LAND CRISIS IN ZIMBABWE
April 21, 2000

Independence war veterans continue to invade hundreds of farms, obstructing food production for local and foreign exchange in Zimbabwe. After a background report, Zimbabwe officials and experts discuss the conflict.

Jan. 27, 2000: An interview with Congolese President Laurent Kabila Dec. 13, 1999: Richard Holbrooke, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., discusses the Congolese and Ethiopian wars. Full NewsHour coverage of Africa     Africa News Online The Embassy of Zimbabwe The Electronic Mail and Guardian on the Zimbabwe Land Disputes	MARGARET WARNER: For more on what's going on in Zimbabwe, we turn to Tichaona Jokonya, Zimbabwe's permanent representative to the United Nations; Richard Joseph, a political science professor at Emory University, and former director for African Governance at the Carter Center. He's written extensively about the process of democratization in Africa. And Salih Booker, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. He lived and worked in Zimbabwe during the early 1990's. Welcome gentlemen. Let me start with you, Professor Joseph. If we look at these television pictures, it appears as if rural Zimbabwe is almost in a state of near anarchy. How did the situation spin out of control like this? RICHARD JOSEPH, Emory University: The situation hasn't spun out of control. The situation has been deliberately engineered. This is something that President Robert Mugabe has been doing repeatedly. The country is in dire distress. The economic situation as was pointed out, has been in decline. The issue is not land reform. The issue in Zimbabwe is political reform. Secretary-General Kofi Annan of the United Nations emphasized the political obstacles to economic progress in Africa, and a willingness of rulers in order to stay in power deliberately fomenting violence and conflicted. And what we see in Zimbabwe is a demonstration of that problem. The problem is getting very serious because we're dealing with a leader who lacks legitimacy except for his historic legitimacy in leading the struggle. But at present, the government is a government known for its corruption, its cronyism, its mismanagement, and its willingness to use these war veterans and anybody who would serve its purpose in order to block the democratic forces. That is the issue.
	Tough charges
	MARGARET WARNER: Mr. Ambassador, those are pretty tough charges. Has your president deliberately engineered this? TICHAONA JOKONYA, UN Ambassador, Zimbabwe: Well, we have heard this these charges before. We are not surprised. We have been victims of racist attack and racist attitudes by people like Professor Joseph. I don't know what he professes. We are talking about...we hear about organized violence and all this kind of thing. We are talking about a situation where we are dealing with a former colonial government that is completely irresponsible. The Zimbabwe government is being asked to remove demonstrators from land which they're occupying. In 1965, on the 11th of November Ian Smith tore the constitution and rebelled against the British government. The British government was asked to intervene and put down the rebellion. Harold Wilson, who is the predecessor of the current labor leader said he was not going to go into Rhodesia to put down the rebellion because the question he thought was important. MARGARET WARNER: I'm sorry, but could you jump ahead to the situation now? TICHAONA JOKONYA: Yes, having. This is the beginning of the situation. You cannot just talk about the situation now. You've got to find out where it came from. Now, this gentleman you asked to say it's not about land. I mean this is absolutely nonsense. We have seven million peasants who live in reserves that were created by Ian Smith, the illegal leader of Rhodesia. These people are living on land that is barren. Now you have 70% of arable land in the country occupied by 4,500 people. Now anywhere in the world this is a state of craziness. And I don't understand how somebody who is a professor can suggest that there is nothing that is untoward in Zimbabwe when seven million people have been crowded into unproductive land. And they are expected to stay there because they're black? I mean, that's absolutely stupid. This is about land. And if he has no feeling for these millions of people who are living on nothing, then I'm afraid men like that should not be a professor at all. MARGARET WARNER: Professor Joseph, I'm going to give you the right to respond before I go to Salih Booker. RICHARD JOSEPH: Well, this is the first time in my life that I have been accused of a racist attack. But anyway, moving on, the people of Zimbabwe clearly demonstrated when the coupling of the extension of powers, the President Mugabe, was put with the expropriation of land via these means. They rejected it. And this was the first decisive vote against this government. MARGARET WARNER: You're talking about the referendum that was just held? RICHARD JOSEPH: That is right. This government is facing an election, a parliamentary election in May. What is taking place is the sort of thing that we have seen in Kenya under President Moi, which is deliberately fomenting this kind of attack in order to create anarchy, chaos, disorder and so on and then to be able to crack down. I hope the intercommunity will be able to stand up to this -- just, for example, as Foreign Secretary Robin Cook has done, and insist on the rule of law constitutionalism, free elections and the ability of people to protest peacefully without violence. Those are the issues.
