ELECTED OFFICIALS TAKE FACT-FINDING TRIP TO ZIMBABWE

ecently, New York City Council Members Charles Barron and James Davis, along with New York State Assemblyman Adam Clayton Powell III and Donne Trotter, State Senator from Illinois, went on a fact-finding mission to Zimbabwe.

Different from a recent trip to Israel by some other New York City Council Members in which they met only with Jews and no Palestinians, on this trip the four elected officials met with people from all sides. They conferred with President Robert Mugabe himself and several government officials, but they spent even more time with members of the opposition parties, the United States Ambassador Joseph Sullivan, and Zimbabwe's opposition newspaper the Daily News. They spoke with peasants who were given land and also with members of the white commercial farmers union who had land taken away.

Without anyone telling them who to speak with or where to go, they went out into rural areas where there is enthusiastic support for Mugabe, and into Harare, a stronghold of opposition to his administration. They discussed the tough issues like land reform, food shortages and various accusations surrounding elections.

In brief, the unanimous findings of Barron, Davis, Powell and Trotter are that for such a young nation Zimbabwe has succeeded in accomplishing some tremendously important things, and the hard work continues. To revile a brand new country for not solving its problems fast enough is unfair, and to expect the leadership to accomplish everything without any mistakes is unrealistic. As Assemblyman Powell put it, "This is a newly developed country that was colonized for umpteen number of years and now it's just coming into its own. You have to expect them to make mistakes. They have problems just like we do, and we have to be patient."

Basically, in 1890, Cecil Rhodes, a British businessman who came to pilfer the country's natural resources in diamonds and gold, colonized Zimbabwe. He renamed the nation Rhodesia after himself. From then on, it was ruled by one British colonial power after another. Whites controlled about 90% of the best arable land, while Blacks couldn't own land or vote, and were paid next to nothing for their labor.

Meanwhile, Robert Mugabe formed the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) and Joshua Nkomo founded the Zimbabwe African Peoples Union (ZAPU) to fight colonialism. Unfortunately, infighting between them made it hard to make any headway against the colonizers. They finally united in the Patriotic Front, and after that they began to progress. The struggle was difficult, however, and Mugabe and Nkomo each spent over a decade in prison. When they got out, they intensified their struggle. By 1979 they were so close to victory that Britain called for a cease-fire.

The Lancaster Agreement, a negotiated settlement for peace, was signed. It was a "willing seller, willing buyer" agreement in which Britain agreed to turn over South Rhodesia to its African inhabitants who, in turn, agreed that with the help of the British and US governments they would pay the whites for their land.

However, those promises were never kept. Britain didn't come through with much help and the US dropped out altogether; so Zimbabwe was never able to scrape together the money to buy back the land from the white farmers - land they'd never been paid for when it was taken from them.

Even though the Zimbabweans agreed about the urgent need for land reform, after Mugabe became President he kept dragging his feet. The white farmers loved him for it, but the Zimbabweans grew more and more impatient. However, he continued to ignore them for a decade and a half, until 1995 when he began land reform in earnest. Explained Barron, "Mugabe said there's 4,500 farms owned by whites and we're going to take back 2,900 from those who own multiple farms and leave them with the single one of their choosing. He told them they would be reimbursed for any structures and development of their farms, but not for the land itself."

Since so much of the condemnation of Mugabe that we hear in this country revolves around his land reform, this was a major issue the 4 elected officials looked into.

First of all, in speaking with the opposition parties, they found out that Zimbabweans are very supportive of the land reform; it's just that there are differing views and disagreements as to how Mugabe has gone about it. For instance, Barron explained, "Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) said they think he waited too long, and that even now, he isn't taking the land fast enough. Their position all along was that they're recovering their own land from thieves and they shouldn't be paying for the land or having to explain it to anyone, debate it anywhere, period."

The MDC has also accused Mugabe of giving land to his cronies; however, they do admit that 336,000 families have been reallocated farms - which is an awful lot of cronies! They say too that he's giving land to peasants who don't have money to develop it.

Our visiting legislators did see that it's not a perfect system. Just as the MDC said, there are some peasants who haven't been able to do anything with their land yet, but there are many others who are doing quite well. And when the men went to the farm of a General who has a large area of land, they saw that it is well run and productive. He pays the workers excellent wages and has given each of them 2 hectares (about 5 acres) of land of their own to work for their personal profit.

The men also met with members of the white commercial farmers union. One farmer said he was mad because Mugabe was calling them the children of the British, but Mugabe was his president until he started saying that. He said too that he blames a lot of this on Tony Blair and Britain, not on Mugabe.

Based on what they saw, Senator Trotter believes that the land reform is a crucial part of Zimbabwe's plan for self-determination. He saw clearly that under the colonization there was a very inequitable distribution of land and "the Zimbabweans fought a war and won, and it is time for them to reclaim the land that is rightfully theirs," he stated.

Donna Lamb can be reached at dlamb@gis.net.