Date:19/08/2002 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2002/08/19/stories/2002081900251003.htm

Opinion - Letters to the Editor

Mugabe is right

Sir, — This is with reference to the recent media reports on Zimbabwe. The Western news agencies "plant" stories that the country's President, Robert Mugabe, is a savage African, out to grab the 3000 farms of white farmers. But how did the white men come to possess these farms? As the British enslaved Zimbabwe, they expropriated its rich lands, killing or driving out their native owners to dry, infertile regions.

After the country gained freedom, can its Government continue with a system in which the native majority wallows in poverty and misery, working as cheap labour in the farms. Commercial crops are grown in these farms, and the huge profits netted benefit neither the Government nor the natives.

What is more, most white farmers continue to be British citizens and not Zimbabweans. Will Britain allow foreign ownership of this kind?

R. Alalasundaram,
Pondicherry