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Time - Man of the Year
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1992-08-28
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WORLD, Page 43World NotesZIMBABWEMugabe's Land Grab
While governments around the world are trying to get out of
the business of state-owned industries, President Robert Mugabe
is on the brink of nationalizing nearly half the white-owned
farmland in Zimbabwe.
A bill moving through parliament would allow the
government to buy some 12 million of the 28 million acres owned
by the country's 4,200 white farmers, who produce around 75% of
agricultural output, at confiscatory rates of compensation.
Payment would be made either at a price determined by the
authorities or with government bonds likely to be well below
market values. But an amendment, reluctantly backed by Mugabe,
would allow owners to contest the prices in court.
The plan has drawn protests from Western governments, and
passage could jeopardize foreign aid to the drought-ravaged
country, whose economic-reform program is already threatened by
the need for food imports. But the warnings from abroad and the
potential damage at home, where white farmers provide about half
the country's dwindling foreign exchange, seem unlikely to
persuade Mugabe to modify his course. "If I see anyone with cold
feet," he promised, "I'll put hot irons under them."