Great job, Bob

Robert Mugabe now admits his "land redistribution" scheme has been a disastrous failure - a failure he will cure with even more land seizures. And hey, he sure stuck it to Whitey, didn't he?

President Robert Mugabe confessed yesterday that millions of acres of prime land seized from Zimbabwe's white farmers are now lying empty and idle.

After years spent trumpeting the "success" of the land grab, Mr Mugabe, 81, admitted that most of the farms transferred to black owners have never been used.

All but a handful of Zimbabwe's 4,000 white farmers lost their homes and livelihoods when armed gangs of Mugabe supporters began invading their property in 2000.

In the first 18 months of the campaign, eight white landowners and 39 of their black workers were murdered, court orders defied and Zimbabwe's economy plunged into crisis.

Mr Mugabe said this was the price that Zimbabwe would have to pay to redress the wrongs of the British colonial era, which left much of the best land in white hands. He claimed that the seizures would boost production and benefit millions of blacks.

Yet in his home province yesterday, Mr Mugabe chided the new landowners for growing crops on less than half of their land.

"President Mugabe expressed disappointment with the land use, saying only 44 per cent of the land distributed is being fully utilised," state television reported. "He warned the farmers that the government will not hesitate to redistribute land that is not being utilised."
[...]
The Commercial Farmers' Union said that Zimbabwe grew only 850,000 tonnes of maize last year, not enough to meet domestic demand. In 1999, the last year before the land grab began, Zimbabwe grew 1.5 million tonnes. Then, Zimbabwe also earned about £263 million from tobacco exports. Last year, production had fallen by more than 70 per cent and earnings were down to £77 million.

An Economist cover story a few years ago called Africa "The Hopeless Continent". I ain't arguing.

Posted by damian at March 3, 2005 05:56 PM