The Haphazard Land Reform

June 11, 2007.

THE HAPHAZARD LAND REFORM

The question of land redistribution has remained a burning issue ever since the occupation of the country by the British South Africa Company. This private company was owned by Cecil John Rhodes, who was then Prime Minister of the Cape Colony after entering parliament in 1881. In an effort to fulfil his dream of British domination of the whole southern Africa, he persuaded Britain to annex Bechuanaland (now Botswana), occupied what was Mashonaland (now Zimbabwe) and the vast land north of the Zambezi River and named it Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia).

All these escapades entailed grabbing land and parcelling it out to private individuals and companies in a corrupt way. Even British soldiers who had fought during the First World War and later the Second World War were rewarded with large chunks of land for their services to the British Empire. Ironically, this policy of grabbing and awarding land, for services rendered, was to be continued by Zimbabwe's ruling Zimbabwe African National Union (Patriotic Front) after independence in 1980.

A major feature of the government's socio-economic programme since independence had been land resettlement. Under the terms of the Lancaster House Agreement, this required the purchase of land on a willing seller/willing buyer basis. Despite initial plans to resettle 162,000 families in three years, a ministerial statement in 1988 admitted that only 40,000 families had been resettled since independence. Promises of accelerated land redistribution were a feature of the 1990 and 1995 ZANU (PF) election manifestos. It is known that Britain gave more than £47 million for land reform in the period 1980-96 but few of the farms acquired found their way to the deserving poor. Most ended up in the hands of Mugabe's cronies.

In 1994, it emerged that acquired land-leases for large state-owned farms was being given to "political fat cats" instead of the deserving landless peasants. The government's decision to cancel land-leases for large state-owned farms given to ninety-eight ZANU (PF) cronies was a reaction to local and external pressure for accountability in the land redistribution. Parliamentary pressure resulted in publication of the full list of 345 white and black tenant farmers involved in the programme.

Between 1983 and 1997, villagers from Mutasa, Chihwiti, Mhondoro and Nyamatsitu communal lands repeatedly invaded properties that the state had leased to white commercial farmers. In each instance, the government evicted these landless villagers by force. In June 1998, the Svosve people of the Marondera and Wedza districts undertook a series of illegal farm occupations. Earlier in October 1996, the land issue came to a head when a group of 200 land hungry peasants invaded an idle state farm adjacent to the Matobo Research Station in Matabeleland in defiance of the government. The unilateral action by otherwise law abiding citizens was an illustration of the growing impatience among thousands of landless Zimbabweans over the implementation of the nation-wide land redistribution programme to correct pre-independence imbalances.

By taking the law into their own hands and resettling themselves haphazardly, the peasants were making a political statement on how the government had failed to meet their hunger for land. Their anger was increasingly diverting from the colonial legacy to senior government and party officials whom they accused of benefiting from the farms acquired by the State for resettlement purposes. In early 1996, Matobo district was hit by a scandal in which some of the twenty-two farms meant for resettlement were leased to local political heavyweights.

In late February 2000, ZANU (PF) recruited the "war veterans" (many of whom were too young to have participated in the liberation war) to occupy white-owned farms. Suddenly, the implementation of land reform became urgent. Mugabe went for the white farmers - the very people who had feted his party and helped build its Harare party headquarters. It is quite clear that this urgency was artificially created by the ruling party. It had shelved an important national agenda for over two decades. The spontaneous land invasions by the Mutasa, Matobo and Svosve people in 1983, 1996 and 1998, respectively, were a stark revelation, but instead of seizing on the initiative of these people, the government's reaction was to crush the revolt.

Thus, the 2000 land invasions can be seen as a ploy to regain support after the humiliating defeat in the constitutional referendum and before the general election due later that year. It was not meant to redistribute the occupied farms to those in need of land. This is supported by the Ministry of State for the Land Reform Programme which issued a land audit in January 2003, highlighting the systematic looting of prime farms by senior government officials that include army generals and lieutenants, police commissioners and their immediate subordinates, judges and magistrates and other ZANU (PF) business associates. Even President Mugabe himself ordered top officials with multiple farms to surrender them within a fortnight.

Mugabe was reacting to a report by the Presidential Land Review Committee, led by Charles Utete, the former Cabinet Secretary. Without mentioning any names, the committee accused top ruling party officials of being "proud owners of several farms." Politicians had acquired several farms and registered them in the names of their children, mothers, sisters, and brothers.

