Bringing about famine and mass emigration is commendable – Ramaphosa's actual message in Zimbabwe

Image: Supplied

This week, the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Land Reform and Rural Development is engaged in a strategic planning session, covering diverse submissions. This is against the backdrop of Mr Jimmy Manyi of the MK Party's proposal, via a private member’s bill, that all land in South Africa should belong to government.    

Meanwhile in Zimbabwe, President Cyril Ramaphosa indicated which way things would go if it were up to him. At the opening of the national agricultural show in Zimbabwe last weekend, President Ramaphosa praised the country for its “essential” land reform.  

He commended Zimbabwe’s controversial land reform process that began in 2000, during which white farmers’ land was confiscated and redistributed to loyalists of the ruling Zanu-PF party. Training, knowledge, and experience were not taken into account.

In the years that followed, Zimbabwe’s economy, of which agriculture was the cornerstone, collapsed. The government attributes this to climate change and droughts, but droughts have always periodically affected Zimbabwe. At the time, approximately a quarter of the population left the country, while poverty remains rampant among those who remained.

President Ramaphosa, however, describes Zimbabwe’s land reform as essential and ambitious. Clearly, its devastating consequences made no impression on him.  

The actual message Ramaphosa is sending to South Africans is that famine and mass emigration are entirely acceptable, provided they help redress historical imbalances.