Agrártudomány | Növénytermesztés » Hunger in Politics, Land Reform in Zimbabwe

Source: http://www.doksinet HUNGER AND POLITICS: LAND REFORM IN ZIMBABWE INTRODUCTION About 30 million people are facing hunger in Africa alone. The United Nations, African governments and relief organizations put the number at about 15 million in the Horn of Africa and over 14 in southern Africa and the rest in the Sahel region of West Africa. 1 It is known and accepted that hunger and famine are mainly caused by drought- this is an indisputable fact. However, the correlation between hunger and politics is increasingly becoming more manifest, especially in Africa and the Third World. On the political front, factors which have exercabated the famine situation in Africa include armed conflict, corruption and the mismanagement of the economy. There are also arguments that global trade policies are playing an increasingly leading role in causing hunger in Africa. Food security is threatened by GATT and its protectionist policies. Serious inequalities in world agriculture trade and

Western policies have had a devastating impact on agriculture producers in the South. Zimbabwe is now facing an unprecedented hunger crisis since independence. The country which has normally been a food surplus country has seen a sharp deterioration of its food security. Zimbabwe was a net exporter of maize mainly to neighbouring countries, expect during the drought of 1984, 1992 and 1993. 2 The present hunger crisis in Zimbabwe is due to a combination of factors: erratic rainfalls, a rapidly declining economy and the negative impact of the government’s land reform programme. As a result, today 7,2 million of the 14 million of Zimbabweans do not have enough food. Of this figure, approximately, 5.5 million are facing starvation 3 In Zimbabwe, the issue of hunger cannot be understood outside the land question. The land question has proved to be thorny in Zimbabwe and indeed in other settler-dominated colonies such as Namibia and South Africa. It is a topic of considerable political and

moral debate and contention in the region. Land reform is a central issue in the wider regional political economy and has had a direct effect on addressing poverty, hunger and underdevelopment. In Zimbabwe the issue of land however has been linked to the struggle for democracy and good governance. ZANU-PF’s increasingly eroding legitimacy in the 1990s gave the ruling party a political space to launch a renewed nationalist ideological assault around redistributive demands relating to the land question. 1 Keith Somerville (2002) “Why Famine stalks Africa” BBC Online World Food Programme Report on www.wfporg 3 Ibid 2 1 Source: http://www.doksinet BACKGROUND Historical Basis of Zimbabwe’s Hunger Hunger in Zimbabwe cannot be understood outside colonialism. Colonialism produced a racially skewed land ownership structure where 50% of the best land was owned by the minority white while Africans were expelled from their choice of land and through systematic land segregation

policies, were squashed in reserves, most of them with poor soil quality or located far away from water and the major lines of communication. Major laws relating to land were passed to legalise the racial character of the colonial state. In 1930 the Land Apportionment Act was passed and divided the land into racial blocks, giving Whites the better half of the land. In 1951, the Land Husbandry Act was passed whose intention was to divide the African population into farmers and nonfarmers and those blacks temporary working in the cities or on European farms were deprived of their land rights. The Land Husbandry Act greatly undermined the African economic security in rural areas without creating any alternative means of livelihood. In 1969, the white government passed the Land Tenure Act which increased the proportion of land reserved for white occupation. Thousands of Africans continued to be evicted from white farming areas. In short, all the land laws converted black farmers from

successful and enterprising people growing a surplus of food into impoverished subsistence farmers in overcrowded reserves, practising inefficient agricultural techniques. It is against this background that Zimbabwe gained independence in 1980. Zimbabwe’s Inheritance Zimbabwe gained independence in 1980 after 15 years of internal civil war. Zimbabwe’s political independence was a result of the Lancaster House Constitution signed in London on 17 December 1979. With the signing of the Lancaster House Constitution, a new democratic and multi-racial society emerged in Zimbabwe. A Bill of Rights and an independent judiciary were included in the new constitution. Despite all these changes, continuity with the past was still evident mainly through the disproportionate number of reserved white seats and land compensation clause. The constitution established an unfeasible system of market transfer and did not resolve the nature of colonial responsibility. 4 This prevented the government

from enacting any law that would revoke Section 16 of the Constitution, which deals with “protection from deprivation of property” within the first 10 years of independence. This meant that for 10 years the government could only purchase land against the owner’s wishes if it was “underutilized” or required for a public purpose. Indeed, the new constitution was seen as a liability by the ZANU leader Robert Mugabe as seen in these remarks: 4 International Peace Academy (2002) Democracy and Land Reform in Zimbabwe. Conference organised by the IPA in New York, February 2002. 2 Source: http://www.doksinet Yes, even as I signed the documentI was not a happy man at all. I felt we had been cheated to some extentthat we had agreed to a deal which would to some extent rob us of the victory we had hoped to have achieved in the field. 5 Thus Zimbabwe’s independence was obtained as a consequence of a negotiated settlement rather than a final takeover of power. 6 This fact has

