Arguments For and Against Mugabe's Land Policy

The Debate about Controversial Land Reforms under Robert Mugabe

May 11, 2009

The debate about land reforms in Zimbabwe rages on. Mugabe defends his reforms on grounds of equality. His detractors see them as instruments of revenge pure and simple.

Zimbabwe became the center of international attraction since 2000 because of President Robert Mugabe’s controversial land reforms. These reforms were a logical continuation of the colonial experience – the struggle over the ownership of land. In other words, it was an attempt to end white hegemony over African Land in Zimbabwe.

However, the tendency among many (western) writers is to trace Zimbabwe’s Land reforms only as recently as 2000. This is a very misleading perspective because land reforms began in Zimbabwe at independence in 1980. It is, however, true that the radical stage of the reforms from 2000 coincided with the period of rapid economic collapse in Zimbabwe – reason for which Mugabe’s reform program carries a bad name especially among his detractors.

In Justification Land Reforms

For many post colonial states in Africa, land reforms constituted part of a general wave of radical economic readjustment after colonial rule. Many of them considered land reform as part of the decolonization process. These reforms were founded on the need to extract resources from what Craig Richardson calls a “less deserving” rich minority and distributing them to a “more deserving” poor majority.

Representing a large group of leftists and socialists, historian Walter Rodney sounded complete support for land reforms throughout Africa. “Exploitation of Land and Labor”, Rodney says “is essential for human social advance, but only on assumption that the product is made available in the area where the exploitation takes place." Rodney decried the level of exploitation in colonial Zimbabwe. “The Rhodesias offered a miniature version of South Africa’s apartheid”, and also represented “the absolute limit of brutal exploitation.”

Supporters of Land reforms in Zimbabwe drew inspiration from other areas of the world where such reforms had succeeded. The “Tiger Club” nations of Asia and China were good examples. In neighboring South Africa President Mbeki in 2005 expressed willingness to revisit the “willing-seller, willing-buyer” principle of land redistribution. In an interview with the BBC in 2005, Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngouka openly declared “there needs to be a bit of oomph … that’s why we may need the skulls of Zimbabwe to help us.”

In neighboring Namibia where settlers still had a firm group on the land after independence, President Sam Nujoma in 2004 announced his intention to expropriate 192 “absentee land-lord” farms owned mainly by German and South African nationals. This general tide of land reforms in Southern Africa added momentum to Mugabe’s reforms. However, support for Mugabe’s reforms started dwindling especially as he drifted towards radicalism at the end of the 1990s.

Opposition to Mugabe’s Land Reforms

Opposition to Mugabe’s reforms ran along the same lines, and was marked by the same conflict of interest that characterized great power involvement in Rhodesia. The groups that opposed Mugabe’s reforms were the commercial farmers (both blacks and whites) and their employees all of whom were adversely affected by Mugabe’s reforms. These reforms also faced stiff opposition from western governments championed by Britain which was the ancestral home of many of Zimbabwe’s white settlers.

Opponents of Mugabe’s reforms based their arguments on four major premises. The first was that Mugabe had transformed his reforms into a political tool. The second charge was that Mugabe’s reforms were responsible for all of Zimbabwe’s economic woes. The third angle of opposition was that the reforms were unconstitutional. The fourth dimension was to interpret all of Mugabe’s policies (domestic and foreign) in the light of his reforms.

It was based on these arguments that the line was drawn between Mugabe’s supporters and his detractors. This debate has also helped to determine Zimbabwe’s internal political-economy and its relations with the outside world.

Craig Richardson, one of the opponents of Mugabe’s reforms, defined Zimbabwe in 2005 as being “in an economic tailspin…shrinking faster than any other country on earth that was not at war.” Since then, little has improved in Zimbabwe and despite western calls for “regime change,” Mugabe has sworn that “only God” can remove him from power.

Kariuki, Samuel M. Can negotiated land reforms deliver? A case of Kenya’s, South Africa’s and Zimbabwe land reform policy debates, 2004.

Richardson, Craig. Property Rights, land reform and the hidden Architecture of Capitalism, 2006.

The copyright of the article Arguments For and Against Mugabe's Land Policy in Modern African History is owned by Tongkeh Joseph Fowale. Permission to republish Arguments For and Against Mugabe's Land Policy in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.