Seizure of Farms in Mugabe’s Zimbabwe

Re “Resettled and Happy in Zimbabwe,” March 9: Ann Simmons and The Times produced a dainty piece of propaganda for the Mugabe thugocracy of Zimbabwe.

We are apparently expected to glow with satisfaction on reading of the happy and prosperous black farmers who have seized the land and the success of the white farmers. Simmons even interviewed one of these happy new owners. One hopes for at least a few successes in the unfolding tragedy.

Land “reform” is not new to Zimbabwe. Farms have been taken from white farmers in the past for “redistribution” to the black population. Many of those previously prosperous farms are now comparative wastelands. The international aid community knows that famine is pending in Zimbabwe, and it is preparing to ask the West for food for yet another failed African state. In other words, having murdered or ejected the successful white farmers, Zimbabwe will now come to the white farmers of Europe, Canada and the U.S. to replace what has been brutally destroyed. It should be turned down.

Rachelle Young

Bakersfield

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Your article was nothing more than a celebration of ethnic cleansing. It examined Zimbabwe’s resettlement program, in which white Zimbabweans have had their land and property forcibly confiscated because of the color of their skin. Those who resist are beaten and, in some cases, killed.

Simmons concentrated on how happy many black Zimbabweans are with dictator Robert Mugabe’s resettlement scheme. She managed to write her entire article without quoting anyone who questions the morality of seizing land because of skin color.

What Mugabe is doing is no different than what Slobodan Milosevic did when he tried to cleanse Serbian territory of Muslims, who, he claimed, were the descendants of foreign invaders who had stolen Serbian land. Milosevic is justifiably on trial for the crime of ethnic cleansing. Imagine an article in The Times in which Christian Serbs were interviewed about how happy they were that the Muslims were gone, with no Muslims quoted for balance.

If ethnic cleansing is a crime, it should be a crime no matter the skin color of the perpetrators. The press should not play racial favorites. A crime is a crime.

Jesse D’Angelo

Santa Monica

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Your article could not have been more pro-Mugabe if it had been written by his own PR firm.

Edward Carr Franks

Los Angeles