LAND REFORM SURVEY ILLUMINATES POLITICAL CHALLENGES

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 HARARE 000099

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E.O. 12958: DECL: 01/15/2009
TAGS: PGOV EAGR ECON KPAO ZI
SUBJECT: LAND REFORM SURVEY ILLUMINATES POLITICAL CHALLENGES

Classified By: Political Officer Win Dayton under Section 1.5(b)(d)


1. (U) SUMMARY: A recent survey by the Mass Public Opinion
Institute reconfirms land reform's central importance in
Zimbabwean politics. Advocates and critics of GOZ land
reform each will find data in the survey to support their
respective causes. The survey bears out wide support for the
central tenet of land reform -- that land should be
redistributed from a white minority to the black majority.
On the other hand, a majority of respondents viewed the GOZ's
land reform exercise as a cynical political maneuver to woo
votes while centralizing economic power in the hands of
ruling party supporters. Land reform will continue to pose
special policy and public relations challenges to each party
and to the USG. END SUMMARY.


2. (U) Zimbabwe's Mass Public Opinion Institute (MPOI, an
NGO that receives funding from a variety of sources,
including USAID) in December 2003 published a 68-page booklet
entitled "Zimbabwe's Land Reform Programme: An Audit of the
Public Perception." The publication recounts results of a
survey involving 1445 questionnaires. Respondents were drawn
from across the country - 62.8 percent from rural areas, 37.2
percent from urban areas. The effort was funded by the
Konrad Adenauer Foundation. The paper noted that fear was
apparently a limitation in some areas, as respondents in
parts of Midlands, Mashonaland East and Mashonaland Central
in particular declined to be interviewed or terminated
interviews prior to completion.

Broad Support for Land Reform
--------------


3. (U) The open-ended question "What is your opinion of land
reform in Zimbabwe?" elicited a variety of responses. A
general consensus felt that land reform was and is necessary
in Zimbabwe. More than two thirds -- 69.7 percent -- agreed
that land reform was justified. A strong majority -- 65.5
percent -- agreed or strongly agreed that the present land
reform program would lead to the empowerment of the
Zimbabwean people. This sentiment was weakest in
Matabeleland North and South, traditional opposition
strongholds, where less than 50 percent of respondents agreed
or strongly agreed it would have an empowering effect. 58.5
percent of all respondents thought that the reform exercise
would effectively address colonial imbalances. A plurality
of slightly less than half thought that the present land
reform program would lead to the eradication of rural
poverty; a minority felt that it would lead to the overall
recovery of the economy. Respondents were evenly split on
land reform's success, 48.5 percent regarding it as a
success, 50 percent viewing it as not.

Cynical View of Reasons and Implementation
--------------


4. (U) Respondents identified the ruling party's votes
strategy as the strongest reason for embarking on land
reform. Other reasons cited included (in order of frequency)
reviving the economy, eradicating rural poverty, redressing
colonial imbalances, and punishing white farmers. Those
respondents who had received land under the reform program
had a somewhat different view, naming indigenization and
revival of the economy as the top two reasons, and votes
strategy as the weakest reason.


5. (U) Elaborating on dissatisfaction over the process, many
respondents asserted that land reform was carried out too
late, too hurriedly, and in a chaotic manner. Many
complained that the exercise was meant to enrich principally
top politicians and those to whom they were connected.
Roughly three quarters agreed that violence had been employed
in the program's implementation. 64.1 percent agreed that
the government had failed to provide resettled farmers with
the financial and technical support sufficient to make them
productive. A substantial majority of 58.9 percent thought
that the program would have benefitted from broader
consultation among stakeholders prior to implementation
(vis-a-vis 29.6 percent who thought it would have made no
difference),and 54.7 percent felt that greater involvement
of the international community would have helped (vs. 32.5
percent who said it would have made no difference).


