Not complex at all

Although I do not agree with the way the land resettlement was carried out, I feel that it was necessary - remember the Lancaster Agreement? The whites did not pay the blacks for the land when they took it away, but now everyone is crying foul! Yes, it happened a long time ago, but the effects lingered. The price of taking the land from producing farmers is steep and is being paid by the country. This price is only heightened by corruption and greed. Let's not oversimplify it. It's complex.
Mwana, Harare

Found this comment on the BBC Discussion forum. This was the topic:

What can stop Zimbabwe's decline?
The EU has stepped up the pressure on Zimbabwe by widening travel bans on top officials in President Robert Mugabe's regime.The latest sanctions are in response to the assaults on opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai and his supporters by state security agents in March.The political and economic crisis in Zimbabwe is worsening at an alarming rate with inflation at 2200% and over four million people in desperate need of food.

Mwana is wrong- its not complex. The problem is very simple. Robert Mugabe made the judgement that rather than phasing land into black ownership by buying farms from their owners at market rates and gradually placing them into the hands of competent black managers/owners, he would just sweep the white farmers off the land in a grand dramatic gesture beloved of marxist dictators the world over. Its as simple as that. Before Mugabe did this idiotic thing, Zimbabwe was ticking along relatively well. Since he did it, Zimbabwe has disappeared down the toilet.

Many of the white farmers who used to own farms in Zimbabwe bought them since 'Independence'. If you were a cultural marxist, I guess you could argue that this was a form of economic colonialism, but most of us wouldn't. Many were committed to Zimbabwe and didn't see their white skin as making them less legitimate Zimbabweans. But Mr Mugabe is a racist. He believes only black people should own land in Zimbabwe and thats what he's got now. He will not even allow whites to buy farms off the corrupt ZANU bigwigs. They are only allowed a 100-year lease. So, no Mwana, its not complex at all. Zimbabwe is paying a catastrophic price for one decision by one paranoid racist old man, made to impress all the other old marxists.