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15 Years After Land-Grabs, Mugabe Invites White Farmers Back To Zimbabwe
File this one away in the "when populism backfires" folder.
A little over a month after announcing that the Zimbabwean dollar - which, you’re reminded, was phased out in 2009 after inflation rose modestly to 500 billion percent - would be demonetized and exchanged at a generous rate of $5 for every 175 quadrillion, Zimbabwe will for the first time rethink the sweeping land grabs which began in 2000 and subsequently crippled the country’s economy.
Many Zimbabwean farmers who have stopped growing food in favor of "green gold" (tobacco) fear they will starve this winter after a severe drought and a generalized "lack of knowledge" left them with a subpar crop that fetched little at auction. Here’s more from Rueters:
Thousands of small-scale farmers in Zimbabwe fear they will be going hungry this winter after abandoning traditional staples like maize, sorghum and groundnuts for tobacco, a cash crop known locally in this southern African nation as "green gold".
For 15 years after Zimbabwe's agriculture sector collapsed in the face of President Robert Mugabe's seizure of white-owned farms to resettle landless blacks, the tobacco industry has been booming, with farmers funded by private firms to grow tobacco.
But this switch, coupled with the worst regional drought in nearly a decade, has left Zimbabwe in a precarious food situation. Many farmers have complained of low prices as the season ends while buyers argue the quality of the crop was poor.
The tobacco industry has become the country's biggest export earner with over 88,000 growers registered with the tobacco regulatory body, the Tobacco Industry and Marketing Board, in the 2014/15 season, up from 52,000 in 2012.
But the returns are often uncertain and many farmers have been left disappointed.
Industry figures showed that at the end of the selling season this month farmers sold 188.5 million kgs worth $555 million, down 8.5 percent from a year ago when the crop was worth $654 million.
"It was a disaster," said David Muyambo, 35, a father of four, who earned $74 from tobacco sales this season after investing $1,200 in his crop. "I need to buy food for my family and I have no money."
Muyambo blames his failure on erratic rains, which decimated his crop, as well as his lack of knowledge on how to apply fertilizer, remove suckers and cure the crop.
Muyambo said he will never farm tobacco again.
With more farmers focused on tobacco, Zimbabwe's harvest of maize, a staple food, dropped by 49 percent in the 2014/15 season, the government said, which is set to exacerbate food shortages in Zimbabwe, once the bread-basket of the region.
Against this rather dreary backdrop, the government is beginning to reconsider its stance towards white farmers and will, according to The Telegraph, "give official permission for some whites to stay on their land."
Via The Telegraph:
Zimbabwe’s government has for the first time suggested it may give official permission for some white farmers to stay on their land, 15 years after it sanctioned widespread land grabs that plummeted the country into an economic crisis.
Douglas Mombeshora, the Zanu-PF Lands Minister, said provincial leaders had been asked to draw up a list of white farmers they wanted to stay on their farms deemed to be “of strategic economic importance”.
“We have asked provinces to give us the names of white farmers they want to remain on farms so that we can give them security of tenure documents to enable them to plan their operations properly,” Mr Mombeshora said.
More than 4,000 white farmers lost their land after Mr Mugabe lost a referendum to the new Movement for Democratic Change party and, in a bid to regain popularity, authorised land grabs by disaffected war veterans.
Today, fewer than 300 white farmers remain on portions of their original land holdings in Zimbabwe and many of the seized farms lie fallow, meaning the former Breadbasket of Africa has to import food to feed its population.
Among remaining farmers who have been recommended for a reprieve of Mr Mugabe’s edict that whites can no longer own land in Zimbabwe is Elizabeth Mitchell, a poultry farmer who produces 100,000 day-old chicks each week.
And so once again we see that necessity (a food shortage) breeds invention (rethinking populist land grabs), but lest anyone should believe that Mugabe has done a complete 180, we'll close with the following advice given to supporters at a recent Patriotic Front rally:
"Don't be too kind to white farmers. They can own industries and companies, or stay in apartments in our towns but they cannot own land. They must leave the land to blacks.”
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My ancestors were migrant people, and part of our family ended up in Rhodesia and South Africa. Both branches of the family went on to do really well over there. They opposed Apartheid in SA and segregation as practicsed in Rhodesia. In fact they employed many local blacks when their fellow settlers didn't and wouldn't.
