You can imagine the scene. Robert Mugabe is sitting around a big table with his cabinet. He says "Under my leadership we have driven Zimbabwe into poverty, destroyed any semblance of democracy, turned our most productive farmland into an arid plain, and made our country an international pariah. But it's not enough. Some of the farmers whose lands we have stolen have won lawsuits against our policy of arbitrary confiscation. We must do something. But what?"
He looks around the table.
The Minister of Foreign Affairs says "It must be drastic enough to cause the rest of the world to consider us to be barbaric."
The Minister of Agriculture says "It must cause any farms that still exist to become fallow."
The Minister of Justice says "It must be an outrage against any norms of law."
The Minister of Finance says "It must increase poverty and make absolutely no economic sense whatsoever."
All eyes turn back to the President. Robert Mugabe speaks again. "I've got it!" he says. "We should expropriate all the land in the country, and amend the Constitution to make private land ownership illegal".
Posted by dave at May 30, 2005 09:24 AM | TrackBack