A Mugabe-Made Famine

The idea of a man-made famine that kills millions of innocents as a tool of government policy seems almost too horrible to believe. But it happened in Stalin’s Russia and Mao’s China--and it may be on the verge of happening in Zimbabwe. The dictatorial President Robert Mugabe is championing a violent fast-track land resettlement scheme that would demolish agricultural production in a drought-stricken country the United Nations World Food Program estimates already has 6 million people at risk of starvation.

No one disputes the need for land reform in the former Rhodesia, a British colony that obtained independence in 1980. Whites, who make up less than 1% of the population of 13 million, control up to 70% of arable land. But instead of creating a rational process that would include some compensation for taking land, Mugabe chose to unleash lawless militias that are better acquainted with rifles than pitchforks.

It began in 2000 when his government approved laws that permitted black residents to seize land owned by whites. In the last two years, government-supported militias have assaulted not only white farm owners but also black farm workers and other rural Zimbabweans. Most of those at risk are not the descendants of white interlopers but Mugabe’s own black brethren. The attacks on whites serve as a smokescreen for his general war against freedom for his people.

Now that his Aug. 8 midnight deadline has passed for 2,900 white farmers to abandon their farms, Mugabe is depicting his eviction program as part of a war against colonialism. Many of the farmers are resisting vacating their land, and the Zimbabwean High Court recently ruled that the government cannot seize property without informing banks that hold the mortgages. But Mugabe, who is widely suspected of having rigged March elections, is not backing down. If full-scale eviction takes place, his goons will probably displace hundreds of thousands of black workers. The results for crop production would be catastrophic.

The European Union has properly acted to distribute emergency food aid. Both the EU and the United States have banned members of Mugabe’s party from travel and frozen their assets. Following the dubious March elections, South Africa, Australia and Nigeria moved to suspend Zimbabwe’s membership in the Commonwealth.

The key to reining in Mugabe may lie in South Africa because Zimbabwe is dependent on that nation’s advanced banking and electric system. If Mugabe is immune to moral appeals, economic power might pull him back from the brink before millions of Zimbabweans starve to death.