When regime change took effect in Rhodesia in 1980, by 2005 they had lost their land there. Thankfully they managed to escape with their other assets.
The branch in South Africa hold on grimly to this day, and will never leave.
Neither branch were supremacist in any way, but time and hardship has made both of them very very resentful. Especially so after what they did to help the location populations during the dark times.
Rules of civilized behavior only apply within your own tribe. I wish more whites would realize this before it's too late.
So, a presumably English family of Nigger Lovers getting their just deserts. Denying reality and thinking they are "heros" (in their own mind) while selling their own kind out. No sympathy here.
"Employed blacks"=Ticket to sainthood.
"Gave a nickel to a black for tilling "your" field while the other whites toiled"=Ticket to sainthood.
"Will never leave"=Get me the hell out of here.
if you really think that all blacks are stupid...and deserve to not exist...
Not all Blacks are stupid, just most of them - and even then, their cognitive abilities are perfectly suited to their appropriate environment (Sub Saharan Africa).
Every living creature deserves and wants to live from insects through to humans - what is your point?
I get along with everybody except backstabbers, chiselers, moochers, fools and especially those who manipulate anybody they can to accomplish their objectives. These all come in all colors, with all kinds of delusional perspectives. Talk softly and carry a boom stick.
Another example of how The Great Red Dragon works. Rob the nation's wealth, then invite the robbers back to purchase title at rock bottom prices. Look up the list of banks in Zimbabwe and you'll see familiar names that had been there the whole time. They knew what they were doing. Now they're doing it elsewhere, soon to come to your country unless they're stopped. Just stop doing business with the biggest banks, in any shape, form, or indirect connection. Quit feeding it is all it takes to make it go away.
Awwww. Good for them. Couldn't happen to a more deserving cesspool. Let them rot.
Blacks in Detroit (true story) blamed the demise of the city upon the white exodus.
Talk about IQ's on display.
I'm sure those who left are anxious to return.
It is the Life Lie of the neurotic that they should invariably fail through the guilt of others. Alfred Adler
Well clearly white privilege blah blah blah
fuck those niggers
let them starve
All of them...help em out
yeah, They latched on to all the wrong shit just like the ones here. sit around, do drugs, rape, steal, and try and look cool is about all they can handle now. Atleast before they got so much great jew money help they had to get off their asses and go kill an ant hill with a piece of grass sometimes two or three ants at a time.
Too stupid to farm in 2015. *faceflipper*
or to good or to lazy? Waiting on us tax payers to get there to good to lazy brotha from a white motha to send dum a check that should bounce.
OH hell - blacks even fucked up Liberia - an entire nation dedicated to THEM. They were given a fucking whole country and they can't even do that right. I'm surprised having a half black president we don't see weeds growing up in the expansion joints on I-95.
You will, you will - most American white's are enamored with Negro rule, signs of declining IQ level, so it'snot going to change - until the Hispanics take over at least.
air bags on air force one?
who invwnted airbags by the way? or an airplane? I think it must have been china.
I've never once seen a country or city that is run by blacks that is not a complete basket case.
True but a complete shame.
Business as well: McDonalds, Merrill Lynch.
Ok so Mugabe, and others in Zimbabwe need some expert citizens that like to farm, which means they must be healthy, strong, and fairly young, and of course black or brown skinned.
I would propose that we in America have several thousand boatloads of just such people. Heck we got prisons slap full of healthy go-getters, and they are not half bad with a machete'. And it isn't just Usa, there are presently reports around the globe, England, France, and other places that have huge 'young, black, & unemployed' statistics.
I just can't understand Mugabe, not trusting a white for anything of account in times past, asking now...for some more untrustworthy whites???...when there is boat loads of young blacks the world over that want more than a job, they want a free farm, full citizenship, and respect thru law. Why isn't Mugabe offering any of this to international blacks, hasn't he had 15 years to do so?
I would say Mugabe should put his money where his mouth is and start advertizing some real incentive for international blacks to come clean up his mess...except that his money worth nothing, so where is his 'free citizenship offers' & 'special protectionism law offers' for new farm families?
This seems to be yet another example of the 'new normal' when the leader should make-do after their monetary system has crashed hard...without sacrificing their foundation values.
Stick to your core values, ask for black families Mugabe! And provide them a real reason to make it work in Zimbabwe.
wwxx
"rights" do not exist there. Why go?
Rights?