The number of land assessment committees appointed to audit land distribution reveals that the government was making an effort to try to clean up the mess caused by the haphazard seizure of formerly white-owned commercial farmland. Between January 2003 and December 2005, the ZANU (PF) government had initiated ten land redistribution audits. By taking a scythe to illegal multiple-farm ownership, the government was trying to shore up the credibility of the controversial land reform and endear itself to a sceptical public that has long dismissed the reform as a sham.

The ZANU (PF) government deliberately creates chaotic scenes in the name of indigenisation and empowerment. State apparatus are then mobilised to clean up the mess in an exercise meant to portray the government as working for the betterment of the country. There was the looting of productive farms like Kondozi in Manicaland at the height of the land reform programme.

The government took over productive and profitable farms within the Export Processing Zones. In April 2004, the government forcibly ejected the owners of Kondozi Farm in Odzi, Manicaland and installed the Agricultural Rural Development Authority to run the horticultural concern. Prior to Arda invasion, Kondozi Farm earned about US$15 million annually in horticultural exports and employed 4,500 workers. Arda and the Zimbabwe National Army also moved into Charleswood Estate in Chimanimani, owned by former MDC MP for the area, Roy Bennett. Bennett had five High Court orders barring the government from acquiring his farm, a major exporter of coffee. In August 2004, Charleswood farm was said to be a shadow of it's former self. There was no production taking place and ARDA had also stolen and moved over 650 head of cattle. There was no food for the farm workers who were forced to work for ARDA and to make matters worse, they had not been paid since June of that year.

Agricultural analysts have blamed the failure to revive the project to massive looting of equipment and mismanagement. Five ministers were fingered in the looting of Kondozi farm equipment, hampering its efforts to fully utilise the land. The violent seizure of Kondozi farm by ZANU (PF) through Arda and the closure of the horticultural concern adversely affected the company's financiers, Barclays-Fincor, Zimbank-Syfrets, and the African Banking Corporation which together had invested about Z$37 billion in the project.

Arda also took over Surrey Estate in Bromely. The estate runs arguably the country's biggest abattoir, Surrey Abattoir. Arda also moved into Foyle Farm, which has state-of-the-art dairy production facilities and irrigation equipment in the Mazowe area. Kent Estate, a prime farming concern was occupied. It produced 1.2 million chickens a year, bred 1,000 head of beef cattle and grew roses and flowers, which Ariston Holdings exported to the EU. Through Arda, the government has taken steps to expropriate virtually all private farmland. In stark contrast to the efficiently run farms the government is acquiring, Arda's debt runs into billions of dollars due to inefficiency and poor capitalisation.

The trend shows that political heavy weights invade farms and vandalise projects that earn the country foreign currency. Even farms protected under Bilateral Investment Promotion and Protection Agreements (BIPPAs) are being taken over with impunity. Several countries among them Austria, France, Germany, Malaysia, Mauritius, Holland, South Africa and Sweden signed investment protection agreements with Zimbabwe before the land reform programme began in 2000.

Meanwhile, a number of small, medium and large commercial farms given to black farmers under Zimbabwe's fast-track land redistribution programme were lying fallow. Entire farms appear neglected, with grass growing in fields that were once filled with crops. Farming infrastructure is derelict, suggesting that it had been vandalised. In February 2005, President Mugabe complained of what he called "cell phone farmers" at a graduation ceremony of the Open University in Harare. In his address he said, "cell phone farmers have turned the farms they got from government into weekend braai (barbecue) resorts while the nation starves." He said the honeymoon for such landowners was over. The trouble, as usual, is that there is more bark than bite in the president's threats. Hundreds of recalcitrant multiple farm owners are still using them as "weekend braai resorts" because they know nothing will be done. There was irony in that the president made these remarks while being conferred with an honorary doctoral degree in agriculture, when there is nothing to show for it.

There is the question of continued disruptions of farming activities by people claiming to have been issued with new offer letters to occupy farms already under productive use. There have also been reports of some communal farmers being compulsorily removed after having been resettled, ostensibly to make way for top government officials, some of whom have been confirmed as owning more than one farm.

Seven years after the war veterans killed at least twelve white farmers and hundreds of their black workers, the land reform programme has not produced the "dream harvests" that were predicted by its proponents. Instead, there is chaos: corruption in the ownership of farms, some of it featuring some of Mugabe's closest political allies. The new farmers are unable to raise bank loans because their properties are formally owned by the government and they have no individual title deeds. Without loans, they cannot buy seed, fertiliser or farming equipment and the regime has broken a pledge to supply them with tools. Some farmers have resorted to using horse-drawn ploughs. Many have given up trying to produce anything at all.

