‘Focus on Mugabe’s Land Policies’ (September 7 2002)

The people of Zimbabwe, and all true friends of Zimbabwe, have no problem accepting the principle of land reform for the purpose of addressing the well-known historical imbalances; however, land reform necessarily has to be a just and lawful sustainable process rooted in a just cause––as opposed to the current state of affairs in Zimbabwe where an illegitimate brutal regime and its cronies and militia have arbitrarily granted themselves a free-for-all land-grab license to satisfy greed and appease cronies in a wholly unsustainable program whose disastrous socio-economic impact is being unjustly and cruelly visited upon the entire African sub-continent as evident from recent media reports about the serious concerns and reservations by government and corporate chiefs (refer to: ‘zwnews.com’ article of Tuesday 20th August 2002––titled “Botswana badly hit by crisis”), report is just a case in point.

In essence, the real issue for debate on Zimbabwe and the sub-continent is not whether or not a just and sustainable land reform policy has a place in Zimbabwe. No! the real issue here is whether or not an illegitimate regime which is presently serving time (ONE YEAR), under Commonwealth Sanctions for such illegitimacy should be accorded a moral high ground by the so-called leaders of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) in the name of “GOOD GORVENANCE NEPAD-STYLE?”. (The Sunday Mirror of August 25, 2002––headed “SADC threatens to boycott West” is a case in point of the apparent monumental folly and outrageous defiance of the Commonwealth Sanctions against a brutal and illegitimate regime which is officially suspended from all the Councils of the Commonwealth.)

If the so-called SADC leaders had any sense of shame or accountability, they would have known that as members of good standing in the Commonwealth, they should not be debating as to whether or not an illegitimate regime should be granted an audience at the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD), currently being hosted in the SADC region (South Africa), but more importantly they ought to know that they have a debt of honor and a duty to the peoples of the Commonwealth to ensure that the Mugabe regime is made not only to serve the ONE YEAR suspension (where men of honor hold court), but to understand and become contrite for having gravely offended the Commonwealth.

“These are the facts”

By: Thabo Siziba.

N.B: article also published by; The Sunday Mirror of Zimbabwe, on September 7, 2002. Heading of article was “illegitimate regime should be shunned”.