You have rights in Amerika?
The best slave is the one who thinks he's free.
Squid
No kidding. When I joined the Army they played this song so much that wanted to puke. I signed up for this crap? Better than calling me an ignorant Goy, I guess.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ps7xmW-9LXQ
There are less rights in Zimbabwe than in the US. Thus Zimbabwe is in worse condition.
The bell curve?
The parabolic dip.
Long chewing tobacco
Long khat
Christianity in Zimbabwe
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_in_Zimbabwe
~//~
Eric Jon Phelps - How the Jesuit order controls the Worlds Power structure.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUfr1o4IGFA (52:57)
It wasn't a "populist" land grab,it was a South African type Negro-Communist takover. Since Western White's don't have the backbone to stand up for themselves their only defense is their brains - if the Negro Communist State recognizes the necessity of such - which apparently they now concede in Zimbabwe, as least until their bellies are full.
Only would return if I had a "rocket launcher" Bruce Cockburn from his Stealing Fire album, 1984
Mugabe, Arsenio Hall, Farrakan, Obama; who can tell the difference anymore
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=N7vCww3j2-w
Not sure many white farmers would go back to do business in Zimbabwe... one bitten,twice shy!
if you cant beat them
.
lie to them and beat them
ha, what a joke..... why would whitey want to go to that shithole
..given that whitey fucked it up but good.
Goldilocks, you and I need to have a talk. In the woodshed.
I'd go there as a peace corp voluneer to work in my share of salt into that blood enriched soil of a hundred generations. just sayin
China is sucking the country dry under the table, that's why the ape is still in power. China is one of the most racist countries in the world, and killed 50 million of their own under Mao. It's also one of the most polluted and overpopulated countries on the planet. When the West is too weak to do anything about it, they will colonize Africa and destroy any Africans in their way of land and resources. It will become a yellow continent, not a black one. And soon, the worthless Negroes will be begging the YT Devil to save them from the even bigger "Yella Debil!"
Good riddance!
Rhodesian Army along with the U.S. tiger stripes from the Nam era, still the best cammo in the world today...
Same thing happened here.
"Invite the grinch, destroy christmas."
hey! maybe we can kill two brids with one stoner. take the pos back and he can fix it there and we can fix it here!
Cecil would be turning in his grave if his bones hadn't been dug up and scattered.
Rhodes scholars, take note.
This news item made me chuckle.
Just a few days ago, I believe it was here on ZH, someone made a remark with some examples along the line of "that's never going to happen/very unwise". I can't recall it exactly anymore, but one of the examples given was.... Mugabe inviting back white farmers!
We flew this moron Twice in 2003. Couldn't even work the remote control for the DVD player
photo here
https://www.dropbox.com/s/6ipczvc6or6wdn1/Mugabe%20in%20Harare%20August....
300 yrs of white prosperity destroyed in 20 years of black rule in ZAR
i have friends in Zim who are eagerly waiting for Mugabe to tip over, and guess what, they're black.
Very true. We flew him twice when I was working in Libya . He always came to Ghaddaffi begging for a few hundred million. Ghaddaffi finally cut him off.
Very true. We flew him twice when I was working in Libya . He always came to Ghaddaffi begging for a few hundred million. Ghaddaffi finally cut him off.
Very true. We flew him twice when I was working in Libya . He always came to Ghaddaffi begging for a few hundred million. Ghaddaffi finally cut him off.
We flew him once from Harare to Victoria Falls. The next day I missed the crew bus from hotel to airport (20 miles) and took a taxi , The taxi driver (black) start ranting about how much he hated Mugabe. I was hoping he didn't find out when he dropped me off at the plane that we were flying him. I was very nervous.
Goldilocks
For your information, whitey took a rich and fertile land and used modern skills to make Zimbabwe a breadbasket of Africa. Yes, hiring labor and producing a surplus so that other poor and hungry nations could take the money from selling natural resources and feed their families. Then Mugabe came to power and decided farming was an easy tit job and stole the land. Had his police force raid the farms and DISARM the white farmers so his black thugs could sneak back at night and kill the white families and rape the women. Mugabe's cronies got the land, destroyed the equipment through neglect, planted the wrong crops, abused the soil, laid off the semi-skilled hired help AND NOW WANTS THE WHITEY (and his money) to come back and bring it back to life. I give YOU and Mugbe and hearty high-ho fuk you.
