DATE=5/5/2000
TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT
TITLE=ZIMBABWE / ISSUES (L ONLY))
NUMBER=2-262041
BYLINE=JOE DE CAPUA
DATELINE=WASHINGTON
CONTENT=
VOICED AT:
INTRO: The head of an organization promoting
democratic reform in Africa says the farmland
controversy in Zimbabwe is preventing larger, more
fundamental issues from being addressed. Joe De Capua
has the report.
TEXT: Over the last few months, the occupation of
white-owned farms by Zimbabwe's war veterans has
received a lot of media attention - especially since a
number of white farmers and farm workers were killed.
(OPT) The veterans say they want the land promised
them many years ago for their role in the struggle for
independence. (END OPT)
But R-W Johnson - director of the Helen Suzman
Foundation of South Africa - says a survey taken
earlier this year in Zimbabwe showed land reform was
not the top concern of most citizens in the country.
/// 1ST JOHNSON ACT ///
The major findings were that 63 percent of
everybody said it was time for a change. And
that they did not want the current government to
go on. In terms of do you want President Mugabe
to resign 65 percent said yes. So, over and
over again we came up with a finding of close to
two-thirds clearly opposed to the way things are
now and wanting it fairly radically changed.
/// END ACT ///
Mr. Johnson says land reform came in 5th on the list -
well behind unemployment, rising prices and other
economic issues. He also says anti-white sentiment
was very minor, even among members of the ruling ZANU-
PF Party.
Mr. Johnson says there's plenty of other land, in
addition to that owned by white farmers, that is
available for distribution to Zimbabwe's war veterans.
/// 2ND JOHNSON ACT ///
There's over a million hectares of land lying
vacant that the government has bought with
farmhouses falling and weeds growing in the
field - nobody doing anything with it. If you
want land redistribution, you could start there.
And the government could do it tomorrow if it
wanted to. And it doesn't want to.
/// END ACT ///
He also says the government has refused to respond to
land distribution proposals put forth by the white
farmers union.
/// 3RD JOHNSON ACT ///
So, the truth of the matter is the government
has not tried, in 20 years in office, to do
anything serious about land reform. It has
given out land to its own buddies. I mean
everyone from the attorney general to high court
judges to heads of the secret service, prisons
office, and everyone else has gotten farms off
of which they're rented on hundred year leases
or no rental at all. It's the fat cats who've
got the land. That's all they've been interested
in doing.
/// END ACT ///
Mr. Johnson says land reform is a major symbolic issue
that the Mugabe government is using because it has its
back against the political wall. He says the
government is trying to intimidate those who support
or sympathize with the opposition Movement for
Democratic Change, or M-D-C. Nevertheless, other
African countries are closely watching the land reform
issue to see how Zimbabwe deals with one of the
legacies of colonialism.
/// 4TH JOHNSON ACT ///
I would say that based on what I've seen it has
greater symbolic power in South Africa and
probably in Kenya than it does in Zimbabwe.
/// END ACT ///
R-W Johnson says Zimbabwe could face an economic
catastrophe if land redistribution is handled poorly.
/// 5TH JOHNSON ACT ///
If it's given over to poor people there'll be
subsistence farmers who don't cultivate export
crops. If it goes to the fat cats, which it has
so far - what they'll do is put in white farming
managers and carry on running them as commercial
enterprises in which case they can work (can
succeed). But if they were really given to the
poor, then what would happen is that 40-percent
of Zimbabwe's exports would go - or virtually
all of that I would guess - and the employment
of huge numbers of people would vanish. It would
collapse the economy in short.
/// END ACT ///
Mr. Johnson is head of the Helen Suzman Foundation,
named after the woman who for many years was the lone
voice against apartheid in South Africa's parliament.
(Signed)
NEB/JDC/KL
05-May-2000 14:38 PM EDT (05-May-2000 1838 UTC)
NNNN
Source: Voice of America
.
|
NEWSLETTER
|
|
Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list
|
|
|
