ZIMBABWE is paying a high price for empowering her black people with land, Zimbabwean Ambassador to Zambia Dr Kotsho Dube has said.
Ambassador Dr Dube also commended The Post Newspapers' management for considering to set up a bureau in Harare.
In an interview, Ambassador Dube said it was important for Zimbabwe to be seen through an African eye if the continent was to appreciate its land reform policies.
"There is always a cultural angle to the way we view the world," Ambassador Dube said.
He explained that Zimbabwe's birth of independence brought to the fore some imperatives which were not easy to resolve, citing land ownership as some of the constraints that threatened the Lancaster House talks.
Ambassador Dube said both the liberation movements' leaders and the British government agreed to suspend the issue of land ownership until after 10 years to allow the American and British government to fund the land reforms in Zimbabwe.
He said the former prime ministers Margaret Thatcher and John Major administrations released 100 British pounds towards land reforms in Zimbabwe.
"But when Tony Blair's Labour Party took over, the British administration abandoned their commitment," he said. "Hunger for land was the major cause for the liberation struggle...it was also a major resisting point for the white settlers to Zimbabwe's independence."
Ambassador Dube said President Robert Mugabe's government was aware that it would not be easy to empower the indigenous people with land thereby, giving meaning to independence. He said the current land problems in Zimbabwe were due to the multiple white land owners who resisted that country's policy of "One farm One farmer."
Ambassador Dube said the white farmers' resistance dated back to the Rhodesia days when the white settlers vehemently resisted the call for independence.
Ambassador Dube said most of the land under the white settlers was not acquired legally but grabbed from the black community after the enactment of the land apportionment Act in 1930 that created white and black-owned land.
"That super structure of land ownership was going to be difficult to dismantle," he said. "It brought about hunger and poverty among the majority black people."
Ambassador Dube said Zimbabwe's land reforms were irreversible as it would turn round the economy. "Aluta continua," he said.
However, Ambassador Dube said of late the white farming community had started cooperating with government over the policy. Ambassador Dube admitted that the international sanctions, mainly from the US and Britain, had caused untold suffering among the ordinary citizens.
He explained that Zimbabwe's economy was principally Western-oriented and that if the people that manage it could not travel outside to interact with their international counterparts, the economy suffered setbacks.
Ambassador Dube said it would not do to dehumanise the Zimbabwean government.
He said Zimbabwe enjoyed increased economic cooperation within Southern Africa and Asia.
"We are very optimistic and look forward to emerging stronger than ever as a country, people and economy," he said. "After all, self-reliance is key to Africa's resurgence."
On The Post's intention to set up a bureau in Harare, Ambassador Dube said the move would help address the monopoly of Western media setting agendas for African countries.
He said the Western media faced problems in seeing things in an African way and instead interpreted the situation on the continent in a European way.
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