since hooking up with col gadaffi in 2000, whose dreams of ruling africa are very public, president mugabe of zimbabwe has supported farmland siezures by "war veterans" (really just teenage thugs who are to young to even remember the rhodesia revolution). they intimidated, beat up, even murdered those who refused to leave their land. generally, the western press has told us that the only farms being siezed are those belonging to "colonial" whites (ie white people of colonial descent). this is untrue, as the vast, vast majority of white-owned farms were bought after the revoloution (from mugabe in fact), and also because black-owned farms are also being siezed (of course it would be just as bad if they werent, but im just filling you in).
in the past few months, as land "redistribution" (not really redistribution, as the land remains in the hands of the "war veterans" who stole it, who are woefully untrained in farming, and who pretty much refuse to farm at all has intensified, and the black farmhands who worked on the farms were left without jobs, a famine has begun. many see this as mugabe's "mistake", but i disagree.
all communism, in the cases where power is the aim of the supporters, has required a catastrophe to achieve fruition. the bolsheviks had WW1, the chinese had the japanese occupation and their "raping" of many chinese cities, the koreans had the korean war, and eastern europe had the nazis, followed by soviet occupation. i believe that mugabe is attempting to replicate stalin's starvation and pacification of the ukraine, only on a country-wide scale.
libya uses zimbabwe, to some extent, as its bridge to the western oil markets. as libya now regains favour with much of europe, and zimbabwe falls out of favour, those roles may be reversed, so that mugabe can remain in his cocoon of luxury as his people starve. a desperate people turn to demagogues and radicals, and nowadays only supporters of mugabe's "Zanu PF" party are allowed food from aid pacages. mugabe is starving his enemies to death, while appearing to the world as simply a black racist who doesnt like "white folk", as he so elegantly puts it.
mugabe is using the land "redistribution" as a way of starving his enemies and his people into submission. once this is done, a stalinist regime will offer him the most power, and he will not hesitte to enact one, still blaming his country's troubles on "white folk". the exile of landowners in zimbabwe is a means to power, not an end.