Andrew Choga

The Southern African Region Historical Policies and the Land Redistribution Crisis in Zimbabwe Andrew Choga

The land redistribution issue is a Southern African regional problem affecting present Zimbabwe and is very likely to affect South Africa and Namibia in the near future due to the historical racial based land allocation policies in these countries. Due to the need for raw materials and markets to sustain the industrial revolution, the colonization of Southern Africa was inevitable. Commercial farmland had to be acquired in the colonies displacing natives from the agricultural rich areas. The natives were excluded from commercial farming by law and due to their lack of training and capital. The land ownership related laws became the root cause of public disobedience and armed confrontations. On the achievement of majority rule, the landless expected the government to redistribute land in their favour while the commercial farmers expected the post-colonial governments to redistribute underutilized land. In the case of Zimbabwe, the Independence Constitution had a clause granting freedom from deprivation of property. Based on lessons learnt from the Zimbabwe land redistribution programme which ended up in violent commercial farm invasions and illegal occupations sometimes resulting in the lose of innocent lives, the South African and Namibian governments should plan for economically viable land redistribution programmes.