?”
Its true, all because of racist hate and evy politics of the left as actually implemented in Africa.
we are all goners unless people of our ilk....similar values,beliefs....start sticking together and make OUR voting block as important and as inpenetrable as the Jewish block, the gay block, the black block, etc...
no, not us....we'll fight about the stupidest and pettiest things over candidates..
Not to mention this...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/investigative/2015/01/24/the-american-dream-shatters-in-prince-georges-county/
Lord have mercy, what a piece of marxist tripe that article is! But I spent over an hour with the comments, which were fascinating, especially given the Democrat affiliation of most WaPo commentors: overwhelming in their condemnation of the article's race-baiting and lack of research into the financial and social effects (crime, school behavior) on the problem.
I've long thought she was crazy for not leaving.
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