Mixed Responses from the International Community to Zimbabwe’s Post 2000 Fast Track Land Reform: Why?

Abstrak

Zimbabwe’s fast track land reform policy of 2000 brought with it conflicting responses from the international community. The ï¬rst ten years of independence witnessed the failed willing buyer willing seller model a caveat driven from the Lancaster House Constitution. Britain and USA stopped funding the land reform under the compulsory acquisition era 1991 – 2000. The Lancaster House Constitutional debate failed to address the land issue which remained both an emotional trigger and a national security concern. The revolutionary approach adopted by the ZANU PF Government was induced by the British’s creation of the opposition MDC Party. The chaotic nature of the reform attracted backlash from the neoliberals who employed smart power to cripple Zimbabwe’s economic sector to rally the population against the ZANU PF-led Government. The generality of Africans identiï¬ed the process in Zimbabwe as critical in redressing the skewed land imbalances engineered by the colonial past. The unresolved road- map to the land redistribution programme, a bilateral issue between Zimbabwe and Britain was internationalised. The competing values in the international community’s responses to Zimbabwe’s fast track land reform policy were kith and kin driven.