Zimbabwe, the colonial cock-up

Eusebius McKaiser is right to say “Mugabe did not wake up one morning and decide to be an autocrat. It was a slow slide ...” (“We dismiss Zim lessons at our peril”, November 24).

But readers should be aware there were two events, in 1998 and 1999, that were “tipping points” for the sudden deterioration in Zimbabwe’s economic performance — massive off-budget expenditure for “war veterans” and a flight of capital, and subsequent hyperinflation.

The Labour government that took power in the United Kingdom in 1997 decided the time had come to tell the Zimbabwe government that, unless it took the funds agreed to under the Lancaster House Constitution of 1979 for land reform, they would be used elsewhere, whereupon the Zimbabwe government called a conference to decide how the funds would be disbursed.

In the interim, the British government discovered very few farms had changed hands in the way anticipated, which drew the ire of Britain’s department for international development and the funds were peremptorily withdrawn. Imagine the effect on president Robert Mugabe.

Then, some months later, and partly as a result of the falling-out between the two governments, Mugabe called a referendum on constitutional change, intended to grant him more powers to confiscate land without compensation. He was voted down by 55% to 45%, whereupon, in 2000, he decided to barge ahead with land seizures regardless, so furious was he with both the British government and his own people.

We all know what happened after that, leading to the sorry state of the country today. But, over the years, the British government has been careful not to say anything about the ignoble and, as it turned out, disastrous decision to withhold the funds promised in 1979, although it was by no means the first time it had funked its dealings with Zimbabwe since its highly controversial founding of Southern Rhodesia in 1891. —