influenced the political and economic outcome of Zimbabwe. LAND IN THE POST-COLONIAL STATE Zimbabwe’s land reform was market-oriented from the beginning. Land reform in post-independent in Zimbabwe can be separated into three main periods: the early 1980s saw the government purchasing land on a “willing buyer, willing seller” basis with co-financing from the British government. Between 19801998, approximately 35 million hectares were redistributed in this manner 7 The government put a lot of effort in land settlement, with the creation of the Ministry of Lands and Resettlement. The mid-1980s to mid-1990s, land reform took a back seat due to government’s preoccupation with economic revival under the Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAPs) and the mid-1990s and onwards saw the politicisation of land reform. 8 Land increasingly became a major political issue tied to the constitutional reform campaigns and the General election. THE POLITICISATION OF LAND In the early 1990s, an

alliance of the labour and students began to openly question the hegemonic one party state advocated by ZANU-PF. Two political parties were formed in this period – ZUM in 1989 and the Forum Party of Zimbabwe (FORUM) in 1993. However, this did not pose a threat to the government as they lost momentum a few years after formation. They were not in existence by the time the 1995 General Elections were held 9. However, it was the formation of the National Constitutional Assembly (NCA) in 1998 that changed the political face of Zimbabwe and made government become even more antagonistic. The NCA was a grouping of a number of civic groups which included human rights organisations, churches, women’s groups, opposition parties, media and labour. Its main objective was to lobby the government and the general public for a broader popular process of constitutional reform. The formation of the NCA saw civil society begin to occupy a meaningful space in the national discourse and public sphere.

Apart from demanding for a new Constitution, the NCA began to question the government’s very legitimacy in the 5 Mandaza, Ibbo and Sachikonye, Lloyd (1991) “The Zimbabwe Debate on the One-Party State and Democracy in Zimbabwe” in Mandaza, 1 & Sachikonye, L (eds.) The One Party State and Democracy: the Zimbabwe Debate. Harare: SAPES Trust P 73 6 Stoneman, Colin (1981) (ed.) Zimbabwe’s Inheritance London: Macmillan Press 7 International Peace Academy (2002) Democracy and Land Reform in Zimbabwe. 8 Rukuni, Mandivamba (2001) The Land Issue as Part of the Zimbabwe Crisis. Paper presented at the “Crisis in Zimbabwe: A Time to Act” Conference held in Harare, August 2001. 9 Makumbe, John and Compagnon, Daniel (2000) Behind The Smokescreen: The Politics of Zimbabwe’s 1995 General Elections. Harare: University of Zimbabwe Publications 3 Source: http://www.doksinet face of increasing economic decline 10. The NCA in collaboration with the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions

(ZCTU) among other alternative groupings propelled the formation of a new political movement, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) in September 1999. The leadership of the new party represented a combination of trade unionist and leaders from the NCA. In late 1999, the MDC began to make inroads into rural areas through trade union and NCA structures. This meant that the rural people, traditional support base of ZANU-PF, began to receive alternative political messages. Faced with a mounting political challenge, the government responded in many ways. As a result of the successful NCA constitutional process, President Mugabe was forced to set up his own constitutional commission on 29 April 1999. After the formation of the MDC, the government launched a deluge of abuse on the opposition, calling them puppets controlled by whites and the western world. It was also at this time that the discourse of land resurfaced in the public sphere. ZANU PF’s campaign slogan during the whole

constitutional debate and thereafter the General elections held in June 2000 was ‘LAND IS THE ECONOMY AND THE ECONOMY IS LAND”. It was thus land that provided the central ideological theme for ZANU-PF and this was employed to garner support and gain legitimacy from the rural populace. The government termed the struggle for land as the Third Chimurenga (The Third Revolution). Anyone who opposed the governments’ view of the land issue was viewed as an enemy and against nationalistic aspirations. The MDC was the target of this diatribe as articulated by the ruling party newspaper: That their ties with ex-Rhodesians and Western powers who have been working against the realisation of our people’s aspirations and goals such as land reform is clear testimony that they are enemies of our revolution. To be more precise, they are puppets of these imperialists who want to re-colonise Zimbabwe” 11 Land Invasions The political face of Zimbabwe changed dramatically in February 2000 when

