ZIMBABWE REAPS WHAT MUGABE SOWED

The poor people of Zimbabwe are now facing the consequences of Robert Mugabe's thuggish dictatorship. They are out of food. Why are they out of food? Because productive farmland was seized from its rightful white owners and given to blacks who neither know how to farm nor have the desire. I must confess that I find it hard to feel sorry for them. Perhaps a little hunger will spur along Mugabe's ouster. It's hard to sustain a thug-ocracy on empty stomaches and empty promises. [hat tip: Gay and Right]

Snipets: Mugabe's Man Admits Error Of Farm Seizures

Zimbabwe's bankrupt government finally admitted yesterday that it had run out of food because land seized from whites was given to amateurs with no "passion for farming."

Sylvester Nguni, the deputy minister of agriculture and a former businessmen, blamed falling food production on President Robert Mugabe's "new" farmers.

About 4,000 white farmers were violently evicted from their land after a new party, the Movement for Democratic Change, came within a whisker of defeating Mr. Mugabe in the 2000 election.

He [Mugabe] accused the whites of supporting and funding the MDC and claimed the property seizures were fair because whites took the best land during the colonial era.

Snipets: White Land Grab Policy Has Failed, Mugabe Confesses

President Robert Mugabe confessed yesterday that millions of acres of prime land seized from Zimbabwe's white farmers are now lying empty and idle.

After years spent trumpeting the "success" of the land grab, Mr. Mugabe, 81, admitted that most of the farms transferred to black owners have never been used.

In the first 18 months of the campaign, eight white landowners and 39 of their black workers were murdered, court orders defied and Zimbabwe's economy plunged into crisis.

Mr. Mugabe said this was the price that Zimbabwe would have to pay to redress the wrongs of the British colonial era, which left much of the best land in white hands. He claimed that the seizures would boost production and benefit millions of blacks.