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David Floyd
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The bottom of a large bottle of beer
Jan 1970
time: 05:21
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Crunch Day Arrives for Zimbabwe's White Farmers
Wed Aug 7, 6:18 PM ET
HARARE (Reuters) - The clock is ticking for thousands of white Zimbabwean farmers facing a Thursday midnight deadline to leave land they have farmed for generations or defy President Robert Mugabe's government and risk jail.
Reuters
Slideshow: Zimbabwe
Thousands Of White Farmers Forced To Leave
(Reuters Video)
Mugabe has given nearly 3,000 of the country's 4,500 white farmers until the stroke of 12 to hand over their land for occupation by blacks. A farmer who defies an eviction order faces a fine and up to two years in prison.
Mugabe launched his drive to acquire compulsorily white-owned farms for black resettlement two years ago, but this would mark the first mass eviction. It comes as the country -- once the region's breadbasket -- faces severe food shortages.
Analysts say disruption to farming through the state-backed farm invasions has compounded both the food shortages and a severe economic crisis blamed on government mismanagement.
Mugabe -- Zimbabwe's sole ruler since the former Rhodesia gained independence in 1980 -- says his land seizures are meant to right the wrongs of British colonialism, which left 70 percent of the country's best farmland in white hands.
In May, he passed a law giving 2,900 farmers 45 days to wind up operations and another 45 days -- expiring at midnight on August 8 -- to leave their land and make way for black settlers.
Some of the farmers say they will go. Others have vowed to fight the land seizure and eviction orders through the courts.
The Commercial Farmers Union (CFU), which represents the white farmers, says it supports land redistribution, but is opposed to the system employed by the government.
"It is our genuine desire to see an equitable and just conclusion to the current land reform program, thereby guaranteeing viability for new and existing farmers," CFU president Colin Cloete said on Wednesday.
But a new CFU splinter group is urging farmers to fight on.
"Our position is that people should not give in because we are in a crisis as a country," Justice for Agriculture (JAG) chairman David Connolly told reporters.
The European Union ( news - web sites) and the United States have imposed sanctions on Mugabe and his ruling elite over his land policy and after his controversial re-election as president in March.
Many Western powers say the election was rigged and are backing demands by the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) for a fresh poll.
Mugabe insists he won fairly, and dismisses calls for a rerun as attempts to impose MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai as leader of the southern African country.
*************
If I had to pick, I'd rather bomb this guy out of power than Saddam 
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David Floyd
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The bottom of a large bottle of beer
Jan 1970
time: 05:21
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quote:
The most important thing is not really that whites are forced to give land to blacks. It's that the people that actually gets the land is not the people that would have a real use for it but men in the establishment that wants the feel of a good old nobleman.
Meanwhile there's no food being produced and starvation is to be expected. |
Actually that's very true as well. I guarantee you that this will have a seriously negative impact on food production, at least if South Africa is any precedent (ie became a shithole almost as soon as the ANC took over).
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David Floyd
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The bottom of a large bottle of beer
Jan 1970
time: 05:21
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I'm betting you're right.
Not that I think we should attack him, you understand, just that I think he's a horrible, horrible man deserving of all sorts of horrible fates.
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David Floyd
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The bottom of a large bottle of beer
Jan 1970
time: 05:21
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Yes, and then Mugabe would probably have them shot, because he obviously doesn't believe in the concept of private property.
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David Floyd
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The bottom of a large bottle of beer
Jan 1970
time: 05:21
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Sometimes I think that Africa would be better off back under colonial rule...
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David Floyd
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The bottom of a large bottle of beer
Jan 1970
time: 05:21
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quote:
Private property that was taken by force from the original people. All that land is stolen property to begin with. None of the whites there have a legitimate claim to the land. Their ancestors didn't buy the land, they conquered the savages and then prevented them by law from owning any land. If you are in possession of stolen property, you don't have any rights to it. And unlike the American Indians, the local Africans did believe they owned the land. |
Good point - and if you can find any living people who were robbed of their land, I'm all for restitution. But the fact is that it happened far enough ago that no one on either side is alive. The current blacks have lost nothing, and the current whites have taken nothing. I see no reason to force the whites to give up the land, and in essence destroy their way of life, in order to make everyone's life equally shitty. Again, look what happened in South Africa after the whites were thrown out of power. That isn't racist, it's a simple fact - South Africa is now a shithole.
