As part of the Lancaster Agreements, UK (Thatcher) agreed to loan cash to Zimbabwe to buy land from the white thieves. Indeed the sticking point that held the signature to those agreements was the word "loan" which ZANU-PF refused while the rest of the stooges led by Nkomo accepted. Mugabe signed but after he got a concession that during the first 10 years, the land will be bought and sold on a willing buyer/ seller basis.
The whites thought they would all run to South Africa, believing all the doomsday predictions.
Bob won the elections and set up a pragmatic regime that religiously implemented the signed deals. The white veto in Parlaiment remained intact. The whites suddenly changed tactics and refused to leave. The farms on offer for sale dried up and for the entire 10 years, they were protected and opted not to sell.
By 1988, the protection expired and Mugabe promptly announced that they need to now offer land for purchase or he would do what the agreement allowed him to do: Seizure.
There was some limited movement in the matter with some farmers opting to surrender their unproductive pieces of portions of their land for purchase. This went on for another ten years.
In 1997 the situation changed. Blacks began to protest and there were demonstrations about land.
Mugabe took executive action to curve out some lands for resettlement under the agreement. The UK continued to pay.
However Thatcher had left office in 1990 succeeded by Major who upheld the agreement. In 1997 however the conservatives were bundled out of office - suffering a comprehensive defeat. The Blair government appointed a Claire Short as the Secretary for Overseas Development. She wrote to Mugabe as follows:
"We are a new government from diverse backgrounds without links to former colonial interests. My own origins are Irish and as you know we were colonised not colonisers."
The rude and undiplomatic letter had serious consequences. Britain was telling Zimbabwe that she had no responsibility to pay for the purchases (even if it was a loan) and that it had no responsibility for the colonists.
Mugabe therefore went ahead and started expropriation of the land. The farmers were given promissory notes (bonds if you like) to claim payment whenever Zimbabwe could afford.
Many however had UK passports and claims to UK citizenship and immediately fled to UK.
Faced with the exodus, which increased as farms were invaded, Britain changed the narrative.
She launched a massive propaganda against Zimbabwe. For example where the AIDS figures had been extremely low for Zimbabwe, the numbers rose to 60% of the population, with the Army holding upto 90%.
Sanctions were imposed and of course Britain got the EU, US, Australia etc on board.
The idea was to overthrow Mugabe in a few months but that failed. For starters Mugabe, UK realized is highly respected all over Africa and even where Presidents took sides with UK, the citizens supported Mugabe. The key to overthrowing Mugabe rested with South Africa and mandela refused to play along and Mbeki publicly supported Bob. SA could not support UK knowing that it too had a simmering land problem.
There were cases of direct sabotage where Zim dollars were printed and dumped all over the country. Eventually the Zim dollar collapsed not least because the gov had itself started the printing and UK Mi6 and CIA just helped them along.
I think what Pundit is saying is that Mugabe cannot be held totally responsible for the dire economic situation in that country. Sanctions have worked and destroyed it.
Bob is not corrupt, so I wonder what crimes Moon Ki thinks he has committed.
