Is Robert Mugabe the ‘villain’ that the British and US press is making him out to be? Or is there another side to the story?
When the British conquered the country in the late 19th century, fertile land everywhere was seized, and each British soldier was allotted 6,000 acres of land while the indigenous inhabitants were forced into ‘reservations’ in the most arid lands.
Although Zimbabwe became free in 1979, landholdings continued to be concentrated in the hands of the Whites. So concentrated was the wealth that a mere 66 White farmers owned a total of 2 million hectares, almost two-thirds of the total arable land in Zimbabwe. White commercial farms averaged 2,500 hectares in size, while black farmers struggled to survive on an average of 2 hectares of arid land.
The following story of Zimbabwe’s ‘controversial’ land reform programme will reveal the British racist stand on Black Africa. Anybody will sympathise entirely with Mugabe and the dispossessed indigenous people of Zimbabwe – EDITOR.