6. (U) Respondents were split on the extent to which land
reform had contributed to the nation's food shortage. A
plurality of 37.6 percent attributed the food crisis to
drought, 32.6 percent to the GOZ's land reform program, and
25.9 percent to a combination of drought and land reform.
Pluralities in Harare, Bulawayo, Matabeleland North,
Matabeleland South, Manicaland, and Mashonaland East blamed
land reform alone for the food crisis. (Note: Except for
Mash East, these provinces represent the areas of greatest
support for the opposition MDC.)

Who Benefited?
--------------


7. (U) Nearly twice as many respondents (57.9 percent)
thought that land reform only benefited top politicians and
their cronies than thought it benefited a majority of people
(30.7 percent). A slightly smaller majority (53.6 percent)
of rural elements - land reform's principal intended
beneficiaries - shared the view that only political elites
benefitted. 49.8 percent agreed that land reform benefitted
men more than women while 32.8 disagreed.


8. (U) Fourteen percent of those polled had been allocated
land under the government's program. Curiously, the
percentage of respondents from urban Harare and Bulawayo who
received land exceeded the national figure (16.3 and 16.0
percent, respectively). Conversely, the figures for
residents of Mashonaland West and Mashonaland Central, two
provinces that boast some of the country's most productive
farmland, including many farms that were seized violently,
were the lowest in the survey (6.7 and 5.7 percent,
respectively). (COMMENT: This may be explained in part by
the allocation of these prime farms, many of which are easily
accessible from the capital, largely to urban/political
figures instead of the local population.)


9. (U) Of those allocated land, only 64.9 percent actually
were in occupation of their land and 69.4 percent were
producing on their land. (Note: The figures allude to the
presence of absentee landlords.) The report attributed
failure to occupy allocated land to lack of resources, poor
infrastructure, drought, poor land use match, legal
complexities/court challenges, and rampant courruption
resulting in shortages of fuel and inputs. Not surprisingly,
non-occupation of allocated land was highest among urban
dwellers, for whom agricultural pursuits were more likely to
be a part-time occupation.

Media Reaction
--------------


10. (U) In keeping with tradition, local press has made
selective partisan use of the survey's results.
Government-controlled outlets trumpeted the report in
prominent but brief pieces as conclusive evidence of the
public's strong support for land reform, omitting any nuance
or reference to critical details. The independent press gave
most prominent focus to the survey's indicia of public
dissatisfaction.

COMMENT: Political Challenges for Parties, USG
-------------- -


9. (SBU) The survey is pregnant with implications for each
political party. To ZANU-PF it reinforces the imperative of
maintaining ruling party possession of the land reform issue.
Aside from its historical role as liberator and
anti-colonial vanguard, the party has no other political drum
to pound to the electorate. Land reform as a means to
empower Zimbabwe's black majority and to redress colonial
injustices has always been an indispensable and jealously
guarded plank of the party's platform. Historical
commentators characterized the sudden unleashing of
fast-track land reform, for example, in part as Mugabe's
response to apparent efforts by "Hitler" Hunzvi and the
Zimbabwe Liberation War Veterans Association essentially to
hijack the issue from the ruling party. Indeed, land reform
appears to be thread central to Mugabe's ego, one that adds
to his stature not just in Zimbabwe but throughout Africa and
the wider developing world. As a reflection of the popular
will, the issue offers Mugabe and his party a final shred of
claimed legitimacy at home, and sustaining the centrality of
land reform as an issue is critical to ZANU-PF's prospects
for victory in any free and fair election. A local
commentator's assertion that all ruling party members wake up
each morning with the mantra "land reform" on their lips is
only a slight exaggeration.


