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As a victim of Mugabe's indiscriminate land grab in 2000, I feel compelled to address this issue.

My husband and I bought our land in 1988, legally and by paying a fair price to the previous landowner. It was 35 acres in total and we used it to do a little greenhouse vegetable growing, breed horses and had a few chickens for eggs and cows for milk. Most of the land consisted of rocky outcrops and beautiful indigenous trees. Very little of it was suitable for farming in any meaningful way. We employed 11 people full time and a few casuals when we needed extra labour. We paid them above the government stipulated minimum wage, provided accommodation for them and their families, medical help as and when needed and supplied many other forms of help from paying school fees for their children to paying for funerals for their relatives as AIDS started to devastate the population. My husband worked a full time job to help pay the smallholding's upkeep.

Since Robert Mugabe's vindictive policies came into effect, many full time commercial farms have become totally non-productive. In what way is that helping the starving people of Zimbabwe who did not get given the land as promised because it was given to government officials, police chiefs and other Mugabe cronies?

I agree that sanctions against Zimbabwe will not help the normal man in the street. Mugabe has already robbed the country of vast amounts of foreign currency and is in no way affected by anything the west is doing. He holds the little man to ransom, hoping to make the west feel so guilty that they will not oppose him. I also don't think that waiting for him to die is an option! He seems to be in it for the long haul and, at 80 odd, still appears to be healthy enough to carry on for some time to come. Short of removing him by force, there seems little to be done.

The saddest thing of all is that a once nearly self-sustaining African country has become yet another statistic in the world's political chess game and that it is the average citizen who suffers.

There is nothing good about what Robert Mugabe has done to Zimbabwe and the sooner he is removed from power the better for the country and its people.

April 2007:
Since writing this article, the situation in Zimbabwe has continued to deteriorate at an alarming pace. Even the once supportive African leaders of neighbouring countries have begun to oppose Robert Mugabe's land grab policies and his obvious megalomaniacal behaviour.

Members of the Opposition

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