Distribution - Economics and Ecology: United for a Sustainable World - page 99

scenario because it represents the repetitive, economic competition for
nature's resources based on a sense of moral superiority; economic competi-
tion; and raw, self-centered political power.
Harare, Zimbabwe: “Zimbabwe's government, facing a parliamentary gen-
eral election in June [24-25, 2000], has enacted a new law to allow Robert
Mugabe, the President, to seize up to 841 white-owned farms without paying
compensation for the land.” President Mugabe decreed that, while whites
may live in Zimbabwe, they would never have a voice equal to that of blacks.
“The whites can be citizens in our country, or residents,” said Mugabe
in a campaign speech one week prior to the parliamentary elections, “but
not our cousins.” According to Mugabe, who repeatedly attacked the small,
white minority through vitriolic language, “They are the greatest racists in
the world. Now, the British are saying that they [the blacks] are squatting
on white man's land. Where is black man's land in Europe? Zimbabwe is a
black man's land, and black men will determine who gets it.” He went on to
say that “Our present state of mind is that you [the white farmers] are now
enemies because you really behaved as enemies of Zimbabwe.” The British
had lost Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, as a colony more than 20 years earlier. 1
Mugabe also expressed sympathy with the mobs of blacks who illegally
occupied more than 1,400 white-owned farms, because one-third of the
fertile land was still owned by about 4,000 whites. He called the occupa-
tions a justified and legitimate protest against the unfair legacy of land
distribution left over from the days when Zimbabwe was a British colony.
Violence erupted. Black squatters, who would undoubtedly dub them-
selves “freedom fighters,” rampaged through a farm worker's village, kicking
in doors, smashing windows, and burning down about 30 homes as the dis-
mayed workers watched. Two farmers were killed and at least a half-dozen
beaten. They also beat a white farmer unconscious, fractured his skull, broke
his arms, and left him to die. Chenjerai Hunzvi, the leader of the black squat-
ters, said this latest killing was not worthy of comment.
A snippet in The Wall Street Journal , dated November 13, 2001, stated that:
Zimbabwe banned 1,000 white farmers from cultivating their fields and gave
them three months to vacate [their] properties. The presidential decree means
[that] legal challenges won't halt settlement of black families on the land. 1
Mugabe's opponents contended that his 20-year, authoritarian regime had
resorted to race-baiting and fanning the flames of these simmering grudges
over the distribution of land in order to bolster his flagging political popu-
larity. As a result, the invasions of white farms, combined with the orders
forbidding white farmers to work on their property, had reached the point
by August 2002 that forced the production of grain to be severely cut. In
essence, Mugabe's program of land redistribution, based on the perception
of past inequities, had forged ahead, and six million Zimbabweans, roughly
half of the nation's people, faced potential starvation. 1