alex

I just want to repeat that little item. Claire Short-Sighted caused
the Zimbabwe land reform brouhaha.

Why? Because the Labour Party is not the party of land owners,
and THEREFORE, they did not need to keep funding the land
reform program (compensating white farmers, not setting up
black farmers, mind you) in Zimbabwe.

What were they thinking? That land reform would just stop
because they stopped paying? That people would remain
landless forever? Or squeezed together on Native Reserves?
In Africa, in 2004?

Anyway, read for yourself - from Claire Short:

" I should make it clear that we do not accept that Britain has
a special responsibility to meet the costs of land purchase in
Zimbabwe. We are a new Government from diverse backgrounds
without links to former colonial interests. My own origins are
Irish and as you know we were colonised not colonisers.

We do, however, recognise the very real issues you face over
land reform. We believe that land reform could be an important
component of a Zimbabwean programme designed to eliminate
poverty. We would be prepared to support a programme of
land reform that was part of a poverty eradication strategy
but not on any other basis.

I am told Britain provided a package of assistance for resettlement
in the period immediately following independence. This was, I gather,
carefully planned and implemented, and met most of its targets.

Again, I am told there were discussions in 1989 and 1996 to
explore the possibility of further assistance. However that is
all in the past.

If we look to the present, a number of specific issues are
unresolved, including the way in which land would be
acquired and compensation paid - clearly it would not
help the poor of Zimbabwe if it was done in a way which
undermined investor confidence. "

Read more, at:

Zimbabwe: The Spark
http://www.swans.com/library/art9/ankomah5.html

Zimbabwe: "A Conservative Government Would Never Have Done That"
Interview between Baffour Ankomah and CFU director David Hasluck.
http://www.swans.com/library/art9/ankomah4.html