Mugabe took the farms now it is white-owned firms

Jane Fields | africancrisis.co.za | 13-Feb-2010


White people will no longer be able to open hairdressers, advertising agencies or bakeries in Zimbabwe under black empowerment regulations hastily signed into law by president Robert Mugabe's side of the government.

Morgan Tsvangirai, Mr Mugabe's estranged prime minister, described the new law as "null and void" because he had not been consulted. But analysts say he will likely be unable to reverse it.

The Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment Regulations force executives of white-owned companies with assets of more than £320,000 to commit to hand over 51 per cent of their shares to black Zimbabweans within 75 days of 1 March – or face five years in jail.

The executives cannot choose their new shareholders: they must pick from a database set up by the empowerment ministry, headed by former secret service operative Saviour Kasukuwere, who has vast business interests of his own. "This says to investors: Don't you dare come here," said political analyst John Makumbe, of the University of Zimbabwe.

Read More Here

All right. Perhaps it is time for all the non-Africans to leave Zimbabwe, cease any form of investment, ban traveling there and let it sink into the abyss. After that we can come back and bury the corpses.

Mugabe is only digging a deeper grave for himself and his country with his latest move.

I hope people around the world are looking what kind effect these kind of policies have on the economy of a country. And for Zimbabwe, well if he want to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs, then we should help him by helping the whites to leave Zimbabwe.

If this is not a classical example of racism, then I don't know what is. These people were born in Zimbabwe and are its citizens. Now they have been robbed merely because of the colour of their skin. In the case of farms owned by "whites", Mugabe could have come out with an (pseudo?) excuse that the land in question had been originally taken away from the local population and given to white colonists during the British rule, when they were treated preferentially. But what can be a possible excuse for this kind of thing? Firms have been created by people's individual efforts and are not some fixed property, like the land, that was supposedly taken from the natives.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Hermeticist

If this is not a classical example of racism, then I don't know what is. These people were born in Zimbabwe and are its citizens. Now they have been robbed merely because of the colour of their skin. In the case of farms owned by "whites", Mugabe could have come out with an (pseudo?) excuse that the land in question had been originally taken away from the local population and given to white colonists during the British rule, when they were treated preferentially. But what can be a possible excuse for this kind of thing? Firms have been created by people's individual efforts and are not some fixed property, like the land, that was supposedly taken from the natives.

---

It could at least encourage a fairer distribution of property.

It would not be such a great loss to those firms if they decided to become workers' co-operatives, but that is not what is happening.

The new owners are being chosen by the regime.