The land reforms knocked down food production by 60% resulting in a quarter of Zimbabwe's population of 12 million depending on food handouts from international food relief agencies. In a report issued on June 5 2007, the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the UN World Food Programme (WFP) say four million people are in need of food assistance. An estimated 352,000 tonnes of cereals and 90,000 tonnes of other food assistance will be required to meet their basic food needs, according to the Crop and Food Supply Assessment Mission report based on the joint mission to the country from 25 April to 18 May.

Harare, however, denies its haphazard land redistribution exercise caused hunger and instead puts the blame on poor weather and a crippling economic crisis responsible for shortages of seed and fertilizers for farmers to produce enough food.

As if the disruption of the farming sector was not enough, a small coterie around Mugabe plan to help themselves to a stake in the mines, banks and other businesses without even paying a cent. Companies at the top of the list are London-listed mining groups such as Rio Tinto and Anglo American and banks such as Standard Chartered and Barclays. They are demanding 51% shareholding under the camouflage of economic empowerment. This is going to be as damaging as the land seizures.

In a move which has all the hallmarks of corruption an nepotism, (just like in the land redistribution exercise) it is widely believed that the new black shareholders would have to be closely linked to Mugabe's ruling ZANU (PF). The seizure of majority shareholdings in mines and businesses would result in the increase of inefficiency, mismanagement and corruption. Economists warn that this would severely damage Zimbabwe's already battered economy which is already suffering from 3,713.9% inflation; the world's highest.

The ZANU (PF) government should realise that besides skills and experience, the white commercial farmers were able to carry out viable business on the farms because they had title to the land. The availability of title meant that they were able to participate in the financial markets as commercial businesses, thereby benefiting from the instruments designed specifically to meet their needs. This falls away with the nationalisation of land brought about by amendment of the constitution (Amendment 17 of 2005). This effectively wipes out the economic value of land in the markets.

There are precedents for land-nationalisation schemes like Mugabe's. In 1932-33, the Soviet Union forcibly collectivised its agricultural sector; seven million died from starvation in Ukraine alone. From 1958-62, China's farmers were forced into the Great Leap Forward that left an estimated thirty million dead from starvation. The disaster that followed nationalisation of land in Tanzania (ujamaa) under Julius Mwalimu Nyerere is well documented.

The case for urgent land reform cannot be disputed and with it the case for an orderly exercise that gives land to deserving blacks who will use it to create wealth for themselves and the rest of the nation. It is not every black person who wants or deserves a piece of land just as it is not every white person who is a good farmer. Nigeria, Malawi, Mozambique, Uganda and Zambia appreciate the skills that Zimbabwe has on her commercial farms, hence their offer of land at a time when the Zimbabwe government was doing everything possible to incite anarchy in this sector.

Many industries either supplied products to farmers, or depended on farmers for industrial inputs. Commercial farmers also benefited from sectors such as building and engineering, banking, insurance, transport and communications and legal services. Commercial farmers were also major customers of coal, fuel and electricity. The agricultural sector used to generate 40% of the country's total exports and the revenue was used to fund the importation of basic goods and services for commercial, industrial and domestic use. This decline in agricultural exports significantly explains the foreign currency shortages in the country today.

The haphazard land reform has eroded investor confidence, particularly through the manner in which constitutionally guaranteed private property rights have been openly violated. As such, the much sought after foreign direct investment (FDI) has almost dried, investors having become sceptical to invest in the country's insecure environment. Multilateral and bilateral lenders have withheld balance-of-payments support, and foreign credit lines have been lost by both the private and public sectors further reducing foreign exchange receipts and export capacity.

What many Zimbabweans expected was that once the war of liberation was won ordinary people were anxious to develop the country to its full potential, namely self-sufficiency in food, availability of jobs, roads, hospitals, clinics, schools, universities, technical colleges, houses, a free press and democracy. Most of these aspirations have not been achieved. Otherwise ZANU (PF) would not have lost 57 parliamentary seats, to the Movement for Democratic Change, hardly nine months old, in the June 2000 elections.

What once was the breadbasket of Southern Africa cannot now feed itself. The country has virtually turned from a bread basket to a begging bowl. Over the last seven years the country's economy has imploded, shrinking by more than 50%, and giving it the distinction of being the world's fastest declining economy outside a war zone.

The politics of the liberation struggle can be remembered with fondness, but in the 21st century of today, twenty-seven years after Zimbabwe's independence, the people of Zimbabwe are more concerned about their living standards - just as those of every other country in Southern Africa and Africa at large. The only heroes recognised now are those who can ensure their people don't die of hunger, curable diseases and their own soldiers' guns - not those who love to dwell on the glorious past.