Zimbabweans went to vote in a referendum for a new constitution. This was the first referendum to be held in independent Zimbabwe. 53% of the population voted “NO” to the government-sponsored constitution. The government blamed the referendum defeat on the minority white community and the Western world. Robert Mugabe said a few weeks after the referendum-“Their mobilizing, actually coercing their labour force on the farms to support the one position opposed to government, has exposed them as not our friends, but enemieswe are full of anger. Our entire community is angry and that is why we now have the war veterans seizing land”. 12 On 26 February 2000, a combination of war veterans, unemployed ZANU-PF youths and other members of the party began a series of violent land occupations throughout the country. Government and army trucks were used to transport these people to the farms. The farm invasions had a devastating 10 Moyo, Sam, Makumbe, John and Raftopolous, Brian (2000)

NGOs, The State and Politics in Zimbabwe. Harare: SAPES Books 11 The People’s Voice, Editorial “MDC agent of imperialist” 19th-25 September 1999. 12 Meredith, Martin (2002) Our Votes, Our Guns: Robert Mugabe and the Tragedy of Zimbabwe. New York: Public Affairs. 4 Source: http://www.doksinet effect on the white commercial sector, the main producer of food in the country. The farm invasions increased as the country was nearing the crucial General Elections in June 2000. Initially, the government told the international world that the land invasions were as a result of land-hungry peasants denied access to land by the white commercial farmers. 13 However, it became quite obvious that the government was using land as its last trump card to win the hearts and minds of voters for the elections. The Police Commissioner, Augustine Chihuri unknowingly confirmed that the land invasions were used for political legitimacy when asked to stop the violent land invasions, he said “It is a

political issuewhat do you expect the police to do?.Talk to the politicians about it” The land discourse increasingly became racialised. The land invasions led to deaths of many supporters of the MDC and some white farmers. The first farmer to be killed was David Stevens, who was also an MDC organizer in Macheke, a small farming community in Mashonaland East. His death was followed by the killing before the General Elections of 35 MDC supporters, including 5 white commercial farmers, human rights violations of approximately18, 000 people. The violations included assaults, property damage, detention, abduction, death threats and displacement from home areas. 14 The “New (Pan) Nationalism” There is no issue in Africa today that has divided the “African progressives” as much as the Zimbabwean crisis. While the international community, led by the United Kingdom condemned the violent land invasions, Robert Mugabe justified it by saying that he was correcting historical imbalances.

He depicted the crisis “as a struggle by Zimbabwe to gain its rightful heritage against a colonial power acting on the behalf of the white community to protect their interest”. 15 He blamed the whites for their refusal to cooperate with the government and attacked them for their “entrenched colonial attitudes” and their “vestigial attitudes from the Rhodesian yesteryears- attitudes of master race, master colour, master owner and master employer”. 16 Britain’s intransigence and overt intervention in Zimbabwe’s affairs did not change Mugabe’s behaviour, but made him even more critical of external intervention and gave him the opportunity to dismiss and attack his critics as agents of imperialism. His arguments somehow struck a positive cord in many hearts of African people. They praised him for standing up to the former colonial masters and giving back land to the black people. The “new nationalism” espoused by Mugabe was reinforced by the support he got from other

African Heads of government and some African-Americans and given immense publicity by such magazines as the New African which is widely distributed all over Africa and the world. Mugabe strengthened his support in southern African region by articulating the land question in Zimbabwe as part of a broader regional and continental struggle against a colonial legacy. 13 Ibid Human Rights NGO Forum (2001) Who was Responsible? Alleged perpetrators and their crimes during the 2000 Parliamentary Election Period. 15 Meredith, Martin (2002) Our Votes, Our Guns: Robert Mugabe and the Tragedy of Zimbabwe. New York: Public Affairs. p171 16 Ibid 175 14 5 Source: http://www.doksinet There is no doubt that Zimbabwe has had diplomatic successes in propagating land and Zimbabwe relations with the former colonial power Britain as the core of the crisis. Mugabe’s attendance at the World Summit for Sustainable Development (WSSD) in September 2002 and his famous speech on 2 September showed that a

dangerous form of pan-africanism and solidarity was emerging on the continent. Dangerous because in Zimbabwe gross human rights abuses have been committed in the name of land reform and many of those killed and tortured were supporters of the opposition- the violence was enacted in the name of anti-colonial land reclamation. Dangerous again because the “pan-africanism” espoused by the ruling party in Zimbabwe is radically racist, reminiscent of the liberation war rhetoric. LAND REFORM IN ZIMBABWE: ROOT CAUSE OF HUNGER? Access to food and basis social security are basic human rights regardless of political affiliation, race, gender and ethnicity. However, in Zimbabwe in the past year, the land reform programme, coupled with economic mismanagement and poor governance have exacerbated the current hunger caused to some extent by the regional drought. This has jeopardized Zimbabwe’s food security The government seizure of almost all productive farms formerly owned by white commercial

