Here's Exactly How Mugabe Is Thwarting Tsvangirai's Land Audit

April 17 2009: Brian Bronkhoust, a farmer in President Mugabe's home province town of Chegutu, looks at his cattle on his farm, which had just been invaded by ZANU PF thugs. That this was happening just over two months after Tsvangirai took office as Prime Minister shows just how little things have changed. Now it emerges Mugabe and Co are busy "transferring" multiple farms into the hands of relatives and proxies, "cooperatives" and "companies", just so they thwart the Land Audit demanded by Tsvangirai and "agreed to" by Mugabe.

It has now been revealed by impeccable sources that Robert "The Solution" Mugabe is dragging his feet on the issue the Land Audit demanded by Tsvangirai in order to buy time and allow his cronies space to devise ways in which they can hang on to their multiple farms.

"The Solution" himself is leading the way, apparently, in showing how it is done.

The game plan: Make noise (as ZANU PF has been doing) about the land audit being a back-burner issue, not a priority, while at the same time systematically changing the names on offer letters, title deeds and so on.

The Solution has a farm in one of the Mashonaland Provinces, which farm used to called Limerick Farm. In the last two weeks or so, he has had the ownership of the farm changed and it now belongs to something called "The Zimbabwe Women's Cooperative"!

You will also recall that the Inclusive Government has now started giving title deeds to the New Farmers who were allocated land acquired from the previous white owners. No doubt the solution (through proxy names) as well as his well-connected cronies, will be the first in line to get those title deeds.

The idea is that, by the time Zimbabwe Land Audit is done (ZANU PF realise it will have to be done eventually, after they have finished moving the pepper pots around (with apologies to Salman Rushdie), there will be loads of different people with title deeds who, even if they were identified as "bogus farmers", will still cling to their farms.

The solution and his clique have the strategy of using the "rule of law and respect for property rights" argument to stop anyone taking a farm from an individual who would even be identified as a bogus farmer later on.

It is the rule of plunderers, you see, where, once they have plundered, like Julius Ceaser's armies used to do, they go back to camp and declare that the proceeds have to be treated according to the civilised of the land.

They may have plundered, but let someone try to take one farm away from one of their own and you will see! They will cry double standards, they will say "we were berated for not respecting title deeds and property rights, but now that we have turned a new leaf and are willing to respect the property rights of New Farmers with title deeds, we also get burned?!"

There will be accusations of double standards, of rule of law and property rights being good enough only for white people and not New Black Farmers.

I am, as ever, taking bets