Physical Address
304 North Cardinal St.
Dorchester Center, MA 02124
On February 7, the White House reduced assistance to South Africa, referring to non -existent threats to white farmers from the expropriation of government land. South Africa must only look north to see what could be out of the Trump’s executive. Zimbabwe’s economy has been destroyed by sanctions set out after the redistribution of agricultural land of the colonial era. And despite his efforts to reach the development authority, Washington seems to prefer a state, such as a corpse in Gibbet, so that other countries do not start getting their ideas.
In July 2020, Zimbabwe agreed to pay $ 3.5 billion for compensation of approximately 4,000 white colonists landowners for the property redistributed during the land reform. This amount, which is five times higher than the May 2020 Covid stimulus plan, was encircled at a time when the United Nations warned that the country was “on the limits of man -made hunger”. The transaction took place after years of pressure, with Zimbabwe’s officials hoping that the United States would be able to cancel the Law on Democracy and Economic Recovery in 2001, which has blocked state access to international loans and assistance in two decades. However, Zimbabwe lacked funds to pay, and Zhder remained.
The usual narrative represents Zimbabwe’s Earth Reform as a despotic Robert Mugabe’s reckless expropriation, causing the economy to collapse. This version rewrites history. During the UK colonization, Africans were forbidden to belong to the land outside “local reserves”. Until the mid-20th century, 48,000 white colonists controlled 50 million acres (more than 20 million hectares) of prime minister agricultural land, while nearly a million Africans were limited to 20 million acre highly barren land, which caused Zimbabwe release.
The Lancaster House Agreement, which ended with the White Minority Law, restricted the land reform to market transactions for ten years, ensuring that the land ownership of the colonial era remains. Despite this restriction, Zimbabwe took steps in human development in the 1980s. But by the end of the decade, the World Bank and the IMF have been set out the economic structural adjustment program, reducing public expenditure, removing subsidies and privatizing state -owned companies. Result: mass unemployment, degraded services and deepening of poverty.
Until 2000, in the face of growing domestic pressure, the Mugabe government began mandatory redistribution of land. The program had disadvantages – insufficient support for young farmers and inadequate resources for the restoration of agricultural supply chains. However, contrary to disaster narratives, thousands of unwear Zimbabwe benefits, while a small elite of white colonists lost their privileged status.
The international reaction was fast and punishment. When the US Congress went to Zhder in December 2001, it was clearly presented as a response to the Zimbabwe Land Reform Program, developing Zimbabwe’s action as a threat to US foreign policy. The United Kingdom, the European Union, Australia and Canada followed their penalties. For two decades, Zimbabwe has been imprisoned in the economic isolation cycle, failing to access the loans and investments needed for the restoration.
Human costs have been stunning. UN human rights experts have repeatedly warned that Zder has had a “deceptive impact of pulsation” on the Zimbabwe economy and enjoying fundamental rights. The South African Development Community estimates that Zimbabwe has lost access to more than $ 100 billion in international support since 2001.
The 2020 compensation transaction is a cruel irony. Zimbabwe, who has already gone bankrupt, now has to borrow billions to pay former colonial recipients in the hope of avoiding the Penal Law imposed in response to its land reform program. It creates the perfect trap: a nation forced to finance their exposure while they are suffering.
Absurd emphasizes the refusal of the US to support Zimbabwe’s debt restructuring through the African development bank. US officials insist that Zhder is a “law, not a sanction”, but is a difference without difference – either official sanctions or legislation, the goal remains the same: protecting colonists from colonized justice.
It’s not just a Zimbabwe story. Trump’s administration recently attacked South Africa’s most cautious land reform efforts, falsely claiming that the government “seizes the land from the white farmers.” This rhetoric, enhanced by the far-right media, ignores the fact that the South African land reform-established process-prices to repair the apartheid era, where white South Africans, 8 percent of the population, control 72 percent of agricultural land.
Trump’s intervention was never related to property rights – it was about preserving the global system that prefers former colonizers, not released. The struggle for the justice of the Earth in Zimbabwe, South Africa and throughout the global south is not just a local fight – it is global.
As Thomas Sankara, Burkina Faso’s revolutionary leader once said, the debt is “smartly managed African reconstruction”. The miserable situation of Zimbabwe is a pronounced reminder of this truth. The international community has to take into account the colonial heritage and systems that continue to implement it. Until we do, the liberation promise will remain inaccessible.
Zimbabwe’s land reform was not perfect, but it was necessary. The tragedy is not the reform itself, but the global reaction that punishes Zimbabwe for daring to challenge the status quo. It is time to lift sanctions, lift debts and allow Zimbabwe, South Africa and other countries to achieve justice on their own rules. Land reform is not a threat – it is a demand for justice, such a world can no longer be ignored.
The opinions expressed in this article are the authors themselves and do not always reflect the position of Al Jazeera’s editorial staff.
