ANOTHER MURDER IN A LAWLESS SOCIETY.

 

Zimbabwe as Rhodesia and in the early years of independence used to export food grown by a successful commercial farming industry. The country used to be called the Jewel of Africa as well as the Breadbasket of Africa. Alas no more and it will take years to recover if it ever does.

 

The land reform programme has devestated the farming industry, malnutrition amongst the peasants is rife. Farmers who had been on the land since the country was colonised were thrown off their land without compensation. The argument is that the land was stolen from the black population. In the majority of cases this was not so. The small black population practiced subsistance farming growing enough to feed their extended family. Others were nomadic tribesmen. The major land areas were virgin bush teeming with wildlife. The locals neither desired nor had the means to create large farms.

Many farmers were war heroes from the second world war who were given the oportunity to buy land from a grateful British government. There were even white farmers who bought their land from a Zimbabwe government and felt totally secure because of that.

Then came the troubles. Mugabe is blatantly anti-white and he used the land problem to get rid of those, black and white, who opposed him.  Other African countries have welcomed the former Rhodesian farmers with open arms. Mozambique, Nigeria and Zambia in particular. These countries are now reaping the benefit. This assists their balance of payments as well as feeding their expanding populations. A delighted Zambian Minister of Agriculture recently announced that they have a surplus of food for the first time in decades and that one white farmer grossed over $400,000  in one year.

Meanwhile farmers in Namibia formerly South West Africa and South Africa are beginning to feel the heat as talk of farm takeovers to distribute to landless blacks surface.

Has Zimbabwe learned a lesson from this. The short answer is no. This week one of the few remaining white farmers, 66 year old, Kenyan passport holder and Norwegian national, Ole Sunde, was murdered on his farm in Banket. The absolute cause of death cannot be established as Zimbabwe no longer has a pathologist.

So the former terrorists who staged the farm invasions and evictions along with their teenage henchmen known as the Green Bombers have struck again.

What is ironic (but then this is Africa) is that many of the landless peasants who were placed on the white owned farms have themselves been evicted to live alongside the displaced former workers who were kicked off their bosses farms. Many now live on grass verges next to the roads. Those high in government circles have themselves taken over the farms despite a law stating no one can own more than one. Army Officers, the Judiciary, Bank Managers and MP's are the new land owners.