The government of Zimbabwe has been seizing the farm land of white farmers for years and giving the land to blacks. Now they claim that the British government is responsible for paying restitution to the white farmers.
Zimbabwe has asked international groupings to intervene and try to convince former colonial power Britain to pay compensation to white farmers who have lost their land under land reforms, the ZIANA state news agency said Tuesday.The appeal was made late Monday by Zimbabwe's speaker of parliament, Emmerson Mnangagwa, as he addressed a group of visiting lawmakers from the African, Carribean and Pacific (ACP) grouping, which includes some of the world's poorest nations.
"I call upon you, our brothers and sisters from the ACP, to encourage the EU to play a mediatory role in encouraging Britain to comply with its obligation to compensate white commercial farmers in the spirit of the Lancaster House Agreement," Mnangagwa was quoted as saying, referring to the 1979 peace pact signed in London ending Zimbabwe's guerrilla war of independence.
A lot of African countries have a serious problem. That problem is that their governments are not only corrupt, but then blame the failure caused by their corruption on western nations. Now, there is no question that many of the colonial governments left their former colonies in shambles, but that is not an endless excuse for failure.
If these countries are ever to succeed, something must be done about the corruption at the highest level. Zimbabwe is pretty close to the top of the list of countries needing serious reform. The ability to achieve this is hampered by the fact that most of the African governments, even those that are (relatively) corruption free, insist on supporting those governments in which corruption, and even persecution, are staples.
Something must be done if the people of the African continent are ever to prosper. Unfortunately, I just don't know what.
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