----- Original Message -----
From: "Chris Burford"
> *However* despite the objectionable human rights record of the Mugabe
> regime, I suspect I am in a minority on this list again, judging from the
> lack of support he is receiving here (and on more ostensibly revolutionary
> lists, which shall remain nameless). I see him in a different light to
> Milosevic. The struggle to take over white colonial land in Zimbabwe in
the
> face of IMF support of property law, is not enormously revolutionary but
it
> is just.
Come on, get real. He only began land redistribution through his paramilitary forces in February 2000, in the wake of his first-ever national electoral defeat (a referendum). What would be "just" is a thorough-going bottom-up land redistribution strategy empowering peasants and farmworkers -- but he's empowered murderous thugs and his cronies, who once again (through the "A2" list) are getting the choice farms close to the big cities.
> The rich "international community" could have defused a lot of the
> argument by agreeing compensation arrangements a long time ago, except
> perhaps they would have feared a precedent.
Mugabe had long ago agreed that instead of land reform, there would be a modernisation strategy based on microcredit. Even when that failed miserably by the late 1980s, and the Lancaster House restrictions fell away, he did nothing to promote social justice in the countryside. His troops and cops were out in 1996-97 putting down organic, genuine land struggles. Mugabe is a charlatan on this issue, and I'll bet you that in the next few weeks he starts pulling people off some of the crucial land in a gesture to aid agencies and white farmers.
(Actually, the real differences between the IMF and Zimbabwe's kleptocratic elite didn't boil down to land or even the massive expenditure on the DRC war. The split came over Mugabe's dirigism after the currency crash of 1997; the IMF repeatedly complained about--in both internal memos and public media interviews--three key state interventions: reinstallation of exchange controls, price controls and luxury-goods import tariffs.)
> I therefore see Mugabe's struggle from this point of view as progressive,
> even if it "runs counter to the demands of formal democracy" .
Phew, it's comfortable up there pontification from the London armchair, eh, Chris. Mugabe just banned free media yesterday, having had his police break up the trade union leaders' meeting the night before (where they were planning some general strikes in coming days).
If you want to check into the struggles of socialists, the urban poor and workers, students, the comrades in human rights organisations, the progressive media, try http://zimbabwe.indymedia.org