Zimbabwe is going through a severe crisis caused primarily by its lunatic, yet still aging, 84 year old tyrant Robert Mugabe. But at least if people are going to make comments or analyses based on its failing land reforms, they should read around, maybe listen to people there and in the region, to flesh our their opinions whatever they may be.

Here's an essay from South Africa's Mail & Guardian, a partner of the Guardian paper of the UK. It's a capsule review of the land issues and reforms and mis-reforms of Zimbabwe. (Only an excerpt, follow link for more text or to read additional Zimbabwe / Southern Africa news & analysis.)

From "Land reform: The art of the possible"

by Dr Peter Kagwanja...a director in the democracy and governance research programme of the Human Sciences Research Council in South Africa. In 2004, he co-authored the International Crisis Group report, Blood and Soil: Land Politics and Conflict Prevention in Zimbabwe

In the 1980s, Mugabe successfully kept the lid on the peasants and propped up the white farmers. For a while he became the West's blue-eyed boy. The proportion of white-controlled land shrivelled to 29% in 1990, with close to 3,5-million hectares passing into the hands of 75 000 black families by 2000. Racial conflict over land flared. "The biggest single problem yet to be resolved," Mugabe declared in the 1990s, "is that of land distribution." The pace of land reform spiked after the government lost the February 2000 constitutional referendum. In the 2001/02 "fast-track" land reform programme, white commercial farmers lost more than 11million hectares. By 2002, only 600 to 800 of 4 500 white farmers remained on their land. "After three decades of independence," said lawyer Bertus de Villiers, "Zimbabwe had reached a goal it envisaged during the liberation struggle." By righting historical wrongs without proper planning and adequate resources, the elite acted like the proverbial fool who severed the branch on which he sat. The dramatic collapse of commercial agriculture pushed the economy to the ropes. Unemployment soared to more than 80%, with more than three million, or a quarter of the country's 12,2-million, people fleeing to exile. Once the regional breadbasket, the country has lost the capacity to feed its population or to shield it from sporadic droughts. A change of government is the logical starting point to restore land tenure. Efficient administration of records relating to land will help avoid disputes. New capital can provide seeds and fertilisers, and establish demonstration farms and other institutions. External donors, such as the World Bank, the United Nations, the United States and the United Kingdom, should prepare plans to support land reform. Although the UK promised £75-million and the US promised $500-million to support land reform, only £30-million had been received by 2000. This is in stark contrast to Kenya, where £500-million was made available to aid the land restoration process. An independent and professional national land commission will also need to be established to conduct a comprehensive inventory of land, and organise land tribunals. Better governance of land tenure, including a property rights regime, is central to economic revival...

http://www.mg.co.za/articledirect.aspx?articleid=305185&area=%2fsupzim0407_content%2f

The right wing is unfailingly able to describe, at any moment, without any evidence required, What Americans Want.

That's because anyone who wants something other than what right wingers want is Not American.

Q.E.D.

I wish the domination of U.S. politics by right wing myths only extended 7 years. Most of the current crop of myths themselves were brought in by the Reaganite movement, of which Bush Jr. is the Reagan II administration, in ideology, in policy, and in much of his senior staffing.

Even Bill Clinton made a bit of his presidential office the purview of right wing myths, none more so than the Big Business / Republican initiative known as NAFTA which did so much damage to U.S., Canadian, and Mexican workers as well as to the Democratic Party, all based on Reaganite anti-regulation mythology.

Thank goodness that Bush Jr's possession of absolute power over all branches of government and the complete fealty given him by all the major News Producer Community for his first years in power *may have* allowed average Americans to finally see the Reaganite craziness for what it was.

No longer can Republicans ever claim that Reaganite crap would grow pots o'gold in this country if only they had complete power, because they had it, and We Saw That It Was Crap.

Doing anything other than placing Our Troops in the most dangerous, deadly environments is tantamount to undermining them.

Bringing them home, or making sure they have adequate down time, or making sure that necessary equipment is provided, or avoiding weird fantastic arguments from armchair hawks about this or that fantasy operation which will liberate the world -- these are all ways to hate the troops.

The troops can only be supported by placing them at maximal risk from the worst arguments of their civilian leadership.

It's odd, but true.