The Future for Zimbabwe

The future for Zimbabwe is not as bleak as the International media would want to portray. Resettled farmers managed to plant short season crops in anticipation of a drought and they expect to harvest at least sufficient enough to feed themselves.

The current dialogue between the white commercial farmers through their Commercial Farmers Union is also encouraging as the Government has promised to give land to white farmers who lost all their farms during the compulsory acquisition of farms. The Government is convinced that there is enough land to be allocated to the 3000 white commercial farmers some of whom lost all their farms during the compulsory land acquisitions. However, its insist that its policy is one man, one farm and no multiple ownership of farms.

The Government acquired a total of 11 million hectares of land during land resettlement program enough to allocate to the majority of blacks who comprise more than 98 percent of the country's 11, 4 million people.

The Government argues that if it were to divide land to be allocated to white farmers with each roughly getting 300 hectares, this would be around one million hectares something that will be proportional to their numbers.

Regional countries including South Africa have also expressed their support to Zimbabwe and attacked Britain for demeaning the country on the international arena.

Nigeria and South Africa recently wrote to the chairman of the Commonwealth Troika, Australian Prime Minister Mr. John Howard saying that the suspension of Zimbabwe from the Commonwealth Club should be lifted following the completion of the land reform program.

The troika comprising of Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, South Africa's Thabo Mbeki and Mr. John Howard of Australia, which was set up to look into the problems of Zimbabwe last year suspended Zimbabwe for alleged human rights abuse and election violence largely attributed to have been perpetrated by ruling party supporters.

However, after a recent visit to South Africa and Zimbabwe Nigeria's President Obasanjo wrote to Mr. Howard saying that the suspension on Zimbabwe should be lifted because of a number of positive developments that have taken place since the election results were announced.

Mr. Obasanjo highlighted the fact that violence on the farms had ceased following the completion of the program and stopping of harassment by police of opposition members.

The Nigeria leader said his views were in concurrent with South Africa's President Mbeki on the need to engage Zimbabwe in a dialogue rather than continuously isolating it. President Mbeki was recently in London where he held a meeting with Mr. Tony Blair over Zimbabwe. President Mbeki appealed to Mr. Blair to ensure that the international demonstration of President Mugabe and Zimbabwe.

President Mbeki also promised Mr. Blair that he was to convey the same message to President Mugabe to stop using derogatory language against the British government and the local minority white population.

So in the final analysis, although the country is experiencing one of the worst economic crisis in the region, there is light at the end of the tunnel. What is needed is for the international community to forget about politics and concentrate on ensuring that the innocent population in the rural areas and urban centers has the capacity to grow food for themselves apart from getting humanitarian assistance.[]

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