When flying him around , I used to think (it would be so easy to knock this bastard off).
https://www.dropbox.com/s/6ipczvc6or6wdn1/Mugabe%20in%20Harare%20August....
Curious.. why didnt you? Fear of later arrest and torture?
Armed bodyguards on aircraft.
I disagree with everyone here. Whites should go back to Africa. And that's exactly what is being done, through FDI (iirc more FDI than the much more oftenly mentioned China ) and through the boot (go look up western mil.bases in Africa-place is crawling)
Afterall, there's much goodies in the land there and the locals don't have much use for it.
I forgot his name but, the first black emperor of Haiti, which rose to power after leading a slave rebellion which killed ALL whites in Haiti, invited the french to send back some settlers a few years later. The french agreed to, despite the danger, as there was sugar (money) to make in Haiti. They killed them too.
Papa Doc Duvelier???
I said i dont remember. It happenned in the early 19th century.
Google that name I gave you
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Jacques_Dessalines#Revolution
The 1804 Haiti massacre was a genocidal massacre carried out against the remaining white population of French Creoles (orFranco-Haitians) in Haiti by the black population on the order of Jean-Jacques Dessalines. Throughout the nineteenth century, these events were well-known in the United States where they were referred to as the horrors of St. Domingo and particularly polarizedSouthern public opinion on the question of the abolition of slavery.
The massacre, which took place in the entire territory of Haiti, was carried out from early February 1804 until 22 April 1804, and resulted in the deaths of between 3,000 to 5,000 people of all ages and genders.[1]
Squads of soldiers moved from house to house, torturing and killing entire families.[2] Even whites who had been friendly and sympathetic to the black population were imprisoned and later killed.[3] A second wave of massacres targeted white women and children.[3]
Okay, Duvelier came later. Papa Doc and Baby Doc both fucking murderers.
Okay, Duvelier came later. Papa Doc and Baby Doc both fucking murderers.
Most heads of state used to tip the flight crew quite well, (500-1000 USD) per trip
What did Robert Mugabe give us? Carved elephants and giraffes which cost about 3 dollars .
One thing I liked about my old boss, Charles Taylor tried to hire us to fly him somewhere and my boss said ''NO WAY''.
Many people aren't aware of just how big Africa is. The entire lower 48 states could fit into the Sahara. We used to fly from Dakar, Senegal to Asmara, Eritrea. 7 hours of nothing but SAND.
From Tripoli down to Capetown was 12 hours NON STOP (we had extended range tanks).
when a black thug president steals land from white farmers and gives it to black non farmers it's not populism, it's racism.
No, Dumbo its THEFT.
No, Dumbo its THEFT.
Smell any spice or see any worms whilst crossing the desert?
Black Privilege.
This article is the worst piece of gutter journalism I’ve ever read on ZH, lacking facts, context and can only have been posted to rile the usual uninformed suspects into a frenzy. As a research fellow for a Think-Tank, I've travelled the Middle East, North and Sub Sahara Africa regularly over the past 20 years and the ignorance regarding Mugabe and Zimbabwe is simply astounding, but not surprising. I was in Zimbabwe, from November to December 2014 for 5 weeks and met white farmers, so this article is a blatant lie. Read this if you want a quick synopsis of the land/white farming issues in Zimbabwe .....http://viacampesina.org/downloads/pdf/openbooks/EN-07.pdf
Why did Mugabe kick the white farmers out? Contrary to popular belief,(AKA propaganda), we took the fucking piss and some more on top of that in Zimbabwe. If my memory recollection is correct, roughly 95%(give or take a few percentage points either way) of the white farmers were exporting there produce, which was not a bad thing in and of itself, but it was a closed shop cartel for whites producers only, with a few token black farmers, to disguise the fact it was really a whites only club. (We are talking about whites who settled Zimbabwe, who bought into Cecil Rhodes ethos, a man with such hubris, he named a fucking country after himself.) So the charge of white exclusivity is at the very least BELIEVABLE! Their main produce was tobacco(not edibles for the local and continental markets), where companies like Philip Morris, were paying whites absolute top money for their produce(which was primarily grown and cultivated by black hands).
NOW HERE'S THE IMPORTANT BIT! There were black Zimbabwean farmers who wanted to get in on this trade(logical enough) who were simply kept out of the closed shop whites only cartel. Western companies were in fact paying rates to white farmers for produce they would never pay to black African farmers, hence the major resentment(and the original birth of the FAIR TRADE movement). This was the straw that finally broke the camels back.
