Has anyone been able to see first hand what has happened to the Zim farms taken two years ago? I hear they have been stripped and abandoned by the "veterans". Or is socialist agriculture actually working? And what remains of the game ranches in Zim? The hearsay is that the animals have mostly been slaughtered for meat.

"social agriculture actually working" please stop making me laugh!!!! I haven't seen the place first hand, but simple deduction shows that a country that used to be a food producer is now begging for aid...says something. Can only hope that when robber Bob dies/retires, the farmers will come back and set up again. Nature comes back quickly if given a chance, but the expertise of those farmers won't ever appear in the current situation.

Russ,
I am not sure you really want to go into this. The sitiuation in Zim on the whole is apalling. There is a heart wrenching story by Doktari in this months magnum its about the sitiuation in Zim and although it is hard hitting you can see that the man is writing with a heavy heart.

The truth of what is happening on the ground here is often very different to the international media.

1) on about 40% of the privately owned game ranches there has been an unbelievable slaughter of game by the "war Vet" new farmers etc. On arround 30% the new occupiers have simply (illegally) sold the quota's to operators- some south african and a few (sadly) local guys who can smell a fast buck, and the remainder carry on more or less as usual with intermitant threats and intimidation (government stock in trade)

Here is wishing all Zimbabweans a stroke of luck - that bob has a stroke which would be very good luck for us!!!!

If Bob passes on, is his successor likely to be any different? Esp with regard to confiscation of white-owned land?

In RSA, the process is now starting through the "land claims" procedure. Anyone who can show reasonable evidence of being forcibly removed (or his ancestors being forcibly removed) can submit a claim and a government official (not a court) can honor that claim. In that case, the government takes the land and pays the owner a conservative price (usually below market) for the land. The landowner can contest the claim or the price in the courts, but that costs him lots of money. So many farmers are in neutral as they have claims pending on their land.

I haven't seen any real case studies to find out what constitutes forcible eviction. There were some "black spots" where the black farmers were forcibly evicted in the 50s I think. That's pretty cut and dried. But going way back, land was awarded to settlers at the same time that wars were being fought with indigenous peoples. All land thus awarded could be construed to have been taken by force.

In Namibia, the willing seller/willing buyer program has not yielded sufficiently fast results, so there is now talk of unilateral land purchases by the govt. Nujoma and Mugabe are mutual admirers and Nujoma just invited a team of Zimbabwean "experts" to Namibia to advise him on the land question.

The only hope is that Zimbabwe continues to be such a huge fiasco that any self-respecting politician in the neighboring states will be smart enough not to emulate that country. However, in one regard, Mugabe's program could be considered a success. He has driven many of the few remaining whites, folks who stuck it out through 20 years of war, out of the country. Some say that's his real agenda.

At one point I remember hearing of a deal with the Chinese govt. who would supply the farmers and equipment for a very large modern farming operation exporting the food for profit, Zimbabwe would supply the land (for free) and get a cut of the profits. Was this deal ever done?