The report submitted at the Zanu PF party Conference admits the party was wrong to have seized farms covered by Bilateral Investment Promotion and Protection Agreements (BIPPAs) and no pay compensation to the owners. These include properties belonging to citizens from Denmark, Germany, Italy, Malaysia, the Netherlands and Switzerland. The report detailed that out of 153 BIPPA protected farms, 116 were taken over under the land grab.
Some of the countries in the West have been itching to lift the targeted sanctions and give up all efforts to force Mugabe and Zanu PF to accept democratic reforms. They accept a leopard will not lose its spots, especially when they are being nagged to lift the sanctions by the very people they expected to be pushing them to do the exact opposite - SADC and no lesser person than Prime Minister Tsvangirai himself!
No doubt Mugabe is aware of this and the public admission that he was wrong to seize the farms is meant to be an olive branch to the West.
It should be noted that Mugabe also announced, within hours of offering this token of peace, that Zanu PF will be pushing for "100% ownership" of Zimbabwe's resources by black Zimbabweans; he is no longer contend with the 51% ownership. So Mugabe is offering the olive branch in one hand and meanwhile in the other hand he has a snapper rifle hunting the would-be recipient of the olive branch.
Mugabe seized the white owned farms in violation of the international agreements, Zimbabwe’s own laws and common sense – the seizures were the primary cause of the country’s economic melt-down from which the nation has yet to recover – because he had no choice. He is the leader of a party whose appetite for loot is insatiable; the more the get the more they waste and the greater their demands for more. There are no more white-owned or foreign-owned farms left in Zimbabwe and already there is a deafening chorus from the Zanu PF ruling elite, demands more loot! It is just a matter it is just a matter of when, not if, Mugabe is going to let fly on some white-owned companies caught in his cross-wire!
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At its meeting last week SADC resolved that the regional body will not accept elections in Zimbabwe until all democratic reforms are implemented and a new constitution accepted by the people of Zimbabwe in a referendum is in place.
One has to ask why SADC had done nothing for the last four years to push Zimbabwe’s dysfunctional GNU to implement the GPA agreements. This is more than just a case of better late than never because it is inconceivable to see how the reforms can be implemented an put into practice to change the situation on the ground without drawing out the whole process into 2014 before fresh elections are held.
Whatever happens now, Zimbabweans will pay dearly for the wasted four years to put the country on a firm democratic footing; it is going to be a messy and long process – if it happens at all!
@Chimbwido Warvet
You have said some nonsense on this site but this takes the biscuit! "Some thirty years or so ago when the Lancaster House Constitution was created, nobody had the slightest idea about the question of human rights, including the United Kingdom."
What was the war of independence for if it was not to fight to end the exploitation, oppression and other human rights violations and injustices perpetrated by the white colonists on the blacks? It is a great tragedy that, 33 years after independents, people are still dying for a constitution to grant every Zimbabwean the most basic rights including the right to a meaningful say in the governance of the country and the right to life itself. These rights have been denied to the majority of our people and granted to a select few as if they were for any mortal to deny or grant.
Over 300 000 Zimbabweans lost their lives in the fight to end white domination and oppression, sadly only we did in 1980 is replace a white oppressors with a black ones just as oppressive but with added edge of being the corrupt and stupid! The masses of Zimbabwe gained nothing politically from Mugabe’s rule compared to Smith’s rule but their economic lose have been great as seen by the drop in life expectancy from 68 years in 1980 to 34 year in 2008!
No my murderous and stupid fiend; Mugabe, his cronies and all his acolytes understood what difference between right and wrong all along; when they got in power their greed got the better of them! And for betraying the nation so; they will not only have their loot taken from them but those who murdered so many of our people must hang!
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