Sir, - Your Editorial of January 31st, "Problems for Mugabe", will be read by many as supporting the arbitrary seizure of private property in Zimbabwe - in compensation for alleged injustices committed by a past owner! You write: "Attempts to redistribute land are not without justification. . .[on the grounds that much of it]. . .was taken by force without any consideration for traditional rights." Nobody worth listening to in (or interested in) Zimbabwe disputes this. Offers of both help and funds for a land redistribution programme have long been on the table, but Mugabe refuses them because they are conditional on fair procedures.
Your words blur the line between fair redistribution and a gross abuse of power. No government should ever seize property from its legal owner, unless due judicial process establishes that the owner does not have good title to it. In a civilised world, injustices by past owners cannot be redressed by action against their successors. Consider, Mr Editor, the land your house stands on. Was it once owned by a grasping mill-owner or absentee landlord who exploited his workers or tenants? Does that entitle the government to simply seize your home - and to immediately bus in some squatters, under armed guard? Or, if that is too far-fetched for you, consider the homes and farms of most Americans, Canadians or Australians, including the millions of "white settlers" from Ireland. I can see little difference between their tenure and that of Zimbabwe's commercial farmers - except in the number of the indigenous people left alive to argue about it!
You must know that every Zimbabwean landowner alive today either legally inherited or legally bought his land - or was granted it by the government. You might not know that three-quarters of Zimbabwean farms have been sold to new owners since independence. The vendors complied with the legal requirement to offer their land to the government before placing it on the open market. The new owners bought their land in good faith - complete with a certificate confirming that the government made no claim on it. Seizure without compensation would be injustice enough in any circumstances, but it is doubly so after this legal process, which was set in place by Mugabe's government soon after independence. Yet many such farms have been listed for seizure (including some with black owners). Meanwhile, the government hangs on to vast tracts of land already under its control, lying derelict and available for distribution.
As you hint, the real agenda is the last-gasp attempt of an ageing despot to cling to power by populist tactics that he hopes will allow him to claim a democratic mandate. However, you underestimate the evil strategy behind it, exactly that employed by the Nazis: blame all your country's ills on an identifiable minority, then proceed to demonise and persecute them, while the country continues to fall apart. Whites are not the target, just white farmers; there is very little racial tension in Zimbabwe. Sadly for Mugabe, the majority of his subjects seem too sane and well-educated to fall for his rantings. But then, who thought the Germans would ever fall under Hitler's spell?
Zimbabwe's economy is declining fast not because "the tide has turned against the president and his country", as you put it, but because of two decades of incompetent and corrupt one-man government. But Zimbabweans are resourceful. I believe their recovery will be surprisingly quick once they get rid of him - whether this is through a humiliating defeat in next year's presidential elections or by more merciful means.
Meanwhile, Zimbabwe remains one of Africa's safest, most delightful, most civilised and (still) most prosperous countries. - Yours, etc.,
Dr Duncan J. Martin, Salmon Weir, Annacotty, Co Limerick.