Cameron Duodu
LETTER FROM THE NORTH
In 1992 I was in Abuja, Nigeria, to cover former president FW de Klerk’s first official visit to Nigeria. As I sat down to face De Klerk and his officials at the news conference, I wondered whether they fully realised the historic importance of the visit.
Nigeria had played a most important role in helping to achieve independence for Zimbabwe. It had also helped to frustrate the West’s designs on Angola, as expressed through South Africa. But now here was De Klerk in Abuja. And it had all been made possible by one man, Nelson Mandela. But what had De Klerk and his officials done to show their appreciation for the way Mandela had opened the doors of the world for them?
In my mind’s eye I could see the huge, irrigated, white-owned farms I had observed as I drove around South Africa, invariably separated by black settlements, where drinking water was drawn from wells and huge electric pylons passed overhead, yet light was provided by candles or kerosene lamps. I could see the smelly streets of Chicken Farm in Soweto, in contrast to the film-star type residences in Johannesburg’s suburbs inhabited by whites.
So I put up my hand and asked De Klerk: “You’ve got a lot of mileage out of the negotiation process with the African National Congress. Don’t you think you should repay Mr Mandela by doing something for the black population of South Africa, in order that his fellow Africans might not begin to think that he has betrayed their black brothers?”
In answer De Klerk said that if I visited South Africa, I would see that his government was carrying out a great deal of development work in the black community. And he reeled off some figures which he said had been budgeted to that purpose.
I was tempted to counter that it was precisely because I had visited South Africa that I had asked the question. But I realised that De Klerk lived in another reality from that which the African visitor to South Africa saw. If he was a verligte, anti-apartheid leader, then what were the verkramptes like, I wondered?
I was reminded of these ruminations when I heard that the new Commonwealth secretary-general Don McKinnon was going to Zimbabwe to talk to President Robert Mugabe in an attempt to defuse the situation over land seizures, and the violence that threatens to mar Zimbabwe’s forthcoming elections. The talks between McKinnon and Mugabe will be a dialogue of the deaf – just as those between the Zimbabwe delegation and the British government were last week – unless someone takes the trouble to explain to McKinnon the exact nature of the quarrel between Mugabe and the white farmers.
McKinnon must appreciate that Mugabe feels betrayed by the white farmers. Why? Because Mugabe, who before he obtained power was painted as a Marxist who would nationalise everything and cause economic chaos, has turned out to be a rather conservative or “moderate”‘ leader. In order not to ”frighten” investors, he has left the economy in almost the same position as Ian Smith had put it, subsidies to white farmers and all.
These subsidies, as retained by the government of a so-called revolutionary party like Zanu-PF, can be considered scandalous, in view of the noise made by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank over the need to allow market forces to phase out any subsidies that might exist in the social sectors, such as health and education.
The subsidies to the Zimbabwe farmers, according to Horace W Campbell of the University of Syracuse, United States, consist of:
l The provision of cheap subsidised water. At last count this was to the tune of more than $44-million – this in a situation where the rural poor largely do not have access to clean, potable water.
l The provision of cheap electricity (the Kariba project displaced the Tonga people and provided electricity for white farmers).
l The provision of feeder roads and services for white farms.
l Help with seeds, fertilisers, tractor repairs and the like.
Campbell says: “The subsidies that were provided to the farmers by Ian Smith were continued by the independent government headed by Robert Mugabe. Even if there was a reluctance to move on the farm issue over the past 20 years, the Zanu-PF government could have made the farmers pay market rates for water and electricity.”
This type of criticism from radicals is faced daily within Zanu-PF by Mugabe. Yet what do the white farmers who are the beneficiaries of his revolutionary apostasy do? They finance a trade union movement’s transformation into a political party – the Movement for Democratic Change – to throw out Mugabe!
So Mugabe’s anger is not quite without cause. To prevent it from consuming him and Zimbabwe’s economy, that anger has to be understood and assuaged. But it seems neither London nor the Commonwealth has understood Mugabe’s psychology. Instead, it seems, ironically, that a group – apparently the majority – within Zimbabwe’s Commercial Farmers’ Union do have some grasp of it! If that is truly the case we could yet see a reasonable land redistribution programme come into effect soon, and thus be spared the nasty bloodshed and violent incidents of recent weeks.
We need common sense from all sides in order to put right past injustices of a truly monstrous nature. The compromises which the whites are able to make over this land issue will define their own humanity, or lack of it. And it will be a lesson to the complacent whites in South Africa who think that all was settled the moment the ANC came to power.