08/28/2002
EDITORIAL NUMBER=0-10094

ZIMBABWE ON THE BRINK

Robert Mugabe, who has been in power in Zimbabwe since it gained independence in 1980, claimed re-election in March following a badly flawed process. As U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, Walter Kansteiner, subsequently said, "We do not see President Mugabe as the democratically legitimate leader of the country." Since that election, Mr. Mugabe has continued to pursue reckless policies that have destroyed both Zimbabwe’s democratic institutions and its economy.

Since 2000, the Mugabe government has conducted a brutal and ill-conceived campaign of commercial farm seizures and forced expulsions of farmers and farm workers. The campaign was recently intensified, with the government of Zimbabwe setting an August 8^th deadline for some one-thousand two-hundred farmers to surrender their properties. Since then, over two-hundred farmers have been arrested, and many have been released only on the condition that they vacate their farms in as little as twenty-four hours. Since the farm seizures began, hundreds of thousands of farm workers and their families have lost their homes and livelihoods.

The campaign of violent farm seizures and forced expulsions has destroyed Zimbabwe’s capacity to produce food and greatly worsened the effects of Zimbabwe’s ongoing drought. As a result, Zimbabwe has gone from being a food exporter to being a country in which six to eight million people face a real risk of famine. It is appalling that the Mugabe government is continuing to destroy commercial farms in the face of its own citizens’ hunger and suffering.

The United States recognizes the need for genuine land reform in Zimbabwe, and would support a rational and equitable program to achieve it. But that is not what is happening. As U.S. State Department spokesman Philip Reeker said, "Many of the farms seized thus far appear to have been distributed to ruling party officials and regime insiders and not to the landless peasants whose interests Mr. Mugabe pretends to represent."

Zimbabwe is on the verge of collapse. The Mugabe government’s destructive economic policies have resulted in spiraling inflation, vanishing basic commodities, and an unemployment rate of more than sixty percent. The Mugabe government’s assault on Zimbabwe’s commercial farms and food production has turned a bleak situation into a national catastrophe.