farmers has significantly reduced food production in the country. To make matters worse, government is using food as a political weapon. Food is being used to buy support and maize meal, the staple food, is often distributed only to those with membership cards of the ruling party. The denial of food to opposition strongholds has in some cases replaced overt violence as the government’s principle tool of repression. 17 Grain is now milled almost exclusively by ruling party members and shipped to shop owners who are known as party faithfuls. Government has declared a monopoly on food importation, making it difficult for business, church groups and civil society organizations to distribute food freely and openly. Seizures of food by para-state groups, particularly in politically volatile areas, have been widespread. In short, politics in Zimbabwe, via the chaotic land reform, has worsened the hunger situation in the country. THE ROLE OF THE MEDIA The political drama of Zimbabwe was

played prominently on the international media scene. The international media depicted the growing crisis in Zimbabwe as solely a land issue. They depicted the land issue in racial terms and in most cases failed to articulate the Zimbabwean crisis not only as a land issue, but as a crisis of legitimacy and governance. The most vulnerable group in the whole land reform process has been the 1.5 million black farm workers who have been displaced. However, the international media, especially in the UK, concentrated on the plight of hundreds of white farmers forced off their land. The twin issues of race and property rights in Zimbabwe were brought into sharp focus by the 17 International Crisis Group- Zimbabwe silent selective starvation. Statement issued on 29 August 2002 6 Source: http://www.doksinet international media at the expense of the gross human rights violations suffered by the majority black people. At the centre of the land reform programme in Zimbabwe has been a struggle

by a political party to retain power at any cost. The effect of all this is that some sections of the international media have played right into the hands of the government by giving the government the excuse that opposition to the land reform is tied Western interests. Mugabe has successfully portrayed within the region the perception that the opposition MDC, civil society organizations in Zimbabwe and the international media are fronts for championing white minority colonial interests in Zimbabwe. Many people asked why the international media and the Western governments had remained quite and unconcerned when the Mugabe regime killed approximately 10,000 black people and tortured thousands more during the Matebeleland Crisis in the early 1980s and yet the deaths of 5 white farmers in 2000 made headline news and changed the course of international policy towards Zimbabwe. CONCLUSION The land reform in Zimbabwe has provided the best example of the relationship between hunger and

politics. Over and above the regional drought, the land reform in Zimbabwe has been closely intertwined with the precarious food security in the country. Many of the productive farms seized by government are now lying idle, not because of the incompetence of the new black farmers, but because the land reform exercise was not accompanied by allocation of resources to the new farmers such as pesticides, fertilizers, marketing support and credit. The land reform in Zimbabwe was in the main used for political expediency and it is obvious that it was not properly thought out and planned. Government’s often negative economic policies and bad governance have also exacerbated the food insecurity being faced by the country. In an attempt to win the support of the urban voters, government has introduced price controls which have worsened rather than improve the situation. The situation in Zimbabwe should be taken seriously because it has a boomerang effect on the region as has already been

witnessed. Zimbabwean political scientist Brian Raftopoulos aptly describes the situation when he writes that Mugabe has generalized “the struggle for land to a continental level and project it into the broader terrain of global politics in a manner that displaces the inadequacies of ZANU-PF’s state policies over the last twenty years” 18 Although there seems to be a positive shift in some SADC countries regarding Zimbabwe, the situation still remains grave. The perception by African governments that Western and “imperialist” interests are threatening African sovereignty has made them stick together and block vote in favour of Zimbabwe whenever the Zimbabwean situation is on the agenda at Human Rights Commission meetings, the recent meeting in Geneva in April offers as an 18 Raftopolous, Brian (2001) “The Labour Movement and the Emergence of Opposition Politics in Zimbabwe” in Brain Raftopolous and Lloyd Sachikonye (ed) in Striking Back: The Labour Movement and the

Post-Colonial State in Zimbabwe 1980-2000. Harare: Weaver Press, p2 7 Source: http://www.doksinet example. The American and UK war in the Iraq has worsened the situation and the American recent rhetoric of “regime change” will only exacerbate the situation and African governments will close ranks with each other. The polarization between the “South” and the “North” will only increase. It is important that the international media report the Zimbabwe crisis in its proper context. They need to recognize that the problems in Zimbabwe are not restricted to the land issue, but that they reflect the regional challenges of nationalism, globalization and transition to democracy. 8