We Have Adopted Mugabe's Version of Land Reform , says Morgan Tsvangirai
This was two weeks ago in Zimbabwe and the pic shows Danish dairy farmer Ajs Kirk showing Danish Minister for International Cooperation Ulla Tornaes around his farm. The minister was in Zimbabwe for talks with the government of Morgan Tsvangirai and Robert Mugabe
The desertion of white commercial farmers by the MDC was completed yesterday by the Prime Minister's announcement that "there is a process on land reform we have to follow."
What is clear now is that this process is the process started by ZANU PF, which is what the MDC now say is official government policy and should be followed.
In the last seven days, it has been very clear that this was the direction the Tsvangirai-led government was now adopting.
Mugabe himself was the first to speak, telling the visiting Norwegian development minister last week that there were no farm invasions in Zimbabwe now, but that there were people whose farms have been designated and who are refusing to move off those farms.
The Norwegian minister seemed to accept this.
Then, at the weekend, we got our first sign that the MDC wing of government has also bought this and had now adopted it as the official government position.
Welshman Ncube told the SADC summit in Swaziland that very same story: there are no new farm invasions, just some people whose land has been taken and who are refusing to leave their farms to allow the new owners to move in.
And now this, from Prime Minister Tsvangirai himself. In fact, the Prime Minister signalled just how insignificant the whole issue is to him when he said he had referred the matter to the Joint Monitoring and Implementation Committee (JOMIC), a body set up to arbitrate disputes between the parties to the agreement.
The curious thing is that JOMIC should not be dealing with this issue at all, because it only comes in if there is a disagreement between the parties.
It is clear now that there is no disagreement. The Prime Minister says they will follow the official government position because it is "orderly".
Having said the continuing farm invasions must stop and that he will arrest those doing this, Tsvangirai has apparently had it explained to him by Mugabe and now understands that it was all just a big misunderstanding.
Morgan Tsvangirai and the MDC have also dodged the question asked of them by the Commercial Farmers' Union regarding where they stand on the SADC Tribunal ruling, which allowed the white farmers to remain on their properties and reversed Mugabe's acquisition orders.
He did not answer directly, of course, as the statement above shows. But he did answer. By referring the matter to JOMIC, all he wants is to get the whole thing out of his way.
So what is JOMIC likely to do?
Kick the military brass off their farms? Forbid Edna Madzongwe, President of the Zimbabwe Senate, no less, to take over the farm she is currently fighting for against one of the SADC Tribunal farmers?
You see this happening?
Well, if you do, perhaps you can also tell us where we might watch pigs flying.
JOMIC will almost certainly simply confirm the position of government: Those who have been given acquisition orders should vacate the farms and let the new owners move in.
End of story.
Tsvangirai's statement was a response to the Western nations (17 of them) who met in Washington and demanded more reforms before they could assist the government of Mugabe and Tsvangirai.
"This country has embarked on a number of reforms - the constitutional process, legislative reforms, economic reforms, media reforms....I don't know what other reforms they are talking about," the Prime Ministe said. So, in other words, the West are talking nonsense, then.
Amongst the West's demands, land reform was mentioned. This statement from Tsvangirai is a response to that demand.
Question: What on earth has got into the Prime Minister? "Media reforms"? Which ones? The fact that the Herald now calls the Prime Minister Comrade does not qualify as a form of Media Reform.
Continued defiance of the courts by the Attorney General is not reform.
Begging for donor money in order to finance parastatals that are themselves staffed to the gills with ZANU PF appointees does not qualify as a form of Economic Reform.
The fact that the Prime Minister was allowed to swear in additional, illegal (according to their own Global Political Agreement -GPA), senators and appoint illegal Ministers of State in his office does not qualify as a form of Legislative Reform.
This government has done nothing about AIPPA, and it's evil twin, POSA, two of the most despicable assaults ever passed against freedom of speech and freedom of the press.
This government has done nothing about putting a plan in place to revive the economy and are implementing the They Do Thega economic theory - throw money at the problems and hope they go away.
South Africa is giving us US$50 million for state owned companies, we are told. Why is the MDC not selling off stakes in Air Zimbabwe, National Railways, NOCZIM, TelOne etc in order to raise the finance needed to turn these companies around?
They enjoy begging while they sit on a gold chair, is that it?
It is straightforward really. Sell or part-sell the companies, and then give the management contract to the new shareholders. Success is guaranteed with this route as opposed to the MDC/ZANU PF plan of throwing money at these parastatals while ZANU PF appointees who ran them into the ground are still at the helm.
But we digress: Everybody now knows where they stand within and outside Zimbabwe. The farmers should now be clear that Tsvangirai is in no position to give them back their farms.
They should also now be aware, as announced by Tsvangirai yesterday, that JOMIC has now been tasked with kicking the white farmers off the farms.
The West has its answer, as does Morgan Tsvangirai the West's answer. Bottom line: You can now write off the West in terms of assistance to Mugabe.
The exasperation is probably going to explode in about two weeks time, the time frame within which SADC said member countries must come forward with pledges for Zimbabwe and lobby the West for aid.
Nothing much will come from all this, of course. And then, and then.......you will see the Prime Minister, the Minister of Finance and the rest of the MDC publicly ape their new-found best friend and "father", Mugabe.
They have already started shouting at the West. They will just get more direct and louder.
The now Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and his MDC were sympathysing with the white former commercial farmers and their western native countries in order to get the much needed finances to fund their political activities, and also to secure a moral high ground on the international scene where the westerners occupy the high tables and enjoy some kind of monopoly in almost every aspect of politics and economics.
ReplyDeleteHowever they must have realised that it is almost very impossible to deliver their promises to the white former commercial farmers who had generously funded the MDC, who only expected nothing more than the farms they had occupied for very long back.MDC was not likely to win in any or most of the resettlements. Considering the kind of people who are seen as the vanguard of the Land resettlement programme, that is the War vets amongst other structures, any attempt to dispossess them of their newly acquired treasure would have resulted in rendering the country ungovernable. It would have turned to another Somalia.
The rural populace earn their living by tilling the land, they were genuinely seeing the MDC as a threat to their only means of livelihood.
Whereas the urbanites survive on formal employment, where companies were closing, they saw Zanu Pf's policies as destroying they job market, hence a threat to their only means of livelihood. There was this clear divide. If the two political parties had remained steadfast and refuse to compromise, we were likely going to see more white commercial farms being designated to dish out to those who have no other means of livelihood.That would have possible increased Zanu Pf support base, and negatively affected MDC support base, since more people were likely to head back to rural life where a farming piece of land can be availed, and life cheaper. MDC wouldn't have been able to do anything to make life easier for their urbarnites, except to continuously remind them of how they were suffering.When one drifts to the rural's where the container is mainly ZANU PF, they are more likely to take the shape of the container. The suffering in the urban areas would have forced them to have no other option.
this looks like a case of SuperBribes.
ReplyDeletewonder if they paid mugs to pay off moe ?
the two stooges.
that's how I will henceforth be identifying them.
Well, i think personally Tsvangirai feels the West does not respect his judgment. So he still considers them [since he has no option] but i don't think he still even bothers. About the white farmers funding, well that is some bribery. And government policies will not be based on bribes. So the farmers, IN THIS RESPECT, have to bite the bullet
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