10. (C) For its part, the MDC must seize or at least
neutralize land reform as an issue if it is to undercut
allegiances of traditional ruling party constituencies. To
date, it has had limited success. Its public posture has
been "an end to the status quo, with no return to the status
quo ante." A historical difficulty for the party has been
accommodating the demands of aggrieved white commercial
farmers (a major source of party funding) with Zimbabwe's
demographics and land reform's popularity. Tilting toward
the latter, the approach set out in the party's draft
"RESTART" economic agenda circulated publicly last month was
a thoughtful effort built on establishment of a non-partisan
commission and transparent process; a nationwide inventorying
exercise; and a matching of land titles and farmers based on
need, ability, and equitable considerations. The system
would not require all existing beneficiaries of land reform
to surrender land. It would, however, disrupt traditional
rural power structures, which could be expected to generate
resistance. The establishment of a title deed system would
be controversial: it would appeal to farmers who see it as a
key to accessing capital and credit; it would alarm those
convinced it would open a back door to the return of
centralized commercial farmers. Compounding substantive
difficulties of the party's message is the challenge of
getting the message out. Party President Morgan Tsvangirai
told the Ambassador recently that the independent media's
effective demise leaves the party no option but to rely
heavily on human interaction in getting its land reform
proposals to the rural masses.


11. (SBU) In the current environment, ZANU-PF retains the
upper hand on land reform, especially in view of its virtual
monopoly over the national media. It can be expected to
continue its substantially effective campaign to portray the
MDC (and the West) as "opposed to land reform." The survey
bears out, however, the seeds of public disaffection with GOZ
land reform -- seeds that will likely grow on their own even
without aggressive MDC cultivation. In an effort to counter
wide perceptions of cronyism, the GOZ has been publicizing a
redistribution of properties allocated to those who received
more than one -- to questionable effect. The government's
publicized efforts to distribute tractors and inputs seem
patently inadequate and almost desperate; certainly, the
unused land and anemic agricultural production is apparent
and the frustration palpable among rural masses and
beneficiaries alike. The country's woeful budget situation,
hellish investment climate, and non-existent credibility with
donors assure that meeting public expectations will be
impossible.


12. (C) Finally, the survey raises potentially important
implications for the USG:

-- Although USG officials on numerous occasions have
articulated support for land reform in Zimbabwe -- albeit not
in the violent, corrupt, unsustainable form undertaken by the
GOZ -- the point bears repeating privately and publicly in
view of widespread Zimbabwean misconceptions that the USG
opposes it. Any USG official engaging with a ZANU-PF
interlocutor must be prepared for the land reform lecture
that invariably commences the exchange. In this regard, the
Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act, which
conditionally authorized (but did not appropriate) no less
than USD 20 million for land reform, may offer a potentially
useful rhetorical departure point. Private and public
acknowledgements by USG officials that land reform addresses
colonial injustices could be constructive without in any way
projecting support for ruling party excesses and
maladministration.

-- Land reform poses a special dilemma for our objective of
inter-party talks. Even though the two parties' objectives
for land reform are not irresolvably different on paper, the
issue's importance to ZANU-PF compels it to exaggerate the
differences so as to preserve its vanguard identity and
substantiate its value to traditional constituencies. On the
surface, land reform is an end for the ruling party; more
signficantly, it is a means to its power. Our approach here
must accommodate both realities. Fostering talks, thus,
will require an internally contradictory task: addressing
fears that the MDC (supported by the West) will undo land
reform, without undoing ZANU-PF's retention of the "moral
high ground" on land reform among its constituencies (at
least in the short term).

-- The survey indicates broad public support for more
international involvement, and ruling party members have
quietly made clear their interest in USG assistance, albeit
on their own terms. Regarding future USG assistance to
Zimbabwe, we should devote serious attention to our potential
role in land reform, at least as it evolves under a
transition/new government.

-- Public opinions aside, in the near term the most important
opinion in Zimbabwe on land reform is Robert Mugabe's.
Nobody knows what position land reform occupies on Mugabe's
list of priorities. It certainly occupies a prominent place
in his public rhetoric and in that respect is closely
intertwined with his "legacy" -- a euphemism for a
face-saving exit strategy. Thus, to facilitate
transition/succession, it may be tactically expedient for the
MDC support the land reform scheme in some nominal sense even
as a foundation is laid for the Herculean task of
reorganizing it into a more sustainable, transparent and
equitable model.

SULLIVAN