What is Mugabe's land policy?

Zimbabwe's independence and Mugabe's appointment as national leader have attracted the attention of the international community. The excitement of opening a new era temporarily masks an innate pain. However, when the appealing slogan of revolutionary struggle became an extremely urgent practical task, this kind of pain has always been a "sword of Damocles" hanging over Mugabe's head.

The cause lies in that ancient land problem. The land problem embodies the most basic social contradiction movement in this southern African country. The evolution of Zimbabwe's history and reality, the conflict between blacks and whites, finally reached an impasse on the land issue.

This fast knot stems from the unfair plunder of Zimbabwe by white Europeans. From the end of 19, as soon as British South African companies entered southern rhodesia, they drove the local blacks to the indigenous reservation and plundered a lot of their land. After nearly a century of plunder, the inequality of land ownership in Zimbabwe is staggering: at the beginning of the 20 th century, the average land occupied by whites was 30 times that of blacks; 37 times in the 1940s; Nearly 19 times in the 1970s. Even after a large number of European whites immigrated to southern rhodesia, whites only accounted for 5% of the total population, but the amount of land they occupied was roughly equal to that of blacks who accounted for 95% of the total population. In addition to the disparity in land area, whites occupy fertile land with convenient transportation and fertile soil, while blacks occupy barren land with little rainfall. The problem of unfair land possession is not only the result of long-term plunder by white racists, but also the internal motive force of black liberation movement. From this point of view alone, it is not difficult for people to understand why the revolution led by Mugabe was successful and why he enjoyed a reputation for inertia in the years after independence.

On the eve of Zimbabwe's independence from 65438 to 0979, when Mugabe sat down to negotiate with his opponent on the issue of national independence, the compromise between the two sides on the land issue objectively left this sharp contradiction to the future. The document of Lancaster Palace in London on Zimbabwe's independence stipulates that any white person's property can only be obtained within the scope authorized by the Constitution, and there are more than 50 additional conditions. This policy will remain unchanged for 10 years. Land can only be obtained from white settlers through fair market transactions, so Britain and the United States promised to compensate the expropriation of white land. This means that, on the one hand, Mugabe did not ask for free deprivation of land occupied by whites, which shows his good will to promote racial reconciliation. On the other hand, these regulations also bound his hands and feet, restricted the new government from solving the land problem once and for all by deprivation, and objectively recognized the legitimacy of white colonists occupying land.

Mugabe made a compromise and left the sharp contradiction of land to the future, in fact, he left the contradiction to himself in the future. In the next 30 years, Mugabe has been tortured by a vicious circle: from the perspective of economic development, the best choice is not to touch the existing land ownership. Because changing land ownership will inevitably mean touching the interests of white people who firmly control Zimbabwe's economic lifeline, leading to disorder and chaos in the country's economic situation. However, for Mugabe, inaction on the land issue is politically incorrect. Commitment to change Zimbabwe's unfair land ownership is not only the reason why Mugabe wins the world, but also the basis for them to sit in the world. On the one hand, it is the economic lifeline of the country, on the other hand, it is the political foundation of the regime. Mugabe has always sought to stabilize the country's economic lifeline while maintaining his own political foundation. However, the two are completely mutually exclusive, almost to the point of being easily accused. Mugabe has been suffering from not having a good plan for years.