Just another view on the Zimbabwean issue.

There is a popular myth that when Marie Antoinette was told that the French peasantry was starving because they did not have "bread to eat", she responded by saying that they should "eat cake".

This dismissal of the desperation of the starving French peasantry culminated in the French Revolution, during which almost all the members of the French aristocracy lost their lives. Although nobody condones the violence of the French revolution, nobody can claim, in retrospect, that it came as a surprise.

Similarly, the response to the Zimbabwean situation of disbelief and shock is misplaced. The land issue has generated conflict for over 90 years. Like the peasants of the French Revolution the landless in Zimbabwe perceive themselves as having no other option than to invade land.

Conflict over access to land in Zimbabwe started when Cecil John Rhodes dispatched a column to colonise Zimbabwe in 1890. Land dispossession and the current skewed distribution of land in Zimbabwe are the result of white agricultural policy in Zimbabwe from 1905 onwards.

The creation of native reserves as well as laws restricting African land ownership served the purpose of protecting white farmers from African competition and providing white farmers with cheap labour.

By 1910, whites had already appropriated 23.4% of Zimbabwe's land. The political and economic power of the European settlers continued to increase from 1915 to 1930.

The result was the Land Apportionment Act of 1930 which divided Zimbabwe into European and native reserves. The Act was an attempt to diminish competition from Africans for economic and political power.

The reserves constituted only 30% of the total land area. Africans were hereby deprived of the rights to own land in a European area. In addition, the European government discriminated in the provision of social services, such as water, sanitation, health services, and education.

Competition from African farmers was further diminished by heavily subsidising white farmers, African exclusion from markets, and the imposition of financial costs on African farmers through, for example, taxes, dipping, rents and grazing fees.

The eventual result was to reduce Africans to a source of cheap labour. In addition, white farmers were offered training on arrival, received generous Land Bank loans to help establish themselves, and had a wide range of extension facilities placed at their disposal.

By 1925, whites had already acquired 31 million acres of land (each white settler owned an average of 1 000 acres). This increased to 35.7 million acres in 1968. African farmers, on the other hand, had no more than 29 acres per head.

The Land Tenure Act was implemented in 1969 allocating a least half the country's agricultural land to whites (on average white farms were now more than 100 times the size of African farms). As a result, the reserves were extremely overpopulated, and by 1979, the population of the reserves exceeded the carrying capacity by 2 million.

The aim of these discriminatory policies was to protect the fledgling white farming community from African competition. The result was the almost complete destruction of the African agricultural economy by the late 1930s.

Approximately 85 000 black families were evicted from so-called white land between 1945 and 1951. This led to guerrilla attacks by the Zimbabwe African National Union (Zanu) in 1964, and eventually to substantial acceleration of guerrilla warfare from 1971 to independence in 1980.

At the time of independence in 1980, white commercial farmers owned 50% of Zimbabwe's agricultural land. Thus, approximately 5 700 white farmers owned 16 million hectares of commercial agricultural land, and approximately 1 million African farmers cultivated 16 million hectares of land. Whites (1% of the population) also owned 70% of the most arable land.

The liberation struggle was based on the land question.

Independence in 1980 generated high expectations of a fairer distribution of land and wealth.

These expectations have still not been met, partly as a result of concessions the Zimbabwean government had to make during the negotiations for independence, which placed an insurmountable financial burden on the government.

During the negotiations for independence, the Zimbabwean government signed the Lancaster House Agreement, which included a lock-up clause stating that certain provisions of the 1980 Constitution would be binding for 10 years.

In particular, section 16, which guaranteed property rights and which included several conditions that limited land reform and redistribution. These are: land reform would be based on a willing-seller, willing-buyer basis; owners would be compensated at market value; and compensation would be paid in a foreign currency.

Between 1980 and 1990 the Zimbabwean government resettled more than 50 000 families on approximately 3 million hectares of land purchased at market price. Yet, this was inadequate.

A 1990 World Bank report found that "the effect on the development of the communal areas where the majority of Zimbabweans lived, had been minimal".

The same study found that pressure for faster resettlement was in fact increasing.

The Zimbabwean government expressed the need to resettle a further 110 000 farming families on 6 million hectares of land.

At this stage approximately 4 500 white farmers still owned 12 million hectares, constituting one third of the country's arable land owned by 1% of the population.

In 1990, with the expiry of the independence restrictions, the Zimbabwean government made it clear that it intended to amend section 16 of the constitution and acquire another 5 million hectares for resettlement.

In accordance with the terms of the Constitution of Zimbabwe Amendment Act No 11 of 1990, the government proceeded to draft legislation which empowered the government to: acquire any land it deems necessary by means of expropriation; determine and pay reasonable compensation within a reasonable time; pay compensation in the local currency; restrict ownership of land to one farm; and prohibit ownership of land by absentee landlords.

On April 30, 1993, the Zimbabwean government announced a decision to buy 70 big commercial farms for redistribution. This was abandoned due to pressure from white farmers, the international community, and a lack of government funds.

On November 28, 1997, the Zimbabwean government announced that it had compiled a list of 1 483 farms (5 million hectares) which it intended to expropriate (and pay full compensation to owners).

President Mugabe asked the British government for financial assistance. The British government refused.

As a result, the government announcement in March 1998 that the number of farms to be expropriated had been reduced to 120.

In January 1999, the Zimbabwean government still required at least five million hectares of land to resettle about 150 000 African families.

In this context the current land invasions in Zimbabwe are hardly surprising.

In Brazil, thousands have died in land-related violence.

There is a lesson for SA in this: instead of pretending that the real grievances and hardships of the landless do not exist and instead of responding with a "let them eat cake" attitude, the land reform process should be speeded up.

An inadequate and slow process of land reform leaves the landless with no option other than invading land.

a.. Marinda Weideman is a PhD candidate in the Political Studies Department at the University of the Witwatersrand. Her thesis is entitled: Land reform in SA: a comparative analysis.

Contributed by Jenni