But in any case, how does allowing random blacks to occupy random farmland count as just restitution?
quote:
From a national standpoint, Mugabe is shooting the country in the foot. Even if all the land is farmed, food production is going to collapse. I doubt most of the people who get land will know who to farm it well enough to produce the same kinds of surpluses that the previous farmers did. |
Yes, we've already established Mugabe is a ****ing idiot.
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Albert Speer
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Puerile Polemic
Mar 1999
time: 00:21
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Floyd et al:
Mugabe wants some sort of equality. It's a fact that the average white Zimbabwean has far more land and money than the average black zimbabwean. It's also a fact that this situation arose not through any legitamate purchase but by the force of superior weapons. This superiority of force is now in the hands of the blacks so why should they not have the ability to do the same that the british did? Of course it is 'wrong' but so was the cause of the fact that whites possess far more property in Zimbabwe.
thanks
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David Floyd
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The bottom of a large bottle of beer
Jan 1970
time: 05:21
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quote:
The problem is that these "few" farmers (white or black) own a very big percent of the farmland, while the ordinary people have very little land and have to work on land that is not their own. |
Why is this a problem?
Speer,
quote:
Mugabe wants some sort of equality. It's a fact that the average white Zimbabwean has far more land and money than the average black zimbabwean. |
Why is this, on its own, a problem?
quote:
It's also a fact that this situation arose not through any legitamate purchase but by the force of superior weapons. |
Yes, but as has already been pointed out, any reasonable statute of limitations on theft has long expired. No one living has stolen any land, and no one living has had land stolen from them.
quote:
This superiority of force is now in the hands of the blacks so why should they not have the ability to do the same that the british did? |
Obviously because they would become hypocrites, and would be using force against innocent people.
quote:
Of course it is 'wrong' but so was the cause of the fact that whites possess far more property in Zimbabwe. |
Yes, the original circumstances were wrong, but there is nothing wrong with the situation as it stands today.
And, one final time, if you want an example of what happens when the blacks throw the whites out of power and start to reverse the roles (the blacks being the ones who start discriminating and being racist, etc.), just look at South Africa. This is not a good idea for more reason than one.
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C0ckney
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Big Up The Macedonian Massive
Apr 2000
time: 05:21
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I'm all for letting the white farmers come over here, and have us cut off all aid. Then we'll see how well the blacks do when they have 'equality'.
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Flubber
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With a view of the Rockies
Aug 2000
time: 22:21
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quote:
Originally posted by Hagbart
The problem is that these "few" farmers (white or black) own a very big percent of the farmland, while the ordinary people have very little land and have to work on land that is not their own. |
Assuming this is true, why is this a problem or undesirable. In the breadbasket of canada, farms have gotten larger and larger and more mechanized with greater efficiencies, higher production and less employment. farms has to get larger to compete.
Now in this land reform, if the idea is to give the lands to a lot of black people, you will probably have a whole lot of subsistence farming and overall less production than you would have had with fewer farmers, each with more resources to maintain production levels.
Splitting out the land is a recipe for subsistence living
On a broader note, I am sick of the " you took something from my ancestors 500 years ago so I am entitled to retribution" argument. Almost every ethnicity you would care to name has conquered somebody or someplace at some point in their history. get over it already and deal with addressing the inequities of today
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Kontiki
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Canada
Aug 2001
time: 00:21
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Yes, South Africa was a much better place when it was a playground for the whites essentially serviced by black slave labour, who were then penned back up in their ghettos after a day's work.
Seriously, I don't think the ANC has done a bang up job, but for the most part, the only dramatic change has been that the squalid conditions of the black areas have been expanded into the white areas. There really wasn't anything for black SA's to fall back on. This isn't to excuse the rampant crime, etc. - I'm just pointing that when you release an underclass that forms the vast majority of the population from brutal opression, you shouldn't expect everything to be rosey...
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09-08-2002 01:57
If you are in possession of stolen property, you don't have any rights to it. And unlike the American Indians, the local Africans did believe they owned the land.
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