Zimbabwe to speed up land seizure

[Eugene]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4163700.stm

Last Updated: Thursday, 18 August 2005, 16:01 GMT 17:01 UK

Zimbabwe to speed up land seizure

Zimbabwe's government has tabled a constitutional amendment bill to
speed up the acquisition of white-owned land.

The proposals would nationalise all land and stop appeals to the courts.

<snip>

President Robert Mugabe's party gained the two-thirds parliamentary
majority needed for constitutional change in March's disputed elections.

<snip>

Other proposed constitutional amendments include the creation of an
upper house of parliament, the senate and bringing all schools under
state control.

Authorities would also be able to confiscate passports and impose
travel bans on people thought to pose a risk to state interests.

more...

[Virginian]

1. So who is not allowed to leave the country?

Authorities would also be able to confiscate passports and impose travel bans on people thought to pose a risk to state interests.

Are they talking about the farmers whose homes and livlihoods have been confiscated without compansation? Or are they talking about political opponents? In either case, why keep them in country, why not let them leave and not come back?
Can someone explain the logic behind this?

[classysassy]

5. Compansation

You don't compansate thieves for their ill gotten land.

[NickB79]

6. From your profile I see you live in the US

In the eyes of many Native Americans, you are living on ill-gotten lands stolen from the native peoples. Does that mean that it would be ok in your opinion if Native Americans drove you from your home and any land you own without compensating you?

We're talking about white farmers who have lived in Zimbabwe for generations. They personally did not steal the land, and neither did their parents. Are we going to keep punishing descendants for the sins of their great-grandparents?

[K-W]

7. "Are we going to keep punishing descendants"

That is a bit of a misleading argument. The only reason these people have this land is that they descended from those landowners. It isnt an arbitrary piece of family history, it relates directly to thier claims to land that they have inherited.

You make a good point about Indians. This isnt black and white and we cant turn back the clock, but we can try to create a more equitable present.

I dont know if Mugabe is making anything more equitable, so dont take this as a defense of him. Land reform has been used to abuse people throughout history, more often than it has been used to help unfortunately.

[Igel]

18. Yes, it is at least in part a misleading claim.

Many of them didn't inherit the land; they bought it in the last generation or two.

One would have to argue that although it was bought legally, with valid deeds, Mugabe's declaring the property to be stolen after the fact.

Oddly enough, many of the farmers have gathered what resources they have left and gone for neighboring countries; there they're renting or being allowed to use tracts of unused land, have acquired the minimum necessary equipment, and are doing a better job with their new lands than the veterans-who-fought-as-fetuses are doing. Obviously an imperialist plot, that.

[Canadian_moderate]

8. If you own land and you're not North American Indian

...you better get the hell off yours as well then. ;o)

[SOS]

17. "You don't compensate thieves" - unless the thief pays off Mugabe

"JOHANNESBURG - British property magnate Nicholas van Hoogstraten is on the verge of taking control of Zimbabwe's largest coal mine as well as one of the country's biggest commercial banks.
Thousands of white businessmen have had their properties confiscated over their suspected support for the opposition Movement for Democratic Change. But thanks to Mr van Hoogstraten's close links to the Mugabe regime, the government is not resisting his plans.

Mr van Hoogstraten is one of the few whites whose land was spared because of his links to Mr Mugabe's ruling party which he has previously admitted bankrolling.
His mammoth Central Estates, a vast expanse of land wedged between Mvuma and Lalapanzi in Zimbabwe's Midlands Province, was not seized by the government."

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?l_id=1&ObjectID=10335787

[wli]

2. I wonder when Bushler will start doing this? n/t

[K-W]

3. He doesnt have to, his constituents already own everything. nt

[1932]

11. The question is I wonder when we'll have to do this.

Given the polarization of wealth in the US, you have to start wondering what sorts of dramatic measures our grandchildren are going to have implement in order to get us back to where FDR left us?

A one time wealth tax? Windfall profit taxes on huge corporations? Limitations on ownership of large pieces of real estate?

[wli]

12. it makes sense to do those things

But what Mugabe is doing is not supposed to be anything like that.

[underpants]

4. Mugabe accelerates starvation plan

genius

[barb162]

9. Mugabe has been making a total mess of that country

[1932]

10. In Richard Gott's book about Cuba:

Gott writes that the US was OK with Castro (or at least the CIA Havanna office, which was staffed by liberals, was OK with him -- Eisenhower and Langley, which was staffed by right wingers never liked him that much and then really hated him) when Cuba proposed land reform.

Cuba announced they were going to limit holding to 400 acres and they said they would transfer larger holdings to the people. For the first time after the revolution, the US government criticized Castro because of that proposal. The US was outraged because it would limit the abilit of US companies to accumulate large land holdings. However, Eisenhower didn't tell Americans that was why they objected. Instead, Eisenhower said it was bad for the people of Cuba.

Cuba said that if the US thought land reform was good enough for Japan after WWII, the US shouldn't be so upset about Cuba doing it, especially considering that the US limited Japanese individuals to about 3 or 4 acres each and redistributed a great deal of property away from the ruling families (and ended up creating one of the most healthy, egalitarian and productive economies in the world as a result).

[Anarcho-Socialist]

13. I doubt poor Zimbabwians will get any of this land

It'll go to Mugabe and his cronies as usual. Mugabe has also been selling real-estate to Libya and China in exchange for foreign currency and oil too.

Mugabe, once a hero of the liberation movement has become the corrupt dictator seduced by power.

Maoism didn't work the first time when it was done in China. Although in Zimbabwe, Mugabe has managed to replicate closely the starvation in China resulting from Mao's policies.

[barb162]

14. As I recall Zimbabwe used to have plenty of food and

they also used to export crops to boot.

[Anarcho-Socialist]

16. Yes, it was called "the breadbasket of Africa" at one time n/t

[Virginian]

19. Mugabe is starting to take land away from blacks of opposition party, too.

Power corrupts.

[Pepper32]

15. hmmm....

I guess he's speeding things up to make way for the Chinese colony.

:sarcasm: