Zimbabwe president Robert Mugabe apparently has decided to complete his plan to place that African nation on a path to national suicide by announcing plans to seizure the remaining 4,500 or so white-owned farms. The main result of such an idiotic plan will be a severe risk of famine over the next year or so.
Zimbabwe is already in significant trouble thanks to Mugabe’s policies. Over the past few years, Mugabe has desperately used racial animosity to hold on to power. When Zimbabwe first won its independence, many white landowners fled the country. Mugabe appealed to white farmers to stay and help build a new, prosperous Zimbabwe.
Over the past few years, however, his government turned on the white farmers and began seizing their farms. This policy was almost single handedly responsible for transforming Zimbabwe from a nation that was a net food exporter to one that today has appealed to the United Nations for more than $360 million in food aid to prevent serious famine.
Now, Mugabe has use newly won powers to effectively nationalize almost all white-owned land. The results are predictable — with their land set to be seized by the government, the farmers will not plant crops and next year at this time Zimbabwe is going to be a basket case.
John Robertson, an economist living in Zimbabwe, appraised the likely outcome for The Times (UK), saying,
It is suicide. Anything that has been planted will go to waste. Gross domestic product will be cut by half. It will make us equal to the poorest countries in the world. These are the actions of madmen.
This is why people starve in the developing world — not because of any problem with overpopulation, but because of the idiotic actions taken by governments more concerned about maintaining autocratic power than feeding people.
Source:
4,000 Zimbabwe farmers to be evicted. Jan Raath, The Times (UK), November 13, 2001.