BY NORM DIXON
The Zimbabwe government has unexpectedly agreed to prevent further occupations of predominantly white-owned commercial farms, reinstitute a "fair, just and sustainable" land redistribution and to restore the "rule of law". In return, the British government agreed to make "a significant financial contribution" to fund compensation payments for rich farmers.
The September 6 deal was rapidly hammered out by a special Commonwealth committee in Abuja, Nigeria. The committee members came from the governments of Australia, Britain, Canada, Jamaica, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa and Zimbabwe.
Australian, British and Canadian government representatives present also pledged to "respond positively" to requests for assistance in organising coming elections and poverty reduction programs.
According to the deal, the Zimbabwe government must also remove "war veterans" and government supporters who have occupied farms not listed for acquisition, and to "speed up the process" of removing farms from the list that do not meet the criteria for redistribution.
Backdown?
The suddenness of the apparent backdown by President Robert Mugabe and his ruling Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) seemed surprising to many commentators because they have taken Mugabe's claimed commitment to radical land reform at face value.
However, Mugabe's state-sponsored "land invasions" had little to do with resolving Zimbabwe's unjust distribution of land and the legacies of Britain's brutal colonial rule. They began as a desperate ploy to revive fading support for ZANU-PF among the country's millions of land-hungry peasants.
Once the bedrock of ZANU-PF's support, the rural population stayed home en masse during the February 2000 constitutional referendum that would have entrenched Mugabe's authoritarian rule. In the cities, activists associated with the newly formed, trade union-backed Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) convinced the overwhelming majority of working-class voters to reject Mugabe's constitution.
This was ZANU-PF's first significant electoral defeat since independence in 1980.
Mugabe realised that ZANU-PF needed to go beyond empty threats if it was to recapture the support of the peasantry. The signal for pro-government "war veterans" to occupy white-owned properties — accompanied by white-baiting and "anti-imperialist" rhetoric — was given.
Mugabe also needed to neutralise the MDC. Under the cover of the farm occupations, Mugabe's hired thugs — organised and coordinated by the military and police — intimidated, murdered and bashed MDC activists and farm workers suspected of being MDC voters.
Despite such tactics, ZANU-PF barely maintained its majority in the June 2000 general election, taking just 62 seats of the 120 elected parliamentary seats. The MDC won 57 seats (one seat went to a minor party).
Only massive and widespread pre-election violence unleashed by ZANU-PF thugs allowed the ruling party to survive. At least 31 MDC activists were killed between the Mugabe regime's defeat in the referendum and the June election.
With a presidential election due in 2002, Mugabe and ZANU-PF intensified the land occupations, officially dubbing them the "fast-track land resettlement" scheme. The Zimbabwe government has earmarked around 95% of white-owned commercial farms (notably excluding those owned by big Western, mostly British, corporations) for resettlement (around 9.5 million hectares).
At the same time, the violence unleashed against farm workers and the MDC has intensified. ZANU-PF has won a series of rural parliamentary by-elections in this way. Farm occupiers have provided the muscle in most cases.
Around 1700 of the 4600 farms listed for redistribution are presently occupied. However, this can hardly be termed "resettlement" in the true sense of the word.
Led by ZANU-PF activists, or members of the security forces, unemployed youth and homeless people arrive at a farm and violently drive away the farm workers. More often than not they vandalise and loot, rather than develop the property.
The government has not provided the "settlers" with services, equipment, building materials, seeds or fertiliser. They have no money to make improvements. If they remain (many simply drift away) they erect shacks and begin to cultivate small garden plots. The existing crops go unplanted or unharvested.
Shambles
As a result, Zimbabwe's agricultural production has plummetted and export income dried up. The country's economy is in a shambles. Zimbabwe faces a massive shortage of maize, the population's staple food. There may not be enough foreign exchange to import more to ward off famine.
Unemployment is above 60% and inflation is running at 70%. Two-thirds of the population — overwhelmingly in ZANU-PF's rural heartland — ekes out a living on less than US$1 a day.
On September 6, the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions warned of a massive revolt by poverty-stricken Zimbabweans unless the government halts the country's rapid economic decline.
Already threatened with sanctions from the European Union and the United States, the final straw came when his southern African neighbours — most importantly South Africa — demanded that Mugabe defuse the crisis or face the consequences.
The economic fallout from Zimbabwe — falling Western investment, depreciating local currencies and disruption to regional trade — is severely affecting southern Africa. South Africa also fears an refugee exodus from Zimbabwe.
Mugabe realised that unless he backed off and returned to the Western fold, no amount of state violence or election rigging could ensure his re-election if the Zimbabwe economy collapsed completely or the Zimbabwean people's anger exploded into rebellion.
The Commonwealth committee, keen to prevent the dispute between Britain and Zimbabwe disrupting the October Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Brisbane (the agreement specifically refers to "the need to avoid a division ... at the forthcoming CHOGM meeting") offered Mugabe the opportunity to save face.
Mugabe agreed to the deal with Britain for the same reason that he launched his bogus land redistribution — to stave off defeat in the April presidential election. Mugabe can be confident that as long as he sticks to the land deal, the West will overlook a certain amount of state-sponsored violence against the MDC.
Britain has renewed its offer to provide £36 million to help fund compensation for the farms of rich white Zimbabweans.
British foreign secretary Jack Straw said that this money, which was offered as part of an international donors' package last year, is still on the table as long as the program is carried out with "transparency, respect for the law, poverty reduction, affordability and consistency with Zimbabwe's wider economic interests".
While the finer details of the land reform deal remain vague, it is likely the scheme will closely resemble that approved last year by Western donors. That scheme centred on the "willing-buyer, willing-seller" principle with a provision that any compulsory acquisitions must be compensated at market prices. These are the exact measures which have stymied radical land reform throughout Africa.
What has most worried the British government is the chance that Mugabe's attempt to manipulate the land question to his electoral advantage may unleash a genuine land reform movement that was out of ZANU-PF's control.
Such a development could inspire movements outside Zimbabwe and threaten Western economic interests throughout southern and east Africa. There have been calls — most recently in South Africa — for the landless to follow the example of Zimbabwe's "war veterans".
This is something Britain desperately wants to avoid and now Mugabe, true to form, has fallen into line.