But government chose to close it down. And when the commercial farmers were evicted, often violently, the land was declared to be the property of the state. This eliminated its market value and collateral value, and when it was allocated free to war veterans and to any other indigenous Zimbabweans who had the right political credentials, they did not get security of tenure or any form of title that might have encouraged them to invest time or money in production.
Successful farming in Zimbabwe’s uncertain tropical climate was always difficult, but challenges had been overcome by the development of complex management techniques and capital-intensive cultivation procedures. These amounted to very demanding and expensive methods, so the replacement of the skilled farmers with inexperienced, undercapitalised and poorly motivated beneficiaries of political patronage had little prospect of success.
The country’s largest business sector had been forced through a change of ownership, but the new Owners were denied the property rights that might have helped them to keep it working. The people given the farms did have a few skills, but because they were not permitted to acquire ownership rights, they could not use the land as collateral for the loans needed to run the farms properly.
A sharp downturn in food production and export revenues was quickly followed by shortages of fuel and other essential imports. Before long, Zimbabwe’s credit rating collapsed and loans from abroad disappeared. Downturns soon followed in every other sector.
Tax revenues fell, investment stopped, exchange and other controls were restored and all the moves to liberalise economic policies were reversed. Zimbabwe became dependent on food aid and was soon experiencing a level of hyperinflation that placed it in the record books.
Today, the government remains under the control of President Mugabe, even though his party did not win the most seats in the last election. He adamantly rejects any obligation to stand down and all the evidence shows that he deeply resents the disaffection shown by the voters.
However, new evidence suggests that he hopes to win the next election by forcing yet another massive change of ownership. This time the target is the companies that are still in the hands of non-indigenous people. And this time, he says, the transfer will really enrich and empower his supporters.
To bring this about, laws have been enacted that empower the government to demand that all non-indigenous business owners must transfer 51 percent of the shares in their companies to indigenous shareholders.
By acquiring controlling interests, the indigenous shareholders will then be empowered to replace boards of directors. Most probably, they will be required to work from lists of people that the party wants to see rewarded. Other descriptions of Zimbabwe’s recent history can easily be constructed, but the more difficult challenge is to explain why policies that are so damaging would be chosen, defended and even repeated. This explanation is specially difficult when nobody doubts that the economy has declined steeply, that thousands of Zimbabweans have suffered terrible trauma and that millions have had to leave the country to earn a living.
The feudal Mugabe’s hostility towards property rights, his eagerness to impose controls on successful businesses and his repeated demonstrations that loyalty to him will yield recognition and enrichment, strongly supports the already expressed contention: Mugabe has re-established a feudal State and is determined to remain entrenched as feudal Head of State. For appearances sake, he has pretended to aspire to democratic ideals. But while he is required to say that voters are free to elect somebody else, he has gone to great lengths to ensure that most would not dare do so. Typical pre-election tactics over the years have included widespread intimidation that has cost many lives, and after elections whole communities have been punished for appearing to have been in sympathy with opposition candidates.
Measures taken to ensure the failure of competitors have also included attacks on journalists, the physical destruction of opposition newspaper premises, and attacks on independent radio stations as well as opposition party headquarters. Mugabe’s vote-catching strategy mainly takes the form of reminders to everybody that those showing disloyalty to the party face the real prospect of being victimised by party militia whose members have been authorised to act with impunity.
Zimbabwe’s politicians have attacked and looted entire productive sectors for short-term political or financial gain. As of now, for lack of any effective reaction, they appear to remain free to do so again, anywhere.
Zanu PF has surely done more than enough to attract the opprobrium of every world body that holds to high standards. But a more powerful reaction is called for, and not only because the authorities clinging to power in Zimbabwe have shown themselves to be callously indifferent to the effect their policies have had on the welfare of the country’s ordinary citizens.
Another fact that ought to be of concern to all outside Zimbabwe’s borders is that the country’s slide into deeper poverty has turned the country into a burden on international humanitarian aid resources and will have it draining finite aid supplies for years to come. This will continue for as long as it takes to restore the country’s ability to provide adequately for its own population.
This same long-suffering population also has already had difficulty surviving the economic devastation caused by the confiscation of the assets of thousands of farming businesses, which in turn affected the viability of thousands of other businesses. At independence, Zimbabwe’s new leaders saw an opportunity for an alternative path; “liberation theology” and the politics of claiming entitlements in compensation for the wrongs of the past seemed a much more certain path to prosperity.
The country’s many accomplishments were belittled, its investors and wealth-creators were ridiculed or accused of achieving success by climbing onto the backs of the “exploited masses”, their investment in education, health, housing and other social services was condemned as self-serving and inadequate and Zanu PF claimed that the entire physical infrastructure was created to serve nobody but the colonial regime. They tried to ensure that each real or imagined facet of the country’s colonial history should be portrayed in terms that would destroy any prospect that things would fall comfortably into place when, as has now happened, the chances came to make big changes for the better.
But, concentrated as these efforts have been, most of them have not worked. Indications suggest that most of the population knows better than to believe the alternative history presented and most have accurately identified the reasons for the dramatic decline in their standards of living. So even if they have to continue working quietly and politely, it seems they will continue working for change.
Don’t miss Part 4 next week: Zimbabwe has paid a staggeringly high price for the political leaders’ beliefs that its resources should be up for grabs by the heroes of the liberation struggle.
Post published in: Opinions & Analysis