Garvey's Ghost: Black Talk

Zimbabwe's Shadow

Yes folks, it would seem that it is not just the people of Zimbabwe who are looking for thier land. Seems the people of South Africa have the same idea. I may not have agreed with some of the policies of Mugabe, but he was right on the money to take the land back without compensation to the "owners." This may explain why Mbeki has been standing by Zimbabwe's side during the recent Slavewealth.. I mean Commonwealth meeting in Nigeria. I hope Mbeki does the right thing. Truth and reconciliation to avoid civil war is understandable, but at the end of the day, the land has got to be transferred. There must also be a program put into place to make sure that the people getting the land are able to us the land as efficiently as possible. It would do South Africa great damage to have these tracts of land be used for simple subsistence farming.

The BBC has an article demonstrating some of the serious problems with poorly planned take overs.

Of course.. The white farmers have simply taken their act elsewhere. of course, now Zambian farmers are finding out about white priviledge as they claim:

While acknowledging the farming prowess of the Zimbabweans, local farmers complain they had an unfair advantage. "I do not want to sound petulant - I am happy that we have a bumper harvest and do not need food aid. But I feel a little peeved because we (local) farmers have been made to look incompetent. There are reasons the Zimbabweans had such a good crop," Thrifty Stephenson, a Zambian farmer, told IPS. He says the Zimbabwean farmers had collateral for loans from local and international financial institutions, while some also brought equipment and machinery with them. This gave them a "leg up" when they arrived in Zambia. "We are not talking refugees here. We are talking well-heeled business people," he says. The Standard Chartered Bank of Zambia, for example, gave loans to more than 20 Zimbabwean farmers who had settled in Zambia, to acquire existing farms or buy land. The bank's executive director of finance, Brighton Ngoma, says his institution had set up an agricultural unit to help boost the sector. The money being lent out was from the European Investment Bank and from Standard Chartered itself.

which would support the claim made by Zimbabwe farmers who are quoted as saying:

Mr Nkomo blamed funding problems, saying resettled farmers had difficulties in obtaining loans from banks.

As anyone familiar with farming will tell you, farmers take out loans against the future value of thier crops and pay of loans based on profits gained from selling those crops. Since the hard currencies are not African, then the europeans who control the real money are more inclined to fund thier people (with prooven track records) than the "natives."

Rock. Hard place.

Links:
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/06/international/africa/06AFRI.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/2818297.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3364267.stm
http://www.zwnews.com/issuefull.cfm?ArticleID=8318