	Political instability
	MARGARET WARNER: Salih Booker, let me get you in on this. How do you see the reasons for this and why it has become so violent? SALIH BOOKER, Council on Foreign Relations: I agree with Professor Joseph that it is a crass political manipulation of the land issue, which is a very explosive, emotional, and economic issue in Zimbabwe. But I would also agree with the ambassador that land redistribution in Zimbabwe -- as elsewhere in many African countries -- is a critical issue at the beginning of this century. And if these issues are not resolved, they could be explosive elsewhere. I think the ambassador to some degree is right in terms of pointing out that Britain as a former colonial power has not lived up to its obligations, its sort of solemn moral responsibilities. But I would also point out that the government of President Robert Mugabe and the ruling party has had 20 years in office now to make far more progress on land redistribution. And unfortunately, I think it has become manipulated politically very often in the election years. And for the first time, the ruling party is facing a very serious electoral threat. The economy is in a crisis, there is a fuel shortage in the country. It's been hit by cyclones recently and the country is involved in a war in Congo as well. So there's a critical mass of economic decline, in addition to the political problems and corruption that Professor Joseph referred to, that have led to a situation for the first time that there's great unpopularity on the part of President Mugabe and his ruling party. And that's really what the referendum demonstrated, is that the people of Zimbabwe are, to some degree, fed up with the ruling party. MARGARET WARNER: Is that true, Mr. Ambassador. Do you think your president is in trouble politically? TICHAONA JOKONYA: Well, you know, this is the kind much prophecy of doom that we've heard over and over again. But of course the president of the country is going, as they quite rightly say, to the country for elections. And any political leader, any political leader whatsoever, when he goes to the country for elections, has got to look at the record of the government in power and say what have we done. The record is that for the last 20 years, the British government has frustrated the government. We agreed at Lancaster that the British government was going to pay money and give us billions, not just hundreds of pounds. We have been given by the British government since that time 44 million pounds. MARGARET WARNER: Excuse me, but you're talking about money to then help you buy this farmland. TICHAONA JOKONYA: The land. Yes, this is the issue. This is very important. This is the issue. I heard the professor talking about the international community. That's absolute nonsense. Now when we were fighting in Zimbabwe, we fought for 15 years -- we hardly had precious little international community supporting us. We died in the thousands and our people died for the land. Where was the international community? Where was Britain? Where were all these... I mean you talk about the United Nations. The United Nations cannot do anything about this. If the professor thinks that the international community can come into Zimbabwe and tell us what to do, then certainly there is something wrong with his reasoning. The international community has no say. He may have heard now that the leaders of Southern Africa who are meeting and completely supported this government. We have just been hearing the statement, the issue of land is very important and must be resolved now. Yes, it is true we have had economic difficulties. Part of the reason is because of the land issue which was not resolved.
	Land redistribution
	MARGARET WARNER: Let me just ask the professor, Professor Joseph, why do you think the land redistribution hasn't been more extensive? RICHARD JOSEPH: It has not worked because of the mismanagement of this government. The land that has been taken... It has been land that has been acquired. And the question is to go and look and see who has that land gone to? What has happened to the resettlement schemes and the promises that have been made? You know, at the beginning of last year, you had food riots in the country. I'm not denying that this is a question that this is a country that needs redistribution of land. TICHAONA JOKONYA: Of course you are denying that. RICHARD JOSEPH: Let me finish. But what we're dealing is with the demonstrated mismanagement of this government. And the government continues to use this issue, the international community, the white farmers. The people of Zimbabwe, if given the opportunity to express themselves freely and vote, would demonstrate that they are no longer going to be manipulated by these kinds of action. Yes they want to see progress, yes they do want to see land redistribution, but there is little confidence in this government's ability even to use the funds that have been available by the international community. There is a great - there has been a loss of confidence in this government, both domestically and internationally, and it's for the people of Zimbabwe to decide who should govern them 20 years after independence... TICHAONA JOKONYA: I'm sorry. I think the professor cannot be allowed to lie to the world. The international community has not given anything whatsoever to the Zimbabwe government. That is a lie. The British government has given 44 million pounds. I don't understand this, professor. We are talking about the land. Not elections. If he wants to talk about elections we'll talk about elections. MARGARET WARNER: I'm going to turn to Salih Booker, gentlemen. Let me turn to Salih Booker. TICHAONA JOKONYA: Is there any way in the world where you've got 4,500 people occupying 70% of the 50 million hectares of land? He doesn't talk about that. MARGARET WARNER: Mr. Ambassador let me interrupt you. We're almost out of time. Salih Booker where this is headed now? SALIH BOOKER: It's headed to elections. MARGARET WARNER: What about the violence? Do you think the President is going to try to calm it or do you think this is going to continue? SALIH BOOKER: As your report indicated, the President has made contradictory comments. He has received the support of the heads of state in the Southern African countries in terms of trying to resolve this peacefully. They're calling for a donor's conference. Essentially calling for Britain and other donors to put up financial resources to help the government purchase as opposed to expropriating land for redistribution. However there was a program in 1998 just several years ago established by the United Nations Development Program precisely to which donors committed money in order to finance this kind of resettlement scheme. It is really a question of the political management of resettlement schemes. The issue we haven't addressed however -- it is the government's responsibility to ensure that there is a respect of law. The high court has called for an end to the occupations. The home affairs minister has previously called for an end to the occupations. It's rather surprising that the President of the state, of Zimbabwe, has not sought to support his own legal institutions and his own cabinet members who are trying to prevent a spread of violence so that this issue can be resolved through negotiations. MARGARET WARNER: Quick response, Mr. Ambassador. Is your President going to enforce these court orders to... TICHAONA JOKONYA: No, of course not. I mean the whole issue of the land has nothing to do with... It's not a judicial matter. This is an issue which emanates from Lancaster House. We have to resolve the land issue. This is not a judicial matter. I'm surprised by people who live in the United States. We have had a decision taken by Janet Reno that a child should be given to his father, and this has not been fulfilled. The question of whether a court order should be fulfilled or not is a very delicate matter. Now the issue of land... MARGARET WARNER: I'm sorry, Mr. Ambassador, I'm going to have to stop you there. We're already over time. Thanks so much.