But here's the kicker! Before we spout off about black incompetence, which does exist, all of us on ZH, know how money is controlled and by whom, given the fact they control every central bank in the world up to 2015 except 5. The not so free market and capital markets as we know they are fixed/rigged/manipulated, at the behest of the UK, set about to destroy the Zimbabwe Dollar and economy, in retaliation for the white farmers being booted out(from land we stole) Think of Gold crashes, Silver crashes, and then it is easy to understand how we destroyed the Zimbabwe Dollar. The use of high frequency trading and the repeated dumping of the Zimbabwe dollar, at the same time every day was proof of that.
But we didn't stop there. The UK, in concert with the rest of the, E.U, the U.S and the 3 other members of the FIVE-EYES, ie; the entire Anglo world, placed crippling sanctions on Zimbabwe. This included, trade restrictions, travel bans, asset freezes and the real coup de grace was the sanctions placed on the farms. IE; Produce produced from any farm on the sanctions list(even if you leased land from the new black/original owners) in concert with our food retailers, we all but stopped purchasing Zimbabwe produce(we still purchased from the remaining white farmers).
The sanctions include UN Sanctions; UN sanctions against Zimbabwe on assumed and proven involvement in the illicit trade of high value commodities including diamonds. Form of the Sanctions; Prohibition on the provision of technical assistance, financing and financial assistance related to military activities. Prohibition on the exporting of equipment which might be used for internal repression. Criteria for Inclusion in Targeted Measures; Targeted measures are imposed upon “individual members of the Government of Zimbabwe and to any natural or legal persons, entities or bodies associated with them” Exemptions for non-lethal military equipment intended for humanitarian/protective use and for material intended for crisis-management operations of the EU and UN. Provisions in Force; Prohibition on the sale, supply, transfer or export of arms and related military material which might be used for internal repression. This applies to nationals of Member States, territories of Member States and the use of flag vessels or aircraft of Member States. Travel bans against those individuals whose activities seriously undermine democracy, respect for human rights and the rule of law.
The sanctions list, due to the way it was drawn up, including produce, commodities and finance was never going to hurt Mugabe and friends, but the general public, as they were intended and as we know, sanctions are extremely wide ranging and all encompassing. This had an absolutely devastating and crippling effect on Zimbabwe, as her foreign reserves dried up, as any government would suffer with an overnight decline with a cut of 62% of their exports. (Well you get the picture)
Despite Zimbabwean Government initiatives to help start up agriculture businesses(We all know the statistics of the failure rate of 1st and 2nd time businesses) it was a disaster waiting to happen, especially in the context of your previous markets now being effectively closed to you. But it wasn’t a disaster. The Chinese filled part of the vacuum left by the west and it is a success story in general...........http://www.channel4.com/news/land-reform-brings-prosperity-to-black-zimb..... So contrary to popular belief and propaganda, Blacks can look after themselves and thrive.
What we constantly see in the west is outright propaganda, to demonize those who don’t subscribe to our doctrine, or those who dare right the wrongs we have committed. Zimbabwe is beautiful beyond belief. The entire African continent is wonder to behold. A little known fact about Africa; You can fit the whole of Europe(excluding Russia), the entire U.S.A, The whole of China and the whole of India. If you don’t believe me, just Google “the real size of Africa” and the west has plundered it for the last 400+ years and like junkies, we don’t know how to stop and to continue the plunder and in this instance maintain “white privilege”, we will spin, embellish, exaggerate and tell lies to garner unjust support. People can downvote me if they want, but these are the facts.
I also heard from someone else that lives there a bit of a different story and it was mainly that blacks are a low IQ ineffectual mess. (Which is why historically,nothing of note ever came out of afirica) That was most of the problem, along with stealing land from white farmers because the blacks were jealous.
That is from someone that lives over there full time and still does.
Farming isn't a job that can be just stepped into. It takes at least a decade of hands on work, as well as some basic managerial skills, and complete commitment.
Throwing hay bales from time to time, or driving a tractor, does not a farmer make.
My fav poster of the 70's. The FAL was an awesome weapon.
http://www.hunt101.com/data/500/fal_man_among_men_poster.jpg
Yet another historical example that negros possess inferior IQ to whites.